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Comics and Graphic Fiction : Finding Comics at UW-Madison
Finding Comics and Graphic Fiction at UW-Madison
Comics by individual authors, comics anthologies, comics-related books, and graphic fiction are found on this campus in Memorial Library and in College Library's Open Book Collection and occasionally in the Art Library. Comics and graphic fiction can be searched by title, author or keywords. They are grouped together under the Library of Congress subject headings graphic novels or comic books, strips, etc. Here are some additional keywords to search that will help you browse comics, cartoons, and graphic novels in the library's online catalog:
Comic strips, Comics, Cartoonists, Cartoons and comics, Superheroes, Graphic Novels.
You may also search by genre, such as science fiction comics or western comics, or by individual title or illustrator/author.
Encyclopedias and Reference Texts
- Encyclopedia of Comic Books and Graphic Novels by M. Keith BookerCall Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780313357473Publication Date: 2010-05-01At a time when graphic novels have expanded beyond their fan cults to become mainstream bestsellers and sources for Hollywood entertainment, Encyclopedia of Comic Books and Graphic Novels serves as an exhaustive exploration of the genre's history, its landmark creators and creations, and its profound influence on American life and culture. ||Encyclopedia of Comic Books and Graphic Novels focuses on English-language comics--plus a small selection of influential Japanese and European works available in English--with special emphasis on the new graphic novel format that emerged in the 1970s.
- Manga - The Complete Guide by Jason ThompsonISBN: 9780345485908Publication Date: 2007-10-09Whether you're new to the world of manga-style graphic novels or a longtime reader on the lookout for the next hot series, here's a comprehensive guide to the wide, wonderful world of Japanese comics! Includes incisive, full-length reviews of stories and artwork; titles rated from zero to four stars; guidelines for age-appropriateness; profiles of the biggest names in manga, including CLAMP, Osamu Tezuka, Rumiko Takahashi, and many others; the facts on the many kinds of manga; an overview of the manga industry and its history; and a detailed bibliography and a glossary of manga terms.--From publisher description.
- The Encyclopedia of American Comics by Ron Goulart (Editor)ISBN: 0816018529Publication Date: 1990-10-01Non-circulating reference book.
- The World Encyclopedia of Comics by Maurice Horn (Editor)ISBN: 079104856XPublication Date: 1999-01-01Non-circulating reference book.
Primary Texts
- Cruddy by Lynda BarryISBN: 0684829746Publication Date: 1999-09-07Darkly funny and resonant with humanity, Cruddy, masterfully intertwines Roberta's stories -- part Easy Rider and part bipolar Wizard of Oz. These stories, the backbone of Roberta's short life, include a one-way trip across America fueled by revenge and greed and a vivid cast of characters, starring Roberta's dangerous father, the owners of the Knocking Hammer Bar-cum-slaughterhouse, and runaway adolescents. With a teenager's eye for freakish detail and a nervous ability to make the most horrible scenes seem hilarious, Cruddy is a stunning achievement.--From publisher description.
- Fun Home by Alison BechdelISBN: 9780618477944Publication Date: 2006-06-08This book takes its place alongside the unnerving, memorable, darkly funny family memoirs of Augusten Burroughs and Mary Karr. It's a father-daughter tale perfectly suited to the graphic memoir form. Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian house, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with male students and a family babysitter. Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter's complex yearning for her father. And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned 'fun home,' as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books. When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescence, the denouement is swift, graphic, and redemptive.--From publisher description.
- Maus: a survivor's tale by Art SpiegelmanISBN: 0394747232Publication Date: 1986-08-12Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father’s story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in “drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust” (The New York Times).
- Persepolis by Marjane SatrapiISBN: 0375422307Publication Date: 2003-04-29Originally published to wide critical acclaim in France, where it elicited comparisons to Art Spiegelman's Maus, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi's wise, funny, and heartbreaking memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran's last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country."--From publisher description
- Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant? by Roz ChastISBN: 1608198065Publication Date: 2014-05-06
- Hip Hop Family Tree by Ed Piskor (Artist); Charlie AhearnISBN: 9781606997567Publication Date: 2014-08-26
History and Criticism
- Best American Comics Criticism by Ben Schwartz; Daniel Schwartz (Editor)ISBN: 9781606991480Publication Date: 2010-06-08
- Cartoon America: comic art in the Library of Congress by Harry KatzISBN: 0810954907Publication Date: 2006-11-01
- Comic Books and American Cultural History: an anthology by Matthew Pustz (Editor)ISBN: 9781441163196Publication Date: 2012-02-23
- Considering Maus by Deborah R. Geis (General Editor); Haig Bosmajian (Contribution by); Bradley Alan Katz (Contribution by); Michael G. Levine (Contribution by); David Mikics (Contribution by); Nancy K. Miller (Contribution by); Alan C. Rosen (Contribution by); Michael RothbISBN: 0817313761Publication Date: 2003-09-17
- Graphic Subjects: critical essays on autobiography and graphic novels by Michael A. ChaneyISBN: 9780299251031Publication Date: 2011-03-01
- Graphic Women: life narrative and contemporary comics by Hillary L. ChuteISBN: 0231150636Publication Date: 2010-11-16
- Multicultural Comics by Frederick Luis Aldama (Editor); Derek Parker Royal (Foreword by)ISBN: 0292722818Publication Date: 2010-09-15
- The New Smithsonian Book of Comic Book Stories by Bob CallahanISBN: 1588341836Publication Date: 2004-10-17
Technique and Philosophy
- Cartooning by Ivan BrunettiISBN: 9780300170993Publication Date: 2011-03-29Provides lessons on the art of cartooning along with information on terminology, tools, techniques, and theory.
