William Erwin Eisner was an American cartoonist, writer, and entrepreneur. He was one of the earliest cartoonists to work in the American comic book industry, and his series The Spirit (1940–1952) was noted for its experiments in content and form. In 1978, he popularized the term "graphic novel" with the publication of his book A Contract with God. He was an early contributor to formal comics studies with his book Comics and Sequential Art (1985). The Eisner Award was named in his honor and is given to recognize achievements each year in the comics medium; he was one of the three inaugural inductees to the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.
In comics studies, sequential art is a term proposed by comics artist Will Eisner to describe art forms that use images deployed in a specific order for the purpose of graphic storytelling or conveying information. The best-known example of sequential art is comics.
Comics is a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically takes the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate dialogue, narration, sound effects, or other information. There is no consensus among theorists and historians on a definition of comics; some emphasize the combination of images and text, some sequentiality or other image relations, and others historical aspects such as mass reproduction or the use of recurring characters. Cartooning and other forms of illustration are the most common image-making means in comics; fumetti is a form that uses photographic images. Common forms include comic strips, editorial and gag cartoons, and comic books. Since the late 20th century, bound volumes such as graphic novels, comic albums, and tankōbon have become increasingly common, while online webcomics have proliferated in the 21st century.
Itzhak Avraham ben Zeev Spiegelman, professionally known as Art Spiegelman, is an American cartoonist, editor, and comics advocate best known for his graphic novel Maus. His work as co-editor on the comics magazines Arcade and Raw has been influential, and from 1992 he spent a decade as contributing artist for The New Yorker. He is married to designer and editor Françoise Mouly, and is the father of writer Nadja Spiegelman. In September 2022, the National Book Foundation announced that he would receive the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art is a 1993 non-fiction work of comics by American cartoonist Scott McCloud. It explores formal aspects of comics, the historical development of the medium, its fundamental vocabulary, and various ways in which these elements have been used. It expounds theoretical ideas about comics as an art form and medium of communication, and is itself written in comic book form.
Jules Ralph Feiffer is an American cartoonist and author, who was considered the most widely read satirist in the country. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 for editorial cartooning, and in 2004 he was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame. He wrote the animated short Munro, which won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1961. The Library of Congress has recognized his "remarkable legacy", from 1946 to the present, as a cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter, adult and children's book author, illustrator, and art instructor.
Burne Hogarth was an American artist and educator, best known for his work on the Tarzan newspaper comic strip and his series of anatomy books for artists.
Raw was a comics anthology edited by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly and published in the United States by Mouly from 1980 to 1991. It was a flagship publication of the 1980s alternative comics movement, serving as a more intellectual counterpoint to Robert Crumb's visceral Weirdo, which followed squarely in the underground tradition of Zap and Arcade. Along with the more genre-oriented Heavy Metal it was also one of the main venues for European comics in the United States in its day.
A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories is a graphic novel by American cartoonist Will Eisner published in 1978. The book's short story cycle revolves around poor Jewish characters who live in a tenement in New York City. Eisner produced two sequels set in the same tenement: A Life Force in 1988, and Dropsie Avenue in 1995. Though the term "graphic novel" did not originate with Eisner, the book is credited with popularizing its use.
Françoise Mouly is a French-born American designer, editor and publisher. She is best known as co-founder, co-editor, and publisher of the comics and graphics magazine Raw (1980–1991), as the publisher of Raw Books and Toon Books, and since 1993 as the art editor of The New Yorker. Mouly is married to cartoonist Art Spiegelman, and is the mother of writer Nadja Spiegelman.
In entertainment, an origin story is an account or backstory revealing how a character or group of people become a protagonist or antagonist.
Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga, and Graphic Novels is a book by comic book writer and artist Scott McCloud, published by William Morrow Paperbacks in 2006. A study of methods of constructing comics, it is a thematic sequel to McCloud's critically acclaimed books Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics.
Masking is a visual style used in comics, first described by American cartoonist Scott McCloud in his book Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. McCloud argues that characters with simple but recognizable designs, which he terms "iconic" characters, allow readers to project themselves into the story by using the characters as a "mask". He further argues that the juxtaposition of iconic characters with detailed backgrounds, characters, or objects can create meaning and strengthen or weaken readers' emotional and psychological connection to certain elements of the graphic narrative.
The use of comics in education is based on the concept of creating engagement and motivation for students.
Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative is a 1996 book by American cartoonist Will Eisner that provides a formal overview of comics. It is a companion to his earlier book Comics and Sequential Art (1985).
Comics studies is an academic field that focuses on comics and sequential art. Although comics and graphic novels have been generally dismissed as less relevant pop culture texts, scholars in fields such as semiotics, aesthetics, sociology, composition studies and cultural studies are now re-considering comics and graphic novels as complex texts deserving of serious scholarly study.
Comics has developed specialized terminology. Several attempts have been made to formalize and define the terminology of comics by authors such as Will Eisner, Scott McCloud, R. C. Harvey and Dylan Horrocks. Much of the terminology in English is under dispute, so this page will list and describe the most common terms used in comics.
Jeet Heer is an Indian-Canadian author, comics critic, literary critic and journalist. He is a national affairs correspondent for The Nation magazine and a former staff writer at The New Republic. As of 2014, he was writing a doctoral thesis at York University in Toronto. The publications he has written for include The National Post, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review. Heer was a member of the 2016 jury for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. His anthology A Comic Studies Reader, with Kent Worcester, won the 2010 Rollins Award.
Joe Ollmann is a Canadian cartoonist. Ollmann's cartooning style has been described as "scratchy angular angry big steaming slice-of-life comics” and the cartoonist Seth has called Ollmann “one of our medium’s great writers.”
Kent Worcester is an American political scientist, historian, and songwriter. His work deals with popular culture, intellectual history, trade unions, and social democracy. He has written extensively on comics and graphic novels and wrote a biography of C.L.R. James, the West Indian intellectual, among many other publications.
