Art History for Comics: Past, Present and Potential Futures [Paperback]

This book looks at comics through the lens of Art History, examining the past influence of art-historical methodologies on comics scholarship to scope how they can be applied to Comics Studies in the present and future. It unearths how early comics scholars deployed art-historical approaches, including stylistic analysis, iconography, Cultural History and the social history of art, and proposes how such methodologies, updated in light of disciplinary developments within Art History, could be usefully adopted in the study of comics today. Through a series of indicative case studies of British and American comics like Eagle, The Mighty Thor, 2000AD, Escape and Heartbreak Hotel, it argues that art-historical methods better address overlooked aspects of visual and material form. Bringing Art History back into the interdisciplinary nexus of comics scholarship raises some fundamental questions about the categories, frameworks and values underlying contemporary Comics Studies.

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: ExeDorcising 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 olÓ.