On the Graphic Novel
On the Graphic Novel
A noted comics artist himself, Santiago García follows the history of the graphic novel from early nineteenth-century European sequential art, through the development of newspaper strips in the United States, to the development of the twentieth-century comic book and its subsequent crisis. He considers the aesthetic and entrepreneurial innovations that established the conditions for the rise of the graphic novel all over the world.
García not only treats the formal components of the art, but also examines the cultural position of comics in various formats as a popular medium. Typically associated with children, often viewed as unedifying and even at times as a threat to moral character, comics art has come a long way. With such examples from around the world as Spain, France, Germany, and Japan, García illustrates how the graphic novel, with its increasingly global and aesthetically sophisticated profile, represents a new model for graphic narrative production that empowers authors and challenges longstanding social prejudices against comics and what they can achieve.
A highly informative study. . . . García’s dazzling erudition, enounced in a multilingually sourced bibliography, makes this study a perfect textbook for university courses in comics and graphic novels.
Santiago García opens an excellent and necessary dialogue with adulthood and the inspiring possibilities of the graphic novel. This book is a journey through the critical spaces of comics and the historical genealogies, bringing new and refreshing debates between the past and the present.
Originally from Spain, Santiago García is a writer, critic, and translator of American comics into Spanish. Bruce Campbell is professor of Hispanic studies at St. John’s University/College of St. Benedict. He is author of ¡Viva la historieta! Mexican Comics, NAFTA, and the Politics of Globalization, published by University Press of Mississippi.
