Resources for the Study of Comics
This page is DEAD.Too many of the links have gone away and I don't really have time to find new ones.
I started this page because a few people had approached me with some basic questions about comics scholarship, and because I was learning html. I don't update it often, and these days I mostly use it to find things that I need when I'm using a different computer. As it is, this page still has some valuable information on it, but it really has been superceded by the variety of pages maintained by Gene Kannenberg.
Contents
Information about Comics and Companies
There are two very good on-line sources of bibliographic information about critical materials.
Gene Kannenberg's Comics Scholarship Annotated Bibliographies is an ongoing project which covers book length studies of comics. The site provides information (ISBN numbers and contents) and some short, but useful reviews.
For article length pieces, check Mike Rhode and John Bullough's Comics Research Bibliography. This is usefully sorted into three sections and also includes a link to Mike's very useful listing of articles of about comics from the Journal of Popular Culture.
Comprehensive bibliographic information about comic books is hard to come by in any form. The people at the Grand Comic Book Database Project are taking a worthwhile stab at it.
The premiere research collection of comic books and related materials is in the Comic Art Collection, a part of Special Collections at the Michigan State University library. Randall Scott, the most knowledgeable librarian about comics, has placed part of their catalog on the web.
The Library of Congress also apparently has some comics, and definitely has a whole heck of a lot books about comics. Try finding them here.
The New York Public Library has a research guide on comics. This may be more helpful if you live in New York, but there is some useful stuff on the web page.
Papers about comics have been given at many different conferences, reflecting the fragmentary and interdisciplinary nature of comics scholarship. Unfortunately, most of these papers are given in isolation. There are, however, some forums where a substantial amount of work on comics has appeared.
The first of these is the the Comic Art and Comics area of the Popular Culture Association. Many Comics Scholars attend the PCA's Annual Conference, and it probably offers the best chance to see a lot of papers about comics and meet other people working in the area. Gene Kannenberg maintains a web page for the area.
The Comic Arts Conference brings professionals
and academics together. The pros usually act as respondents for
the academic papers. The Comic Arts Conference has usually
occurred in conjunction with either the Chicago or San Diego
conventions. I have no information on its status for 1997, and
have heard nothing about it.
The International Comics and Animation Festival
(ICAF) is a annual conference
in Washington DC. It is sponsored by the French Embassy and
Georgetown University. It is an excellent conference, mixing
solid scholarship with appearances by many international
cartoonists (mostly European) who give presentations of their
work. Since 1997, ICAF has occurred in conjunction with SPX,
a convention of small press cartoonists. A working group from the Comic Art
and Comics area of PCA, led by Allen Ellis, has created some
guidelines for to properly cite comic books, strips, and related
materials in academic papers. Their guidelines, "Comic Art in Scholarly Writing: A Citation Guide," have been published online. One of the places comics scholars hang out is
the Comix mailing list. Good critical and bibliographic discussion
can often be found there, along with lots of chatter about good
European and North American Comics. More focused scholarly discussion can be found
on the comix scholars list. While the list is friendly, it is
appropriately centered around research and pedagogical issues. If
you just want to read about good comics, the comix list is
probably more your speed. The Comics Journal is a monthly magazine that
features news and critical reviews of comics and the comic book
industry. Many noted scholars of comics have contributed articles
to the Journal. I mostly read the paper version, but the Journal
does have an online
presence. Information
about Comics and Companies I could make this section incredibly long; the
web is littered with pages about individual comic companies and
creators. Most of them aren't very useful for comics scholarship,
so instead I'm including some pointers to pages that list this
type of resource. Mike Fragrassi has an excellent page of links
to information about alternative comics. DEAD
For mainstream stuff and finding fan pages,
Jonah Weiland's Page of Comic
Book Links is pretty comprehensive
(though it uses frames which annoy me to no end). AAA
aardvark is the most comprehensive site
on the web for all kinds of interesting information. It's slanted
towards alternative comics, but has tons of other information as
well. DEAD Matt High's pages are long gone, and I have no idea
where to find sales information anymore. Questions, comments, and sundry observations to me at: cmarx@umich.edu