American Comic Book Syllabus 2.0

I hadn't been on my Academia.edu account in a long time.  Recently, I started receiving e-mails that people had been googling "American Comic Book Syllabus" and had been coming across my page.  I thought that was pretty great, as I was really happy with the last draft of the syllabus I had created.  However, when I checked my Academia profile, I realized I had made an error:  the first draft, which was VERY superhero heavy, was posted...not the second, far improved draft.  

365 Days of Comics: Week One Recap

For those keeping up with my 365 Days of Comics Challenge, my week one reading list is below.  Have any recommendations?  Reviews to share?  

365 Days of Comics

I "got into" comics in 1989, shortly after the release of Tim Burton's Batman (see above photo of me dressed up as the Joker).  My selection process was unrefined.  Growing up in Port Washington, Wisconsin, there were not a lot of comic book stores around.  I'd normally track down trade paperback reprints of Batman and Superman comics at the local Wal-Mart.  Looking at my childhood collection, I seem to have been drawn to titles based off of my favorite film and television properties (including comics based off of Seaquest DSV, Terminator, and Robocop).  Yet, I stopped reading around the time DC comics published the death of Superman (1992) and began the reign of the Supermen, getting drawn into baseball cards and, for a brief time, Pogs. 

Women Comic Book Reader's Day: Reader Submission #1

Hey all!  Just a reminder that September 21st is Women Comic Book Reader's Day.  In order to trumpet the movement, I've put out a call for women readers to share their experiences with the form.  Here is the first profile to run.  Thanks for sharing, Meg!  I am still accepting submissions at damorton@ucla.edu.  Tweet it up at #womenlovecomix2!  

Watchmen (2009)

"No. Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never compromise."-Rorschach While Rorschach's (Jackie Earle Haley) proclamation may be possible to uphold as a superhero, the refusal to compromise on behalf of the filmmaker in the process of literary adaptation is impossible. As film theorist André Bazin wrote, "Faithfulness to form, literary or otherwise, is illusory: what matters is the equivalence in meaning of the forms." In other words, Bazin is arguing that each medium has its own modes of representation, thus the struggle for formal fidelity is a lost cause and that the main objective is that the adaptation should capture the original work's essence. Bazin continues, stating, "All it takes is for the filmmakers to have enough visual imagination to create the cinematic equivalent of the style of the original."

Cully Hamner on the Shades of RED and My Comic Book Syllabus

Cully Hamner carried this week's In Media Res topic of film and comic books into its second day (after Greg Smith's perfect opener on introducing comics to new readers).  His column looks at how his comic book collaboration with writer Warren Ellis became re-interpreted once it transitioned into the hands of director Robert Schwentke and became a film adaptation.  


I don't want to spoil his article, so I'll just direct you to the link above and leave you with two quotes before dropping into a digression on a comic book syllabus I prepared:  


"Faithfulness to form, literary or otherwise, is illusory: what matters is the equivalence in meaning of the forms."-Film theorist André Bazin


"No.  Not even in the face of Armageddon.  Never compromise."-Rorschach in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's Watchmen (1986-1987).  


More after the jump!  

Comics to Film (and Halfway Back Again) Redux

This week, I will be contributing a curated video entitled "The Outrageous Origins of the Motion Comic!" to In Media Res.  It is an incredibly short piece (350 words), based around the largely untold history of the motion comic, which is often (and ahistorically) considered to be a "new media" form.  The piece includes some gems of research I uncovered while writing a dissertation chapter on the form, including some key thoughts from one of the Comics Studies founding fathers, Scott McCloud.


In celebration of the weekly theme and my forthcoming contribution to it, I am reprinting an early video essay entitled "Comics to Film (and Halfway Back Again)" that served as the springboard to my dissertation topic:  the formal interchange between comics and film.  While I have since moved away from looking solely at film adaptations - the sole focus of this video essay - this video provides a sketch of what sparked my research.  While some of the theoretical arguments involving these forms has become antiquated by the growth that Comics Studies has experienced over the past couple years, I'm still incredibly proud of it.


Originally published in 2007 by Flow.  Unfortunately, I cannot embed the video here due to copyright claims.


Part One
Part Two