Graphic Narratives and Narrative Theory

A Special Issue of SubStance [40.1 (2011)] co-guest edited by Jared Gardner and David Herman

[Ordering information: to order copies of the issue, e-mail journals@uwpress.wisc.edu and request copies of SubStance Vol. 40, No. 1, 2011, Issue # 124.]

This special issue is the first extended, multi-author study of how ideas from narrative theory can be brought to bear on graphic narratives and how, reciprocally, the richness and complexity of graphic narratives might pose challenges to existing models of story. 

Table of Contents

Graphic Narratives and Narrative Theory: Introduction

            Jared Gardner and David Herman

I. Specificities of the Medium

II. Varieties of Graphic Storytelling

Teeth, Sticks, and Bricks: Calligraphy, Graphic Focalization, and Narrative Braiding in Eddie Campbell's Alec

            Craig Fischer and Charles Hatfield

 Abstraction in Comics

            Jan Baetens

III. Graphic Narratives, the Sciences of Mind, and the Scope of the Human

What to Expect When You Pick up a Graphic Novel

            Lisa Zunshine

Fast Tracks to Narrative Empathy: Anthropomorphism and Dehumanization in Graphic Narratives

            Suzanne Keen

Storyworld/Umwelt: Nonhuman Experiences in Graphic Narratives

            David Herman

IV. Remediating Graphic Narratives

The Narrativity of Post-Convergent Media: No Ghost Just a Shell and Rirkrit Tiravanija’s “(ghost reader C.H.)”                       

            Amy J. Elias