English 694

Graphic Histories :
Memory, Identity and Comics

M 9/19             Introductions: graphic narrative, memoir and history
                        Reading: Justin Green, Binky Brown Meets the Virgin Mary (1972)

Week 1

M 9/24             Spiegelman, Maus; McCloud, Understanding Comics, chap. 1

W 9/26             Spiegelman, Maus
           

Supplementary readings (primary): Spiegelman, “Maus” (first story version); In the Shadow of No Towers; Zap Comix #1; Nakazawa, Barefoot Gen; Eisner, Contract with God 

Supplementary readings (essays): Wilner, "Happy, Happy Ever After"; Ewert, “Art Spiegelman's Maus and the graphic narrative”; Levine, “Necessary Stains”; McGlothlin, “No Time Like the Present”; Hirsch, “Surviving Images”

Week 2

M 10/1            Pekar, American Splendor; McCloud, Understanding Comics, chapter 2

W 10/3            Pekar, American Splendor

Supplementary readings (primary): Kominsky-Crumb, autobiographical stories; Pekar, American Splendor comicbook ; Our Cancer Year; The Quitter; American Splendor [the movie] (2003)

Supplementary readings (essays): Witek, “’You Can Do Anything with Words and Pictures’”; Hatfield, “’I Made the Whole Thing Up’”; Sperb, “Removing the Experience”

Week 3

M 10/8             Phoebe Gloeckner, A Child’s Life; McCloud, Understanding Comics, chapter 3

W 10/10            A Child’s Life; on-line anthology of autobiographical stories

Supplementary readings (primary): Gloeckner, Diary of a Teenage Girl; Barry, One Hundred Demons; Chester Brown, I Never Liked You; Wimmen’s Comix

Supplementary readings (essays): Whitlock, “Autographics”; Hatfield, “An Art of Tensions”; Mitchell, “Beyond Comparison”; Gilmore, “Limit-Cases”

Week 4

M 10/15            Bechdel, Fun Home; McCloud, Understanding Comics, chapter 4

W 10/17            Fun Home (continued)

F 10/19            Paper 1 due

Supplementary readings (primary): Bechdel, Dykes to Watch Out For; “Coming Out Story”; Cruse, Stuck Rubber Baby; Thompson, Blankets 

Supplementary readings (essays): Chute, “Interview with Alison Bechdel”; reviews of Fun Home; Franklin, “Coming Out in Comic Books”; Lefevre, “Narration in Comics”; Smith & Watson, “Life Narrative: Definitions and Distinctions”

Week 5

M 10/22            Ware, Jimmy Corrigan; McCloud, Understanding Comics, chapter 5

W 10/24            Jimmy Corrigan (continued)

T 10/25            Symposium on “Graphic Storytelling,” Blackwell Inn 11-5:30 (see http://cartoons.osu.edu/FCA2007/site/schedule.php for schedule of panels)

F-S 10/26-27            2007 Festival of Cartoon Arts: Graphic Storytelling (see http://cartoons.osu.edu/FCA2007/site/schedule.php for schedule of speakers)

Supplementary readings (primary): Ware, Acme Novelty Library; Quimby; “Building Stories”; Brunetti, autobiographical and biographical stories; Deitch, Boulevard of Broken Dreams

Supplementary readings (essays): Bredehoft, “Comics Architecture, Multidimensionality, and Time”; Ryan, “Introduction”; Kannenberg, “Graphic Text, Graphic Context”; “The Comics of Chris Ware”; Baetens, “Comic Strips and Constrained Writing”; Prager, “Modernism in the Contemporary Graphic Novel”; Benjamin, “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”

Week 6

M 10/29            Lutes, Berlin; McCloud, Understanding Comics, chapter 6

W 10/31            Berlin (continued)

Supplementary readings (primary): Lutes, Jar of Fools; Berlin (the story continues); Moore, From Hell; Bendis, Torso; Katchor, Jew of New York; Brown, Louis Riel; Sturm, The Golem’s Mighty Swing 

Supplementary readings (essays): Benjamin, “The Work of Art”; Crary, “Modernizing Vision”; Simmel, “Metropolis and Mental Life”; Gardner, “Archives, Collectors and the New Media Work of Comics”

Week 7

M 11/5            Sacco, Palestine; McCloud, Understanding Comics, chapter 7

W 11/7            Palestine (continued)

Supplementary readings (primary): Sacco, Safe Area Gorzade; The Fixer; Delisle, Pyongyang; Modan, Exit Wounds; Pekar et al., Macedonia

