Arresting Development

Comics at the Boundaries of Literature

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism
Cover of the book Arresting Development by Christopher Pizzino, University of Texas Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Christopher Pizzino ISBN: 9781477309797
Publisher: University of Texas Press Publication: September 6, 2016
Imprint: University of Texas Press Language: English
Author: Christopher Pizzino
ISBN: 9781477309797
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Publication: September 6, 2016
Imprint: University of Texas Press
Language: English
Mainstream narratives of the graphic novel’s development describe the form’s “coming of age,” its maturation from pulp infancy to literary adulthood. In Arresting Development, Christopher Pizzino questions these established narratives, arguing that the medium’s history of censorship and marginalization endures in the minds of its present-day readers and, crucially, its authors. Comics and their writers remain burdened by the stigma of literary illegitimacy and the struggles for status that marked their earlier history.Many graphic novelists are intensely aware of both the medium’s troubled past and their own tenuous status in contemporary culture. Arresting Development presents case studies of four key works—Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, Charles Burns’s Black Hole, and Gilbert Hernandez’s Love and Rockets—exploring how their authors engage the problem of comics’ cultural standing. Pizzino illuminates the separation of high and low culture, art and pulp, and sophisticated appreciation and vulgar consumption as continual influences that determine the limits of literature, the status of readers, and the value of the very act of reading.
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Mainstream narratives of the graphic novel’s development describe the form’s “coming of age,” its maturation from pulp infancy to literary adulthood. In Arresting Development, Christopher Pizzino questions these established narratives, arguing that the medium’s history of censorship and marginalization endures in the minds of its present-day readers and, crucially, its authors. Comics and their writers remain burdened by the stigma of literary illegitimacy and the struggles for status that marked their earlier history.Many graphic novelists are intensely aware of both the medium’s troubled past and their own tenuous status in contemporary culture. Arresting Development presents case studies of four key works—Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, Charles Burns’s Black Hole, and Gilbert Hernandez’s Love and Rockets—exploring how their authors engage the problem of comics’ cultural standing. Pizzino illuminates the separation of high and low culture, art and pulp, and sophisticated appreciation and vulgar consumption as continual influences that determine the limits of literature, the status of readers, and the value of the very act of reading.

More books from University of Texas Press

Cover of the book Isocrates II by Christopher Pizzino
Cover of the book South American Cinema by Christopher Pizzino
Cover of the book In the Maw of the Earth Monster by Christopher Pizzino
Cover of the book Alien Constructions by Christopher Pizzino
Cover of the book Iranian Intellectuals in the Twentieth Century by Christopher Pizzino
Cover of the book Since When Is Fran Drescher Jewish? by Christopher Pizzino
Cover of the book Social Stratification in Central Mexico, 1500-2000 by Christopher Pizzino
Cover of the book The Texas Book Two by Christopher Pizzino
Cover of the book The Industrialization of São Paulo, 1800-1945 by Christopher Pizzino
Cover of the book Anarchism & The Mexican Working Class, 1860-1931 by Christopher Pizzino
Cover of the book Growth, Equality, and the Mexican Experience by Christopher Pizzino
Cover of the book Shamans of the Foye Tree by Christopher Pizzino
Cover of the book Experimental Latin American Cinema by Christopher Pizzino
Cover of the book Guatemala-U.S. Migration by Christopher Pizzino
Cover of the book Muslim Women Activists in North America by Christopher Pizzino
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy