Animal Comics

Animal characters abound in graphic narratives ranging from Krazy Kat and Maus to WE3 and Terra Formars. Exploring these and other multispecies storyworlds presented in words and images, Animal Comics draws together work in comics studies, narrative theory, and cross-disciplinary research on animal environments and human-animal relationships to shed new light on comics and graphic novels in which animal agents play a significant role. At the same time, the volume's international team of contributors show how the distinctive structures and affordances of graphic narratives foreground key questions about trans-species entanglements in a more-than-human world. The writers/artists covered in the book include: Nick Abadzis, Adolpho Avril, Jeffrey Brown, Sue Coe, Matt Dembicki, Olivier Deprez, J. J. Grandville, George Herriman, Adam Hines, William Hogarth, Grant Morrison, Osamu Tezuka, Frank Quitely, Yu Sasuga, Charles M. Schultz, Art Spiegelman, Fiona Staples, Ken'ichi Tachibana, Brian K. Vaughan, and others.

David Herman has taught at several institutions in the US and, most recently, at Durham University, UK. Growing out of his recent studies on animal narratives across media, his monograph Narratology beyond the Human will be published in 2018.

List of Figures Acknowledgments Notes on Contributors Introduction: More-than-Human Worlds in Graphic Storytelling David Herman Part I. Animal Agency in the History and Theory of Comics 1. Lions and Tigers and Fears: A Natural History of the Sequential Animal Daniel F. Yezbick, St Louis Community College, USA 2. The Animalized Character and Style Glenn Willmott, Queen's University, Canada Part II. Species of Difference: Functions of Animal Alterity in Graphic Narratives 3. The Politics and Poetics of Alterity in Adam Hines's Duncan the Wonder Dog Alex Link, Alberta College of Art & Design, Canada 4. The Saga of the Animal as Visual Metaphor for Mixed-Race Identity in Comics Michael A. Chaney, Dartmouth College, USA 5. Curly Tails and Flying Dogs: Structures of Affect in Nick Abadzi's Laika Carrie Rohman, Lafayette College, USA 6. Invasive Species: Manga's Insect-Human Worlds Mary A. Knighton, Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan Part III. Critical Frameworks for Multispecies Comics 7. Resituating the Animal Comic: Environmentalist Aesthetics in Matt Dembicki's Xoc: The Journey of a Great White Laura Pearson, University of Leeds, UK 8. Interspecies Relationships in Graphic Micronarratives: From Olivier Deprez to Avril-Deprez Jan Baetens, University of Leuven, Belgium 9. Animal Minds in Nonfiction Comics David Herman Part IV. Graphic Animality in the Classroom and Beyond 10. Can We Be Part of the Pride? Reading Animals through Comics in the Undergraduate Classroom Andrew Smyth and Charles E. Baraw, Southern Connecticut State University, USA 11. This is Home Bridget Brewer and Thalia Field, Brown University, USA Index