ENGL 121

Fall 2017 All Classes

All Classes

Introduction to Comics

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Credit: 3 hours.

Introduction to graphic narratives---comic books, comic strips, graphic novels, manga, webcomics, and so on---from a diverse panoply of cultural, formal, and historical traditions.

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ENGL 121 class schedule data for fall 2017
	CRN	Type	Section	Time	Day	Location	Instructor	Section Details
	62222	Lecture-Discussion	D	11:00AM -11:50AM	MWF	119 English Building	Barrett, R	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/28/17-12/13/17 Section Info: Super/Human - This course introduces students to the academic study of North American comics by focusing on the two dominant genres of the last five decades: the superhero sagas of the mainstream comics industry and the autobiographical memoirs of the alternative comics movement. These two genres are often compared to one another in terms of binary oppositions: posthuman/human, fantastic/mundane, infantile/mature, trash/culture, commercial/artistic, etc. In ENGL 121, we’ll take a less polarized approach to the genres, investigating what Jerry Siegel/Joe Shuster (Action Comics), Jack Kirby/Stan Lee (Captain America), Sana Amanat/G. Willow Wilson/Adrian Alphona (Ms. Marvel), and Stephen Bisette/Alan Moore/John Totleben (Saga of the Swamp Thing) can teach us about Justin Green (Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary), Carol Tyler (Soldier’s Heart), Tillie Walden (Spinning), and Richard McGuire (Here)—and vice versa. Our rapprochement will culminate in Paul Dini and Eduardo Risso’s Dark Night: A True Story, a memoir in which Batman and his Rogues’ Gallery become the means by which Dini copes with the fallout of a brutal assault. Over the course of the semester, students should expect to not only learn the formal vocabulary of comics but also to master the interpretation of comics at a variety of scales—from the micro (panels, pages, and sequences) to the macro (pamphlets, books, and series). Assignments will include frequent response papers and two exams.