scholarly journals Visualizing Superman: Artistic Strategizing in Early Representations of the Archetypal Man in Comic Books

Arts ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 62
Author(s):  
Bar Leshem
Keyword(s):  
Major Part ◽  
Comic Books ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
Visual Image ◽  
Visual Design ◽  
Book Art ◽  
Essential Factor ◽  
Philosophy And Literature ◽  
Book Publishers ◽  
The Ideal

In 1933, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, two Jewish teenagers from Ohio, fashioned an ideal personality called Superman and a narrative of his marvelous deeds. Little did they suspect that several years after conceptualizing the figure and their many vain attempts to sell the story to various comic book publishers, their creation would give rise to the iconic genre of comic book superheroes. There is no doubt that the Superman character and the accompanying narrative led to Siegel and Shuster, the writer and artist, respectively, becoming famous. However, was it only the appealing character and compelling narrative that accounted for the story’s enormous popularity, which turned its creators into such a celebrated pair, or did the visual design play a major part in that phenomenal success? Recent years have seen a burgeoning interest in the comic book medium in several disciplines, including history, philosophy, and literature. However, little has been written about its visual aspect, and comic book art has not yet been accorded much recognition among art historians. Since the integration of storyline and art is what allow the comic book medium to be unique and interesting, I contend that there should be a focus on the art as well as on the narrative of works in comic books. In the present study, I explore the significance of the visual image in the prototype of the Superman figure that Siegel and Schuster sold to DC Comics and its first appearance in the series American Comic Books. I argue that although the popularity of Superman’s first appearance was due to the conceptual ideals that the character embodied, the visual design of the ideal man was also an essential factor in its success. Accordingly, through a discussion of the first published Superman storyline, I emphasize the artistic-visual value of the figure of this protagonist in particular and the comic book medium in general.

KOMIK DI LINGKARAN INDUSTRI MUSIK

DeKaVe ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Terra Bajraghosa
Keyword(s):  
Comic Books ◽  
Music Industry ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
Narrative Approach ◽  
Visual Narrative ◽  
Common Practices ◽  
Visual Style ◽  
Song Lyrics ◽  
The Common

Comic ges. Based on comprehention as a narrative media, comics in Indonesia are oftenly compared to bas-reliefs on Borobudur temple and Wayang Beber.. From many kind of stories Indonesian comic books recently offered, with the developed visual wrapping, some comics steal attentions by its unique themes. These comic books are created because of the inspiration and relation to music industry. These comic books couldn't be seen from the visual style alone, as they were created in many visual genres, but they could be seen from their relations to music industry, whether the mainstream or indie ones. These comic books are published together with the music CDs, telling fictional stories from factual bands or musicians, telling a band's factual stories, or created by one of the band members. To understand modes of creation of these music industry-related-comic books, visual narrative approach will be applied. Through visual narrative approach, the band members' or musician's necessity for telling stories via comics, beside the common practices via music and song lyrics, will be observed.Keywords : Comic book, music industry, visual narrative

Gender Differences in Clothing Worn in Current Popular Comic Books

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Landon Jossy
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Comic Books ◽  
Book Industry ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
Lower Body ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Males And Females

This study looked at how males and females were portrayed, based on the amount of skin shown in the clothing worn.  A Content analysis was performed on a sample of 20 randomly selected popular comics from the last 3 years.  Both male and female characters were rated on how much skin they showed in three clothing categories; neck line, sleeve length, and lower body.  Results showed that in all 3 categories, women consistently wore more revealing clothing.  The findings demonstraetd that the comic book industry is comparable to other forms of media, in the sexualization of female characters, by having them wear more revealing clothing.

The Oxford Handbook of Comic Book Studies

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Comic Books ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
World System ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Visual Narrative ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Book Studies

Comic book studies has developed as a solid academic discipline, becoming an increasingly vibrant and field in the United States and globally. A growing number of dissertations, monographs, and edited books publish every year on the subject, while world comics represent the fastest-growing sector of publishing. The Oxford Handbook of Comic Book Studies examines the history and evolution of the visual narrative genre from a global perspective, bringing together readable, jargon-free essays written by established and emerging scholars from diverse geographic, institutional, gender, and national backgrounds. In particular, the Handbook explores how the term “global comics” has been defined, as well the major movements and trends that drive the field. Each essay will help readers understand comic books as a storytelling form grown within specific communities, and will also show how these forms exist within what can be considered a world system of comics.

scholarly journals Humanizing a Superhero: An Empirical Test in the Comic Books Industry

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 189
Author(s):  
Michela Addis ◽  
Gabriele Troilo
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Quantitative Study ◽  
Comic Books ◽  
Empirical Test ◽  
Book Industry ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Secondary Data Sources

