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Study Guide
Alan Moore & Dave Gibbon’s Watchmen
What different themes does this book explore? Be as detailed and exhaustive as possible. Pick a panel and analyze how Moore and Gibbons combine text and visuals to their utmost effect. Pick a page and analyze its overall layout. How does the page as a whole make use of the comic book format to achieve meaning and impact. You might find it helpful to consider the larger themes of Watchmen. Visual motifs are recurrent images that take on specific meanings relevant to a given work. What visual motifs appear throughout Watchmen and what meanings do they suggest? How does the […] Read More
Neil Gaiman’s Sandman: Fables and Reflections
In what ways are these stories “fables”? In what way are they “reflections”? Be specific in your answer. What story represents Dream at the earliest moment? What kind of character is he at this point? Does he seem to have changed in any ways at later moments, in other stories? How? The theme of storytelling runs through all of these stories. Trace its presence in each story and consider the different uses to which stories are put. Why do these characters tell stories? What is the value of these stories, to both teller and listener? What do Augustus (“August”) and […] Read More
Dan Clowes’ Ghost World
Give some general responses to the characters of Enid and Becky. What are your impressions of them? How are they characterized? Why are they friends? How do you identify with them? Focus on two or three visual strategies that Clowes employs in Ghost World. Explain what these strategies are and respond to their effectiveness. How does Clowes’s artistic style compare with the other writers we have so far studied (Doherty, Tomine, Hernandez)? Explain the relationship that Enid and Becky have with the popular culture that surrounds them. What do you think Clowes is suggesting? Which chapter do you find most […] Read More
Los Bros Hernandez's Flies on the Ceiling
How would you describe Hernandez’s artistic style? How does it compare to Sturm and Sacco? Identify two or three visual strategies that Hernandezes employ in their work and discuss how they contribute to the stories and/or the stories’ themes. Find examples of transitions throughout the book and explain the effects they have and/or the closure they demand of the reader. What exactly is happening in “Flies on the Ceiling”? Is Izzy really being pursued by Satan, or are these “appearances” just a product of her imagination? How do you know? What is your impression of Frida Kahlo, as re imagined […] Read More
Jimbo in Purgatory by Gary Panter
Introduction Gary Panter grew up in Brownsville, Texas in the 1950s. He had an early opportunity to familiarize himself with the cartoon characters, packaging designs, and general pop culture ephemera that has formed so much of his artistic vision when, as a child, he was encouraged to doodle with his father in the family’s five-and-dime store. The psychedelic sixties added fuel to fire, and by the seventies, Panter was a full-blown Outsider, an artist working on the fringes, observing the world from a unique perspective, and commenting on it through imagery that made no attempt to please conventional tastes and […] Read More
Above and Below by James Sturm
ABOVE AND BELOW by James Sturm Introduction James Sturm’s career in comics, publications and education embraces a breadth and depth of interest unique to the field. After studying visual art first at The University of Wisconsin then at New York’s School of Visual Art, Sturm’s diverse pursuits went on to include a stint with the satirical newspaper The Onion, part ownership of the Seattle-based alternative weekly newspaper The Stranger, work on Art Spiegelman’s groundbreaking alt-comix anthology Raw, a professorship at The Savannah College of Art and Design, establishment of The National Association of Comics Art Educators, and most recently, the […] Read More
The Complete Peanuts Vol I by Charles M. Schulz
THE COMPLETE PEANUTS by Charles M. Schulz Volume One: 1950-1952 Introduction America was in the throes of post-war transition in 1950. Soldiers had returned home, started families and abandoned the cities for the sprawling green lawns of newly constructed suburbia. They had sacrificed during the Great Depression and subsequent war effort and this was their reward. Television was beginning to replace the picture-less radio not to mention live theater, supper clubs and dance halls, as Americans stayed home and raised families. Despite all this “progress” an empty feeling still resided in the pit of the American soul. Psychology, that new […] Read More