What do you think?
Rate this book
Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature
In the 1980s, a sea change occurred in comics. Fueled by Art Spiegel- man and Françoise Mouly's avant-garde anthology Raw and the launch of the Love & Rockets series by Gilbert, Jaime, and Mario Hernandez, the decade saw a deluge of comics that were more autobiographical, emotionally realistic, and experimental than anything seen before. These alternative comics were not the scatological satires of the 1960s underground, nor were they brightly colored newspaper strips or superhero comic books.
In Alternative An Emerging Literature , Charles Hatfield establishes the parameters of alternative comics by closely examining long-form comics, in particular the graphic novel. He argues that these are fundamentally a literary form and offers an extensive critical study of them both as a literary genre and as a cultural phenomenon. Combining sharp-eyed readings and illustrations from particular texts with a larger understanding of the comics as an art form, this book discusses the development of specific genres, such as autobiography and history.
Alternative Comics analyzes such seminal works as Spiegelman's Maus , Gilbert Hernandez's The Heartbreak Soup Stories , and Justin Green's Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary . Hatfield explores how issues outside of cartooning-the marketplace, production demands, work schedules-can affect the final work. Using Hernandez's Palomar as an example, he shows how serialization may determine the way a cartoonist structures a narrative. In a close look at Maus , Binky Brown, and Harvey Pekar's American Splendor, Hatfield teases out the complications of creating biography and autobiography in a substantially visual medium, and shows how creators approach these issues in radically different ways.
In Alternative An Emerging Literature , Charles Hatfield establishes the parameters of alternative comics by closely examining long-form comics, in particular the graphic novel. He argues that these are fundamentally a literary form and offers an extensive critical study of them both as a literary genre and as a cultural phenomenon. Combining sharp-eyed readings and illustrations from particular texts with a larger understanding of the comics as an art form, this book discusses the development of specific genres, such as autobiography and history.
Alternative Comics analyzes such seminal works as Spiegelman's Maus , Gilbert Hernandez's The Heartbreak Soup Stories , and Justin Green's Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary . Hatfield explores how issues outside of cartooning-the marketplace, production demands, work schedules-can affect the final work. Using Hernandez's Palomar as an example, he shows how serialization may determine the way a cartoonist structures a narrative. In a close look at Maus , Binky Brown, and Harvey Pekar's American Splendor, Hatfield teases out the complications of creating biography and autobiography in a substantially visual medium, and shows how creators approach these issues in radically different ways.
256 pages, Paperback
First published August 3, 2005
8 people are currently reading
83 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 29, 2018
This book is Hatfield's academic text about the growing literary power of comics. He opens with two chapters about how comics work, citing Scott McCloud, Will Eisner and others, then spend a chapter dissecting the themes of Gilbert Hernandez's Palomar and Poison River. Two more chapters are devoted to autobio comics, specifically Justin Green's early 70s Binky the Clown Meets Jesus Christ (or something like that; I don't want to pull the book out right now), American Splendor and Maus.
Hatfield certainly makes some compelling arguments. I disagreed with him on a few points, was enlightened on some others - including technical questions about page layout, where he picked some nice examples where the artists had created visual motifs I hadn't previously noticed. It's not the most engagingly written book I've ever read, but if you're more inclined to appreciate academic texts, you may find it more palatable.
Hatfield certainly makes some compelling arguments. I disagreed with him on a few points, was enlightened on some others - including technical questions about page layout, where he picked some nice examples where the artists had created visual motifs I hadn't previously noticed. It's not the most engagingly written book I've ever read, but if you're more inclined to appreciate academic texts, you may find it more palatable.
March 18, 2017
Hatfield has made an important contribution to comics criticism here on every level. He lays out the tools for unpacking the visual/verbal language of comics, drawing on previous scholarship but also challenging it respectfully (his critiques of Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics brought up inconsistencies I had never noticed before). Once he’s grounded his audience in the formal codes of the genre (and given some historical and cultural context for the themes and concerns that drive alternative comics in particular), he discusses major alternative comics in greater detail: Heartbreak Soup, Maus, American Splendor and Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary. Here, he explores how comics techniques are used to reveal the emotional state of a character, or to emphasize the subjective reality of an “autobiographical” story. For example, in Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary, the drawings become angular when the author depicts his OCD compulsions taking over, then relax again into flowing curves. This flexibility of self-image, reminding the reader that memoir is someone’s version of truth, not an objective reality, “reveals the art form’s potential for both frightful intimacy and provocative cultural argument.”
My one dislike was the chapter devoted to Heartbreak Soup--indigestible lumps of plot summary and long digressions on technique in disjointed sections. The author’s mention that he often teaches this material offers a possible explanation for this stop-and-start presentation: the chapter has the feeling of weekly lesson plans pasted whole into the chapter with no restructuring to fit the needs of the book format. This is unfortunate and ironic, considering Hatfield’s brilliant discussion of the impact of serialization versus anthologizing elsewhere in the book.
That discussion of serialization is worth mentioning, because Hatfield does an amazing job of laying out how the market conditions at each stage of comic book history have shaped the format and structure of comic books (a process he compares to the Victorian three-tier novel). Hatfield explores how some creators have used those serializing structures to masterful effect: in the classic, anti-heroic Watchmen, for example, one chapter ends with the villain telling the heroes that the disaster they’re trying to prevent has already occurred. It’s a brilliant reversal of the usual superhero trope: instead of waiting all month to find out how the heroes will save the day, readers waited to discover how bad the damage would be and how the world would respond, a moment that loses its suspense when the whole series is repackaged as a single graphic novel. Still, not all graphic novels can or should break down into this rigid framework, and Hatfield offers interesting visions of where comics might go from here, given current conditions.
Overall, this is an insightful analysis of the genre of alternative comics from a number of angles, well worth the read.
My one dislike was the chapter devoted to Heartbreak Soup--indigestible lumps of plot summary and long digressions on technique in disjointed sections. The author’s mention that he often teaches this material offers a possible explanation for this stop-and-start presentation: the chapter has the feeling of weekly lesson plans pasted whole into the chapter with no restructuring to fit the needs of the book format. This is unfortunate and ironic, considering Hatfield’s brilliant discussion of the impact of serialization versus anthologizing elsewhere in the book.
That discussion of serialization is worth mentioning, because Hatfield does an amazing job of laying out how the market conditions at each stage of comic book history have shaped the format and structure of comic books (a process he compares to the Victorian three-tier novel). Hatfield explores how some creators have used those serializing structures to masterful effect: in the classic, anti-heroic Watchmen, for example, one chapter ends with the villain telling the heroes that the disaster they’re trying to prevent has already occurred. It’s a brilliant reversal of the usual superhero trope: instead of waiting all month to find out how the heroes will save the day, readers waited to discover how bad the damage would be and how the world would respond, a moment that loses its suspense when the whole series is repackaged as a single graphic novel. Still, not all graphic novels can or should break down into this rigid framework, and Hatfield offers interesting visions of where comics might go from here, given current conditions.
Overall, this is an insightful analysis of the genre of alternative comics from a number of angles, well worth the read.
October 11, 2013
Thi is a very solid book of comics criticism. Hatfield is a delight to read for the clarity and elegance of his prose, never mind the level of his insights, which is high. The book perhaps has a bit more of a special pleading feel than it needs, though admittedly the acceptability of taking comics seriously and the proliferation of serious studies has been very quick, so perhaps even in the few years since this book first appeared the need for some degree of self-justification has faded. Anyway, the first few chapters provide useful if not necessary (for me, anyway) historical contextualization, before Hatfield gets into close readings of a fairly predictable but certainly worthy set of comics artists. While I might have liked to see a bit less predictability/more iconoclasm in the texts on which he decided to focus (Maus again? The one graphic novel that has had more critical attention already than any ten others--with the possible exception of Watchmen--combined?), I certainly can't fault the quality of his readings or insights. The book is well-informed, thoroughly rooted in a knowledge of the secondary sources as well as the primary ones, but it is refreshingly clear and readable, almost entirely lacking in academicese. That said, it's still probably more of a book for scholars than casual readers, but I do think any reader well-versed in comics could probably read this book profitably.
April 8, 2012
I was looking for a pop history, something more journalistically responsible than the typical fan history, but less academically rigorous than this. "Men of Tomorrow" for the alternative comics scene, I guess, is what I imagined this might be. It isn't even close to that. It's mostly a lot of close reading and interpretive study of individual canonical texts. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But. Yeah. Not a book to read for pleasure unless you are yourself an academic critic, I think. How it stands up as a work of capital-C Criticism is for others to decide. It has been a long time since i cared enough about this kind of writing to muddle through any substantial sampling of it without getting bored. It may or may not be brilliant as a set of close readings of key comics texts surrounded by some smattering of historical contextualization. I dunno. The dry prose and the academic tics alienated me. My poor rating reflects the lack of enjoyment I got out of this book personally, and is not a reflection on its success or failure in reaching the goals it set for itself. Like I said: it may or may not be brilliant for what it is, but it is definitely not what I was looking for.
January 8, 2010
The main focus of this book is to look at alternative comics, which in the context of Hatfield's discussion, are comics that stand outside of the super-hero genre. The first few chapters provide an overview on the comic book genre and how images and texts come together to tell stories and how a variety of comic book writers have used the medium to express themselves. The second half of the book, however, has the author focusing on specific comics such as "Love and Rockets" and "Maus," which in my opinion, leads to the most interesting discussion to be found in the book. Hatfield's discussion as a whole is interesting and it allows one to see how comic books work as a form of literature, which like any form of literature, can be analyzed and used to discuss a variety of personal and social issues.
April 11, 2008
Such a well written evaluation of contemporary American comics is a dream come true!
Charles Hatfield is a thoughtful, passionate writer with an exciting vocabulary and tons of knowledge. That man must be made of 30% shitty comic paper and not water.
Anyways, I haven't completed it yet, but it is a refreshing critical look at how the comic industry, finally re-emerging from poverty and put-downs, is beginning to develop and exhibit the potential of the art form.
More updates later.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in comics because of the insightful historical review, the lively language and fun anecdotes.
February 3, 2015
Hatfield's book is an intelligent and broad study of alternative comics, but it suffers from a central flaw: he thinks comics are literature. In fact, the point of this book is to argue for comics as literature, but more often than not he highlights how comics differ from literature.
Hatfield makes a great case for the quality of form to be found in comics, but this book reminds me of early film theorists who argued that film was literature. We now accept that film is its own art form, and hopefully soon we (including Hatfield) will do the same for comics.
Hatfield makes a great case for the quality of form to be found in comics, but this book reminds me of early film theorists who argued that film was literature. We now accept that film is its own art form, and hopefully soon we (including Hatfield) will do the same for comics.
January 14, 2016
I hate that he pits alternative and mainstream comics against each other. I see his point about commercial realities and seriality, but it seems like a way too common way to try to legitimize comics studies. The rest of it I liked, though. I thought his readings of individual comics were good and I especially liked his discussion of authenticity in autobiographical comics.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews