Published in The International Journal of Comic Art

It's been a while since the last post but the return is as good as could be.

My essay 'Referencing Comics: A Comprehensive Citation Guide' has just been published in the Fall issue (Vol. 12, No. 2/3) of The International Journal of Comic Art.

The impetus of the essay came from my PhD. When I tried to find a referencing system that accommodated comics I came up pretty much empty handed. The best I could find was Allen Ellis' paper 'Comic Art in Scholarly Writing: A Citation Guide'.

Although the comic and graphic novel section of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (Seventh Edition) had been updated, this only amounted to a total of two pages!

With the explosion of collected editions, reprint collections, and online comics, a reference guide was definitely needed that covered the gamut of comic production - from stand-alone 'OneShots' to collected and reprint editions incorporating several titles. So I took it upon myself to document how and why I'd referenced the comics that I'd used for my PhD.

Using Ellis and the MLA guidelines as starting points I think I came up with a referencing system that is very workable and solid, if at times quite long for some collected editions. Unfortunately there's no way around these lengthy references if you want to be precise, and you have to be simply for the sake of scholars who want to investigate your sources. Some examples are provided below which exemplify the simple and the complicated.

The system covers the acknowledgment of who and how many individual writers, pencillers and inkers; individual stories; and individual comics (where possible) whether they're standalone or in collected editions. It also covers where to find appropriate publication information in comics and graphic novels alike.

If you're interested in reading the essay, please either purchase a copy of IJOC or subscribe. Alternatively university libraries should hold copies. If not, get them to subscribe!

My thanks go to Professor John A. Lent and the editorial team at The International Journal of Comic Art for including my essay.



Examples

A single issue comic with story title
David, Peter, (w). Sal Velluto (p). Jeff Albrecht (i). ‘How Green Was My Daalie?’ Justice League Task Force. v1 #8 (Jan. 1994), New York: DC Comics, 1994.

Graphic novel as single title
Baker, K, (w). D Zezelj (a). Luna Park. New York: DC Comics, 2009.

Single issue comic (with story title; retaining original publication formatting) in a collected edition collecting one title
Morrison, Grant. (w). Richard Case (p). Scott Hanna (i). ‘Cautionary Tales’, Doom Patrol. v1 #20 (Mar. 1989), in Morrison, Grant. (w). Richard Case and Doug Braithwaite (p). Scott Hanna, Carlos Garzon, and John Nyberg (i). (1992) Doom Patrol: Crawling From the Wreckage. New York: DC Comics. [Collecting Doom Patrol #19-25, 1989].