- Making Comics by Scott McCloudISBN: 0060780940Publication Date: 2006-09-05Presents instructions for aspiring cartoonists on the art form's key techniques, sharing concise and accessible guidelines on such principles as capturing the human condition through words and images in a minimalist style.
- Picture This by Lynda BarryISBN: 9781897299647Publication Date: 2010-11-09In more than 200 pages of riotously distinct collages made with brush and paint, notebook paper, cutouts, tape and glue (with support from the colorist Kevin Kawula and, it seems, a “golden egg”), Barry sets out to show you — no, to remind you of — the pleasures of inking, smudging and, most important, fumbling your way to inspiration.--The New York Times
Other Anthologies
- An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories by Ivan Brunetti (Editor)ISBN: 9780300111705Publication Date: 2006-10-23Comic artist Ivan Brunetti, the creator of Schizo, offers a best-of anthology of contemporary art comics, along with some classic comic strips and other historical materials that have retained a “modern” sensibility. As with Chris Ware’s selections for his best-selling McSweeney’s anthology, Brunetti’s choices make for a highly personal book (“my criteria were simple: these are comics that I savor and often revisit”) that serves as a broad historical overview of the medium and a round-up of some of today’s best and most interesting North American comic artists. Included here are works from such well-known artists as Robert Crumb, Kim Deitch, Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, Ben Katchor, Charles Burns, Gary Panter, Seth, Phoebe Gloeckner, Daniel Clowes, Lynda Barry, Joe Sacco, and Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, as well as many other pioneers whose names may be less familiar.
Brunetti offers selections from the works of more than seventy-five avant-garde comic artists. His selections are arranged by genre and grouped thematically. Luxuriously produced and printed in four-color throughout, the book is a must-have for collectors, aficionados, readers of comics, and those generally interested in cutting-edge art and literature. - Drawn Together by R. Crumb; A. CrumbISBN: 9780871404299Publication Date: 2012-10-08"The complete collaborative works of Aline and Robert Crumb, the first couple of underground comix, collected here for the first time ever. Spanning nearly four decades of a one-of-a-kind artistic and romantic collaboration... ."--Jacket flap.
- The Horror! The Horror! by Jim Trombetta; R. L. Stine (Introduction by)ISBN: 9780810955950Publication Date: 2010-11-01Uncovers a rare visual treasury of some of the most important and neglected stories in American literature--the pre-Code horror comics of the 1950s. Censored out of existence by Congress in an infamous televised US Senate subcommittee hearing investigating juvenile delinquency, these rare comic book images are culled from a collection of several hundred, many of which have been rarely seen since they were first issued--now revealed once again in all of their eye-popping inventive outrageousness. Includes over 200 covers and complete stories as they were originally seen, scanned from mint copies in the author's extensive collection. Coupled with commentary and informative text that provides readers with detailed history and complete context for these stories and their creators.
- The vault of horror by notes and comments edited by John Benson and written by John Benson and Bill Spicer.Publication Date: 1982Boxed reprint set of the bi-monthly horror comic anthology series published by EC Comics in the early 1950s.
Serials
- The Best American Comics by Françoise Mouly (Editor); Jessica Abel (Editor); Matt Madden (Editor)ISBN: 0547691122Publication Date: 2006-The Best American Comics showcases the work of both established and up-and-coming cartoonists, with the best pieces from graphic novels, pamphlet comics, newspapers, magazines, minicomics, and webcomics
- RAW : the graphix magazine of ... by editors, Françoise Mouly and Art Spiegelman.Call Number: Special CollectionsPublication Date: 1980-Set of original issues of "RAW," all inserts intact. Flagship publication of the 1980s alternative comics movement. Sub-title varies: The graphix magazine of postponed suicides, The graphix magazine for damned intellectuals, etc. For more, see: http://uwlittlemags.tumblr.com/post/41374684034/this-just-in-we-just-completed-our-set-of-the
""RAW: the graphix magazine of..." in UW Special Collections
The Little Magazine Collection, in UW Special Collections, has recently completed its set of the first eight issues (Volume 1) of Raw, a flagship magazine of the 1980s alternative comics movement, edited by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly. Spiegelman’s Pulitzer-winning graphic novel Maus was originally published in Raw, one chapter at a time, beginning with the December 1980 issue. To see Raw, visit the seventh floor of Memorial Library.