<p>One of the most firmly-established and widespread marketing policies in the comic book industry is the humanization of superheroes as a strategy to achieve success, especially for characters populating the Marvel Universe. However, there is no clear evidence of how exactly artists actually and operatively create human superheroes, and whether those variables truly affect sales of comic books. To address those two issues we run a quali-quantitative study by interviewing experts, and regressing sales on a broad range of variables of comic books gathered through content analysis and secondary data sources. Our findings show that humanization is not as powerful as expected in driving sales of comic books.</p>

scholarly journals Developing a Co-Creative Methodology of Narrative Artwork Production for the BEACONING Platform Metagame.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jackie Calderwood ◽  
Rachael Till ◽  
Vytautas Vasiliauskas
Keyword(s):  
Comic Book ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Book Art ◽  
Horizon 2020 ◽  
Educational Barriers ◽  
Interactive Narratives ◽  
Learning Platform ◽  
Process Creation ◽  
Gamified Learning ◽  
Media Learning

This paper presents an emergent co-creative methodology for the conception, making and sharing of narrative artwork for a gamified learning platform. Drawing on cinema, the graphic novel, and comic book art, two unusual characters were developed by Student Activators working with researchers at the Disruptive Media Learning Lab, Coventry University. The creative process began by using Clean Language and Clean Space to bring the artists’ character sketches to life, and developed into a series of basic, linear and interactive narratives with original working practices. Extending this collaboration, the paper is co-authored with the two students involved. The authors reflect from their different perspectives on the Collaborative process, creation of narrative artwork and building of a series of metagames for the BEACONING platform ‘Breaking Educational Barriers with Contextualised Pervasive and Gameful Learning’, co-funded by Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union.

scholarly journals Terytorium rezu. Symbolika oraz kulturowe konteksty krajobrazu indiańskiego rezerwatu we współczesnym północnoamerykańskim kinie i komiksie

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 30-38
Author(s):  
Magdalena Kempna-Pieniążek
Keyword(s):  
Comic Books ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
The Other ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
Indian Reservation ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Book Series ◽  
American Cinema ◽  
Pine Ridge ◽  
Pine Ridge Reservation

DOI 10.24917/20837275.9.4.3Ubogie domostwa, rozsiane po pustkowiu przyczepy zamieszkane przez zdegenerowanych ludzi, pokryte kurzem drogi, po których poruszają się zdezelowane samochody – pejzaż indiańskiego rezerwatu we współczesnej kulturze audiowizualnej naznaczony jest świadectwami upadku. Równocześnie jednak przestrzeń, w której tak wyraziście manifestują się liczne problemy społeczne, na czele z alkoholizmem oraz bezrobociem, stanowi część dyskursów dotyczących marginalizacji, nietolerancji, alienacji i społecznej stygmatyzacji. Filmowy i komiksowy pejzaż „rezu” stanowi krzywe zwierciadło oficjalnej amerykańskiej kultury, symbolizowanej przez Mount Rushmore, w której cieniu kryje się rezerwat plemienia Lakota w Pine Ridge. Analizując wybrane przykłady filmowe oraz komiksowe, autorka ukazuje różne aspekty symboliki i kulturowych kontekstów „rezu”. Z jednej strony – w filmach takich jak Skins Chrisa Eyre’a lub Za głosem serca Michaela Apteda oraz w komiksowej serii Skalp Jasona Aarona i R.M. Guéry – mamy do czynienia z wizją rezerwatu stanowiącego krajobraz nieomalże apokaliptyczny, utożsamiający ciemną stronę Ameryki; z drugiej – w realizacjach pokroju Sygnałów dymnych Eyre’a czy Piętna przodków Michaela Linna – rezerwat jawi się jako przestrzeń mityczna, obszar kontaktu ze wcześniejszymi pokoleniami.Rez territory. Symbols and cultural contexts of Indian reservation landscape in contemporary Northern American cinema and comic booksPoor houses, trailers scattered in wilderness, inhabited by degenerated people, dusty roads full of old cars – the landscape of Indian reservation in contemporary audiovisual culture is marked with symptoms of degradation. In the same time, places where social problems – especially alcoholism and unemployment – have been so vividly manifested, become a part of various discourses of marginalization, intolerance, alienation and social stigmatization. “Rez’s” landscape in film and comic books becomes a dark mirror for the official American culture symbolized by Mount Rushmore, in whose shadow lies the Lakota Pine Ridge reservation. In her analysis of selected films and comic books, theauthor shows different aspects of rez’s symbols and cultural contexts. In such films as Chris Eyre’s Skins or Michael Apted’s Thunderheart and Jason Aaron and R.M. Guéra’s comic book series Scalped, Indian reservation is shown almost as an apocalyptic territory and – in the same time – as a dark side of America. On the other hand, in Eyre’s Smoke Signals or Michael Linn’s Imprint, rez is a mythic place of cross-generation encounters.

scholarly journals Creating an Authentic Experience

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Sarah Osolen ◽  
Leah Brochu
Keyword(s):  
Visually Impaired ◽  
Comic Books ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
Library Service ◽  
National Network ◽  
Narrative Story ◽  
The Walking Dead ◽  
Audio Description ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Walking Dead

While working as production assistants for the National Network of Equitable Library Service (NNELS), an organization that creates and shares accessible versions of books to people with print disabilities, we were tasked with a challenging request from a user: Could we make an accessible version of the comic book The Walking Dead? Audio description services are available to the visually impaired in a few different venues such as television, movies, and live theatre. Guidelines for the creation of these descriptive texts are available to potential creators, but in our case, we could find nothing that would help guide us to create a described comic book. While some people and organizations have created prose novelizations of comic books, these simply tell the story, and do not include the unique visual aspects of reading a comic book. We have found that it is possible to create a balanced description that combines the visual grammar of a comic with the narrative story. In addition to creating a described comic book, we are developing guiding documentation that will be a necessary tool to ensure that visually impaired readers have a comic book experience (CBE) that (a) closely matches the CBE of a sighted reader, and (b) is standardized across producers, so that the onus of understanding the approach to comic book description (CBD) is not put on the visually impaired reader. At this point in our work, we need more feedback from users with print disabilities to ensure we are meeting the highest standards.

scholarly journals A parameter guide for developing webcomics focused on small screen reading

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (28) ◽  
pp. 67-78
Author(s):  
Alexandra Presser ◽  
Gilson Braviano ◽  
Eduardo Côrte-Real
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Foundation ◽  
Comic Books ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Educational Material ◽  
Successive Refinement ◽  
Screen Reading ◽  
The One ◽  
Small Screen Devices ◽  
Small Screen

There is a noticeable gap in academic studies between comic books and hypermedia. On the one hand, are found several publications on both printed and digital comic books. On the other hand, are publications aimed at media and technologies for content usability for small screen devices. Therefore, this study focuses on the development of comic books for small screen device reading. A parameter guide for the so-called Webtoons was developed, based on theoretical foundation, observation of webcomics in this style on content platforms, and 3 phases of qualitative field research. The research included interviews with comic artists, comic book professionals, and, seeking successive refinement, the guide's presentation to students as educational material.

scholarly journals (Anti)Fascism and Superhero Comics: An Anthropological Examination of Innovativeness in Comic Books as Exemplified by "V for Vendetta"

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Miloš Zarić
Keyword(s):  
Comic Books ◽  
Graphic Novels ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Semiotic Model ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Semantic Dimension ◽  
Alan Moore ◽  
The Way ◽  
V For Vendetta

The paper analyzes the V for Vendetta comic books, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd. These volumes are graphic novels whose characteristics place them in the literary genre of the critical dystopia, but they have also been associated with the genre of the superhero comic, which, according to a number of authors including Alan Moore, is inextricably linked to the ideology and practice of the political right, which in its extreme form assumes the form of fascism. The way that fascism is treated in that work, as well as in two other comics discussed in the paper (Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s Watchmen and Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns), is linked to the way in which the process of creativity/innovativeness functioned in the context of the revision/deconstruction of the superhero comic book genre in the 1980s, both on the collective (intra-genre) and the individual level, on the level of the thought structure of the British writer Alan Moore. Using the structural-semiotic model of analysis, the paper seeks to fathom the logic of this deconstruction procedure "broken down" into the three comic books discussed in the paper, with particular emphasis on the analysis of V for Vendetta, with the aim of establishing its "hidden", connotative semantic dimension. The study adopts a modern view of the comic book according to which the essence of this medium, which distinguishes it from other narrative and graphic forms of expression as well as from film, can be recognized in the specific, sequential way of combining its visual and narrative components, thus generating meanings whose interpretation depends on the intention of the author but also on the view of the reader.

Negotiating new racism: ‘It’s not racist or sexist. It’s just the way it is’

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Whitney Hunt
Keyword(s):  
Comic Books ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
White Men ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Online Forums ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
American Society ◽  
Book Culture

Comic books are being adapted into film and television series, encouraging underrepresented voices to become more prominent in comic book culture. White men continue to dominate the culture as creators and principle characters. Yet, women and people of color are consuming comic books and films at increasing rates prompting fans to use social media outlets and online forums to engage in conversations about race in pop culture. Employing a qualitative content analysis of an online forum tailored to comic book culture, this research investigates how fans negotiate their continued fandom of comics amid claims that the industry is discriminatory toward people of color. Findings reveal forum discussion is adopting framings of new racism when accounting for a lack of diversity in comic book films. Specifically, this research shows how fans rely on White racial framings throughout discussion. Central themes indicate most forum participants suggest only overt discrimination implies that race matters and minimize the effects of historical processes. Moreover, few fans challenge traditional representations normalizing White dominance. This study contributes to research on new racism and the prevalence of White racial framings in contemporary American society.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document