A Golden Era for Comics Scholarship Beckons

Comics have been given more academic attention over the last ten years, and with three academic journals/series devoted to comics scholarships emerging in 2010 -

• Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 
• Studies in Comics and Cartoon Series
• Studies in Comics

adding to the already established The International Journal of Comic Art (IJOCA), The Comics Journal and Image/Text, the outlets for comics scholarship are very healthy indeed. Books have been written on comics with individual chapters devoted to themes, characters, titles, and the figure of the superhero, but the next level of analysis will be of comic writers identifying themes across their work. 

To some extent this has already begun. Neil Gaiman's Sandman has been analysed out the wazoo in academic journals and will no doubt continue to be for some time. With its literary and mythological references it was always ripe for analysis. Gaiman has also had a few books written about his work-

• Neil Gaiman's the Sandman and Joseph Campbell: In Search of the Modern Myth (2003) 
• Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman (2008)
• The Sandman Papers: An Exploration of the Sandman (2006)
• The Neil Gaiman Reader (2007)

So has Alan Moore-

• Alan Moore: Comics as Performance, Fiction as Scalpel (2009)
• Watchmen and Philosophy: A Rorschach Test (2009).

Grant Morrison already has two books devoted to his work-

• Grant Morrison: The Early Years (2007)
  
• Our Sentence is Up: Seeing Grant Morrison's The Invisibles (2010)

But look at the dates. Apart from one Gaiman book, there's nothing before 2006. It's an exciting time for comics scholars. There's an endless amount of material to plunder and more coming all the time. The advent of digital downloads and access to back issues (from whichever source you get them) means analysis is much easier and cheaper for scholars. Almost the complete DC and Marvel archives are available online (if you know where to look).

There's a massive list of comic writers who have developed, and are still developing, masterful bodies of work. Apart from those already mentioned there's Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Millar, Garth Ennis, Ed Brubaker, Jeph Loeb, Geoff Johns, Mark Waid, Greg Rucka, Kurt Busiek, Paul Pope, Ben Templesmith, Brian Wood, Brian K. Vaughn, and Judd Winick. 

In the near future there'll be an explosion of expositions on comic writers analysing their bodies of work. It's inevitable. Due to the time involved in the publishing process, what this really means is that these forthcoming works which I'm predicting are actually being written now. 

For me the next major focus of scholarship will on Warren Ellis and Garth Ennis. Pushed by the success of the movie adaption of RED, Ellis' work will receive a lot more attention. Of this Transmetropolitan, The Authority, and Planetary will be the main focus.

Update 30 Nov 2010: And right on schedule, here's what I'm talking about -

• 'Telling stories about storytelling: The metacomics of Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Warren Ellis'
• 'Useful Play: Historicization in Alan Moore's Supreme and Warren Ellis/John Cassaday's Planetary'

As we speak Garth Ennis is virtually re-writing how superheroes can be looked at with his 'metacomic' The Boys. Ennis' wildly pessimistic depiction of amoral and immoral superheroes will garner more critical and analytical attention than Watchmen. It deconstructs the superhero almost to the point of obliteration. In fact with his back catalogue - Hellblazer, Preacher, The Demon, Hitman, Goddess, Flinch, The Pro, The Punisher, Chronciles of Wormwood, and Crossed (to name a few) Ennis' writing is ripe for analytical picking.

I can't wait for what scholars will garner from the material. The golden era of comics scholarship is now!