Product Description

This well focused and perceptive analysis of a phenomenon in our popular culture—the new respectability of the comic book form—argues that the comics medium has a productive tradition of telling true stories with grace and economy. It details vividly the outburst of underground comics in the late 1960s and ‘70s, whose cadre of artistically gifted creators were committed to writing comic books for adults, an audience they made aware that comic books can offer narratives of great power and technical sophistication.

In this study Joseph Witek examines the rise of the comic book to a position of importance in modern culture and assesses its ideological and historical implications. Jack Jackson, Art Spiegelman, and Harvey Pekar are among the creators whom Witek credits for the emergence of the comic book as a serious artistic medium. As American codes of ethics, aesthetics, and semiotics have evolved, so too has the comic book as a mode for presenting the weightier matters of history. It is safe to claim that comic books are not just for kids anymore.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #751232 in Books
• Published on: 1989-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 180 pages

From the Inside Flap
This first full-length scholarly study of comic books as a narrative form attempts to explain why comic books, traditionally considered to be juvenile trash literature, have in the 1980s been used by serious artists to tell realistic stories for adults

Customer Reviews

A classic
Rusty Witek was the first of a younger (well probably not so young anymore) set of academics to publish a rigorous work on comics. This book deserved attention and I reviewed it in American Quarterly. I wish I had said more about its strengths. Witek takes comic books seriously and builds an argument that flows from the comic books rather than seeing them simply reflecting society. Witek raises issues about the relationship between the form of comic art and the stories told. I did not always agree with his view, but Witek was doing things no one else had attempted with American comics at this point. If you are interested in comic books, and work that wants to discuss them seriously, you should buy this book.

Insightful, Serious,...and Entertaining
As one of the artists mentioned briefly in Witek's book, I want to let readers know that Witek's analysis of my splash page for the story "May 4-5, 1970" in American Splendor #1 (1976, Harvey Pekar) is a thoughtful and accurate examination of what I was trying to accomplish. At that time, I had just discovered Will Eisner's work and was experimenting with trying to indicate time and sequence within comic panels frames as well as the more standard sequential panel-to-panel convention. Whether or not I was successful is left to Witek and the reader to decide.

Beyond that, Witek has provided an insightful and even entertaining examination of the successful (and unsuccessful) experiments that people make in translating historical or biographical events into graphic form, and into the complex drivers that motivate people to do so.
--Brian Bram