The Cambridge Companion to Comics

Interweaving history and theory, this book unpacks the complexity of comics, covering formal, critical and institutional dimensions.

This book provides readers with the histories and theories necessary for studying comics. Individual chapters explore comics through several key aspects, including drawing, serialities, adaptations, and transmedia storytelling. It offers close, interdisciplinary readings of vital works, covering more than a century of comics production.The Cambridge Companion to Comics presents comics as a multifaceted prism, generating productive and insightful dialogues with the most salient issues concerning the humanities at large. This volume provides readers with the histories and theories necessary for studying comics. It consists of three sections: Forms maps the most significant comics forms, including material formats and techniques. Readings brings together a selection of tools to equip readers with a critical understanding of comics. Uses examines the roles accorded to comics in museums, galleries, and education. Chapters explore comics through several key aspects, including drawing, serialities, adaptation, transmedia storytelling, issues of stereotyping and representation, and the lives of comics in institutional and social settings. This volume emphasizes the relationship between comics and other media and modes of expression. It offers close readings of vital works, covering more than a century of comics production and extending across visual, literary and cultural disciplines.