Supplementary readings (essays): Chute, “Drawing to Tell”; Dolezel, “Fictional and Historical Narrative”; Wolf, “Cross the Border”; Baetens, “Revealing Traces”

Week 8  

M 11/12            Veteran’s Day: NO CLASSES

W 11/14            Satrapi, Persepolis

F 11/16            Paper 2 due

Supplementary readings (primary): Satrapi, Embroideries; Chicken with Plums; Hernandez, Palomar

Supplementary readings (essays): Davis, “A Graphic Self”; Chute, “Memory and the Ordinary Self”; Tensuan, “Comic Visions and Revisions”; Hirsch, “Testimonial Objects”

Week 9

M 11/19            Persepolis (continued)

W 11/21            David B., Epileptic

Supplementary readings (primary): David B., Babel; Dupuy and Berberian, Maybe Later; McCloud, Reinventing Comics

Supplementary readings (essays): Groensteen, “Restrained Arthrology: The Sequence”

Week 10 

M 11/26            David B., Epileptic (continued)

W 11/28            conclusions

R 12/6                        Paper 3 due

BOOKS

1.  Spiegelman, Art. Maus : A Survivor's Tale : My Father Bleeds History/Here My Troubles Began [Boxed Set] (Pantheon) ISBN: 0679748407
2.  Pekar, Harvey. American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar (Ballintine) ISBN: 0345468309
3.  Gloecker, Phoebe. A Child's Life (Frog) ISBN: 1583940286
4. Bechdel, Alison. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (Mariner) ISBN: 0618871713
5. Ware, Chris. Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (Pantheon) ISBN: 0375714545
6. Lutes, Jason. Berlin: Book One (Drawn & Quarterly) ISBN: 1896597297
7. Sacco, Joe. Palestine (Fantagraphics) ISBN: 156097432X
8. Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis Boxed Set [BOX SET]  (Pantheon) ISBN: 0375423966
9. David B. Epileptic (Pantheon) ISBN: 0375714685
10. McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics (Harper) ISBN: 006097625X

WARNING/DISCLAIMER/CAUTION: THIS COURSE MAY BE BAD FOR YOUR (MENTAL) HEALTH
The artists we will be studying use the comics form to address issues openly and graphically, often issues that have not or could not be addressed in any other form. This is not a class for the faint-hearted or closed-minded. If you are likely to be freaked out, offended, or outraged by graphic discussion of any of the following issues (and graphic representation of the same) please do not take this class: sex (hetero- and homosexual), sexual violence, religion (including potentially blasphemous images of God, Christ, Virgin Mary, Mohammed, etc), race & ethnicity, mental illness (including OCD, dementia, depression, suicide… you name it!), child abuse, genocide, class, nationalism/patriotism (including scathing critiques of U.S., Iran, and Israel policies in various contexts), and all kinds of other potentially sensitive topics and images I haven’t listed. If you have any concerns about these issues, don’t hesitate to come and see me.

RESPONSIBILITIES

a. readings
We will be reading extensively in the contemporary graphic narratives, as well as in theory and practical inquiry into the structure and interpretation of sequential graphic narrative and other text/image hybrid forms. All readings are to be completed for the class in which they are scheduled.

Each week also lists supplementary primary and secondary/theory reading. I hope that you will be able to look at as many of these as possible; all students are required to read at least one of the primary texts each week, and graduate students are also required to read at least one of the secondary essays each week. All of the essays are accessible at the class’s Carmen site. The primary readings are available on closed reserve at the Cartoon Research Library (see LIBRARIES below) and, in many cases (not all) online at the class’s MediaManager site, accessible through Carmen (READINGS).

There will also be additional materials accessible via the class’s Carmen site, designed to provide history and context for the graphic narratives we are studying (see Carmen below).

b. writing/presentations

Everyone will be writing three papers (for undergraduates, 2 4-5 pages and 1 5-7 pages; for graduate students: 2 5-7 pages and 1 9-12 pages). Detailed instructions and discussion of the expectations for each paper will be given 3 weeks before each paper’s due date.

c. discussion
This is a seminar class in which we are working collaboratively from our varied perspectives, experiences and insights to answer some of the big challenges involved in this emerging field. Discussion will be a required component of the class. While I will give mini-lectures here and there to provide some history and background, or to lay out some new theoretical problems for us to work through, the bulk of the work we will be doing together. Toward that end, you will need to come each day with notes, questions, insights--and energy to share all of the above.

