Seeing Comics through Art History

This book explores what the methodologies of Art History might offer Comics Studies, in terms of addressing overlooked aspects of aesthetics, form, materiality, perception and visual style. As well as considering what Art History proposes of comic scholarship, including the questioning of some of its deep-rooted categories and procedures, it also appraises what comics and Comics Studies afford and ask of Art History. This book draws together the work of international scholars applying art-historical methodologies to the study of a range of comic strips, books, cartoons, graphic novels and manga, who, as well as being researchers, are also educators, artists, designers, curators, producers, librarians, editors, and writers, with some undertaking practice-based research. Many are trained art historians, but others come from, have migrated into, or straddle other disciplines, such as Comparative Literature, American Literature, Cultural Studies, Visual Studies, and a rangeof subjects within Art & Design practice.

Maggie Gray lectures in Critical & Historical Studies at Kingston University, UK with a specialism in comics, cartooning, and visual narrative. She is author of Alan Moore, Out from the Underground: Cartooning, Performance and Dissent (Palgrave Macmillan 2017).

Ian Horton is a Reader in Graphic Communication and a founder member of the Comics Research Hub (CoRH!!) at the University of the Arts London, UK. He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics and his research is focused on comic books, graphic design and illustration.