The Superhero Reader
Published on 30. June 2013
Book
Paperback/Softback
368 pages
978-1-61703-806-8 (ISBN)
Description
Despite their commercial appeal and cross-media reach, superheroes are only recently starting to attract sustained scholarly attention. This groundbreaking collection brings together essays and book excerpts by major writers on comics and popular culture.
While superhero comics are a distinct and sometimes disdained branch of comics creation, they are integral to the development of the North American comic book and the history of the medium. For the past half-century they have also been the one overwhelmingly dominant market genre. The sheer volume of superhero comics that have been published over the years is staggering. Major superhero universes constitute one of the most expansive storytelling canvases ever fashioned. Moreover, characters inhabiting these fictional universes are immensely influential, having achieved iconic recognition around the globe. Their images and adventures have shaped many other media, such as film, video games, and even prose fiction.
The primary aim of this reader is twofold: first, to collect in a single volume a sampling of the most sophisticated commentary on superheroes, and second, to bring into sharper focus the ways in which superheroes connect with larger social, cultural, literary, aesthetic, and historical themes that are of interest to a great many readers both in the academy and beyond.
While superhero comics are a distinct and sometimes disdained branch of comics creation, they are integral to the development of the North American comic book and the history of the medium. For the past half-century they have also been the one overwhelmingly dominant market genre. The sheer volume of superhero comics that have been published over the years is staggering. Major superhero universes constitute one of the most expansive storytelling canvases ever fashioned. Moreover, characters inhabiting these fictional universes are immensely influential, having achieved iconic recognition around the globe. Their images and adventures have shaped many other media, such as film, video games, and even prose fiction.
The primary aim of this reader is twofold: first, to collect in a single volume a sampling of the most sophisticated commentary on superheroes, and second, to bring into sharper focus the ways in which superheroes connect with larger social, cultural, literary, aesthetic, and historical themes that are of interest to a great many readers both in the academy and beyond.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Jackson
United States
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
556 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-61703-806-8 (9781617038068)
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
Persons
Charles Hatfield is an associate professor of English at California State University, Northridge, and is the author of Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature and Hand of Fire: The Comic Art of Jack Kirby, both published by University Press of Mississippi.|Jeet Heer, a former columnist for the National Post (Canada), has been published in Slate, the Boston Globe, the Guardian, the Comics Journal, and many other venues. He is also the coeditor (with Kent Worcester) of Arguing Comics: Literary Masters on a Popular Medium and A Comics Studies Reader, both published by University Press of Mississippi.|Kent Worcester teaches political theory at Marymount Manhattan College and is the author of C. L. R. James: A Political Biography and coeditor (with Jeet Heer) of Arguing Comics: Literary Masters on a Popular Medium and A Comics Studies Reader, both published by University Press of Mississippi.