In lieu of exams, quizzes, etc. and as a resource for our own writing and a foundation for discussion in class, each of us will also maintain a regular online “reading notebooks,” which will be posted to the Carmen site. Each student is expected to post regularly to the Carmen site, offering thoughts about the central reading (or supplementary texts) for the week, outlining some general questions, offering some initial connections or insights, responding to the thoughts, questions, insights of others in the class etc. Contributions (or lack thereof) to Carmen discussion will be factored into your grade (see below).

e. attendance
Given the pace of our readings and the collaborative nature of our work, a strict attendance policy will be enforced. More than two absences will negatively affect your final grade; more than three will almost certainly result in a failing grade in the course.

f. grading
The rough formula for the class is:
papers=20%, 20%, 30%, Carmen=10%; participation/attendance=20%

STARTING PLACES

Books

[most of the items below will be on closed reserves in the Cartoon Research Library; titles marked with a + are also owned by the library in circulating copies]

B., David, Epileptic  +
_____, Babel  
Baetens, Jan, ed., The Graphic novel 
Barry, Lynda, One Hundred Demons  +           
Bechdel, Alison, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic  +  
_____, Invasion of the Dykes to Watch Out For
Bendis, Brian Michael, Torso: A True Crime Graphic Novel   +           
Brown, Chester, Louis Riel: A Comic Strip Biography   +
_____, I Never Liked You
Brown, Jeffrey, Unlikely: A True Love Story
Burns, Charles, Black Hole   + 
Carrier, David, The Aesthetics of Comics           
Clowes, Daniel, David Boring   +           
_____, Ghost World   + 
Collins, Max Allan,  Road to Perdition  +
Cruse, Howard, Stuck Rubber Baby
Deitch, Kim, The Boulevard of Broken Dreams   + 
Delisle, Guy, Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea  +           
Doucet, Julie, My New York Diary    +           
Dupuy & Berberian, Maybe Later + only
Eisner, Will, Comics & Sequential Art  +                                   
_____, The Contract with God Trilogy  +           
Fies, Bran, Mom’s Cancer  
Gloeckner, Phoebe, Diary of a Teenage Girl  +           
Groensteen, Thierry, The System of Comics   +
Gravett, Paul, Graphic Novels: Everything you need to know   
Green, Justin, Justin Green’s Binky Brown Sampler  +
Harvey, Robert C., The Art of the Comic Book: An Aesthetic History  +
Hatfield, Charles, Alternative comics : an emerging literature     
Hernandez, Gilbert, Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories  +
Hornschemeier, Paul, Mother, come home   + 
Katchor, Ben, The Jew of New York   + 
Kominsky-Crumb, Need More Love [on order]
Lutes, Jason, Jar of Fools: A Picture Story  +
Magnussen, Anne and Hans-Christian Christiansen, eds., Comics & culture  +
MCloud, Scott,  Reinventing Comics  
_____, Making Comics  
Modan, Rutu, Exit Wounds
Moore, Alan, From Hell    +  
Nakazawa, Keiji, Barefoot Gen +
Pekar, Harvey, The Quitter   +
_____, Our Cancer Year  
_____, Our Movie Year 
_____, Macedonia + only
Pilcher, Tim and Brad Brooks, The essential guide to world comics   
Rosenkranz, Patrick, Rebel visions : the underground comix revolution, 1963-1975
Sabin, Roger, Adult Comics: An Introduction           
_____, Comics, comix & graphic novels : a history of graphic novels    +
Sacco, Joe, Safe Area Gorazde   +
_____, The fixer : a story from Sarajevo  
_____, Notes from a Defeatist
Satrapi, Marjane, Embroideries            
_____, Chicken with Plums +
Seth, It's a good life, if you don't weaken    +
Shanower, Eric, A Thousand Ships   +  
Spiegelman, Art, In the Shadow of No Towers   + 
Sturm, James, The Golem’s Mighty Swing
Thompson, Craig, Blankets: An Illustrated Novel  
Vance, James, Kings in Disguise  
Varnum, Robin and Christina T. Gibbons, The Language of Comics: Word & Image
Ware, Chris.  Quimby the Mouse  
Weiner, Stephen, Faster than a speeding bullet : the rise of the graphic novel
Witek, Joseph, Comic Books as History: The Narrative Art of Jack Jackson, Art Spiegelman, and Harvey Pekar  +

Journals
            These journals can be found in the Cartoon Research Library
Comic Art (2002-present)
The Comics Journal (1977-present)
International Journal of Comic Art (1999-present )
Inks: Cartoon and Comic Art Studies (1994-97)