
Comics Studies
The Key Concepts
Frederick Luis Aldama(Author)
Routledge (Publisher)
1st Edition
Will be published approx. on 5. February 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
430 pages
978-0-367-19687-5 (ISBN)
Description
An accessible guide to the central concepts and issues that inform Comics Studies. It summarizes, explains, contextualizes, and assesses key critical concepts, perspectives, developments, and debates in the field.
At once comprehensive in coverage and detailed and specific in examples analyzed, the book's entries provide an essential overview of the key concepts in the field of Comics Studies, as shaped by historical, social, cultural, regional, and global contexts. The 22 concepts covered include:
* Adaptation
* Aesthetics
* Animals
* Architecture
* Autobiography
* Censorship
* Convergence
* Empire & Postcolonial
* Feminism
* History
* Indigeneity
* Intersectionality
* Language
* LGBTQ
* Memoir
* Mind/Bodies
* Race
* Regionalism
* Sacred
* Social Movements
* Speculative
* Youth
Fully cross-referenced and complete with suggestions for further reading and a glossary, Comics Studies: The Key Concepts is an essential guide for students of media and cultural studies, art and visual culture, gender and women's studies, and literature that are studying comics and graphic novels.
At once comprehensive in coverage and detailed and specific in examples analyzed, the book's entries provide an essential overview of the key concepts in the field of Comics Studies, as shaped by historical, social, cultural, regional, and global contexts. The 22 concepts covered include:
* Adaptation
* Aesthetics
* Animals
* Architecture
* Autobiography
* Censorship
* Convergence
* Empire & Postcolonial
* Feminism
* History
* Indigeneity
* Intersectionality
* Language
* LGBTQ
* Memoir
* Mind/Bodies
* Race
* Regionalism
* Sacred
* Social Movements
* Speculative
* Youth
Fully cross-referenced and complete with suggestions for further reading and a glossary, Comics Studies: The Key Concepts is an essential guide for students of media and cultural studies, art and visual culture, gender and women's studies, and literature that are studying comics and graphic novels.
Reviews / Votes
"Aldama charts the impossible. He forges the compass that navigates Comics Studies across our vast planetary system of comics-from theories of comics grammatexts built from the Bayeux tapestry and Mesoamerican codices, to insights into Herriman's boundary-shattering Krazy Kat and mind-blowing race-speculative word-drawn narratives that demolish and rebuild the rules of representation. His 22 Key Concepts do more than mark destinations-they blast open portals to unexplored territories, revealing new comics galaxies!"John Jennings, Multi-Eisner Award-winning comics creator and Professor at the University of California, Riverside
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Postgraduate and Undergraduate
Dimensions
Height: 138 mm
Width: 214 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
452 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-367-19687-5 (9780367196875)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Book
approx. 02/2026
1st Edition
Routledge
€191.50
Not yet published
Person
Frederick Luis Aldama holds the Jacob & Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas, Austin and is also founder and director of the Latinx Pop Lab and the annual BIPOC PoP: Comics, Gaming & Animation Arts Expo & Symposium. He is author, co-author, and editor of over 50 books, including The Routledge Companion to Latina/o Popular Culture (2016), Comics Studies Here and Now (2018), and The Routledge Companion to Gender and Sexuality in Comics Studies (2020). Aldama is also Editor-in-Chief of Latinx Pop Magazine and FlowerSong Press and edits 10 academic and creative book series while curating the Latinographix and Brown Ink graphic novel series.
Content
Introduction
THE KEY CONCEPTS
Glossary
Index
THE KEY CONCEPTS
Glossary
Index