The Superhero Reader - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1617038024 ISBN 13: 9781617038020

Publisher: University Press of Mississippi, 2013

Synopsis

With contributions from Will Brooker, Jeffrey A. Brown, Scott Bukatman, John G. Cawelti, Peter Coogan, Jules Feiffer, Charles Hatfield, Henry Jenkins, Robert Jewett and John Shelton Lawrence, Gerard Jones, Geoff Klock, Karin Kukkonen, Andy Medhurst, Adilifu Nama, Walter Ong, Lorrie Palmer, Richard Reynolds, Trina Robbins, Lillian Robinson, Roger B. Rollin, Gloria Steinem, Jennifer Stuller, Fredric Wertham, and Philip Wylie

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, videogames, 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.

About this title

About the Authors

Charles Hatfield is associate professor of English at California State University, Northridge, and is author, coauthor, or coeditor of many books, including The Superhero Reader, Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature, and Hand of Fire: The Comic Art of Jack Kirby, all published by University Press of Mississippi.

Jeet Heer, a columnist for the National Post (Canada), is coeditor of several books, including The Superhero Reader, A Comics Studies Reader, and Arguing Comics: Literary Masters on a Popular Medium, all published by University Press of Mississippi. His work has also been published in Slate, the Boston Globe, the Guardian, the Comics Journal and many other venues.

Kent Worcester is professor of political science at Marymount Manhattan College. His books include Peter Kuper: Conversations, Peter Bagge: Conversations, The Superhero Reader (coedited with Charles Hatfield and Jeet Heer), A Comics Studies Reader (coedited with Jeet Heer), and Arguing Comics: Literary Masters on a Popular Medium (coedited with Jeet Heer), all published by University Press of Mississippi.

From the Inside Flap

A full exploration of the history, politics, and aesthetics of the superhero genre

Edition details

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1617038024
• ISBN 13: 9781617038020
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368
• Editor: Hatfield Charles, Heer Jeet, Worcester Kent