Art History for Comics: Past, Present and Potential Futures

Acknowledgements
Contents
About the Authors
List of Figures
Why Does Comics Studies Need Art History (and Vice Versa)?
	Disciplinary and Methodological Concerns
	Part I: The History of Art History and Comics Studies
	Part II: Possibilities for Comics Art History Now
	References
Part I: The History of Art History and Comics Studies
	Establishing Canons, Styles and Schools at the Dawn of Comics Studies
		Creating Classical Canons
		Defining Styles and Schools
		References
	Iconography and Cultural History in Comics Studies
		Iconography as Method and Methodology
		Cultural History as a Critical Framework
		References
	Art History Turned Upside Down: David Kunzle and the Social History of Art
		Volume 1: Exe⁄orcising Gombrich
		New Left Art History
		How Karl Marx Prevailed over Carl Barks
		Volume 2: The Social History of Comics
		References
	Variations of Formalism, Modernism, Abstraction
		Claude Moliterni: A Formalism of Narrative Technique
		Gérald Gassiot-Talabot: Comics Against Formalism and Abstraction?
		Comics (and the) Modernist Avant-Garde
		Andrei Molotiu: Abstract Comics Formalism
		Abstraction Beyond Modernist Formalism
		References
Part II: Possibilities for Comics Art History Now
	Challenging Canons and the Challenge of Style: Visualising the Baroque Storyworld of Judge Dredd’s “The Cursed Earth”
		Contesting Canons in Comics Studies
		The Challenge of Style for Comics Studies
		Styles and Schools as Canonical Markers
		Picturing a Baroque Storyworld: Seeing “The Cursed Earth” Through Wölfflin’s Comparative Methodology
		The Limits and Potential of Wölfflin’s Analysis of Style for Comics Studies
		References
	Iconography for Comics Studies Reconsidered: Interpreting Visual Transformations in Jack Kirby’s The Mighty Thor
		From Iconography to Iconology
		The Semiotic Turn in Art History (and Comics Studies)
		Thump, Karrrack! The Iconology of Transformation in Thor
		The Challenge of Iconography and Iconology for Comic Studies (and Art History)
		References
	Cultural History for Comics Studies: Reinterpreting the Eagle and “Dan Dare - Pilot of the Future”
		From Iconology to Cultural History
		The Discourse of Cultural Studies Within Comics Studies
		Recontextualising the Eagle and “Dan Dare - Pilot of the Future”
		Daring to Use Cultural History in Comics Studies
		References
	A Social History of Comics Art: Looking at Writers and Readers’ Capitalism for Beginners
		Marxist Art History and Comics
			Style, Ideology and Class
			Ideology and Autonomy
			Affect, Materiality and Ways of Reading and Seeing
		Writers and Readers ... for Beginners Comic Books
			Relations of Production, Distribution and Consumption
			Style, Materiality and the Politics of Form
			Ways of Reading and Looking
		References
	Re-framing the Avant-Garde: Different Ways of Seeing Escape
		Positioning the Avant-Garde in Comics Studies
			Unpopular Culture and Postmodern Modernism
		Framing the Avant-Garde in Art History
			Advancing Towards the Picture Plane
			Advancing Against Art and into Life
			Advancing as Reaction and Repetition
			Advancing Beyond the Frame
		Escape Artistry
			Reading Escape as Unpopular Culture
			Small Press and Alternative Avant-Gardes
			A Mainstream Alternative
		Putting Comics Studies in the Frame
		References
	Modernism and Comics Revisited: Form and Fragmentation in Alan Moore’s “I Can Hear the Grass Grow”
		Comics and Modernism
		Modernism in Art History
			The Significance of Form
			The Specificity of Medium
			The Defence of Autonomy
			The Occlusions of Modernist Criticism
		Reframing Modernism and Comics
		I Can Hear the Grass Grow
			Form: The Abstract Underscore, Medium and Modernism
			A Medium of Fragments: Modernity, Montage and the Politics of Form
		References
	Conclusion: Future Directions
		References
Index