Contexts of Violence in Comics by Hague, Ian; Horton, Ian; Mickwitz, Nina;

Short description:

This book considers the ways in which violence and its representations may be enabled or restricted by the contexts in which they take place. It provides insights into violence in comics in the context of war and peace; ethnic, religious and identity-based violence; as well as legal and historical contexts of violence.

Long description:

This book is part of a nuanced two-volume examination of the ways in which violence in comics is presented in different texts, genres, cultures and contexts.

Contexts of Violence in Comics asks the reader to consider the ways in which violence and its representations may be enabled or restricted by the contexts in which they take place. It analyzes how structures and organising principles, be they cultural, historical, legal, political or spatial, might encourage, demand or prevent violence. It deals with the issue of scale: violence in the context of war versus violence in the context of an individual murder, and provides insights into the context of war and peace, ethnic and identity-based violence, as well as examining issues of justice and memory.

This will be a key text and essential reference for scholars and students at all levels in Comics Studies, and Cultural and Media Studies more generally.

'This book brings new and wide-ranging perspectives from outstanding scholars to an area of comics that critical discourse has tended to shy away from: violence, whether flamboyantly exaggerated, or painfully recovered and made visible.' -Ann Miller, University Fellow, University of Leicester, UK

Table of Contents:

Contexts of Violence in Comics

Introduction
Ian Hague, Ian Horton & Nina Mickwitz

History and Memory

Doing justice to the past through the representation of violence: Three and ancient Sparta
Lynn Fotheringham

Comics do not forget: Historical memory and experiences of violence in the Spanish Civil War and early Francoism
Enrique del Rey Cabero

Legacies of War: Remembering Prisoner of War Experiences in French Comic Books about the Second World War
Claire Gorrara

"I think we’re maybe more or less safe here": Violence and Solidarity
during the Lebanese Civil War in Zeina Abirached’s A Game for Swallows
Mihaela Precup

War and Peace

In a Growing Violent Temper: The Swedish Comic Market during World War II
Michael F. Scholz

Will Eisner and the Art of War: Educational Comics in the American
Defence Industry
Malin Bergström

Urban Conflict

Bringing the War Back Home: Reflecting Violence in Brian Wood’s DMZ
Jörn Ahrens

Infrastructural Violence: Urbicide, Public Space, and Postwar Reconstruction
in Recent Lebanese Graphic Memoirs
Dominic Davies

Law, Justice and Censorship

The Lives of Others: Figuring Grievability and Justice in Contemporary
Comics and Graphic Novels
Golnar Nabizadeh

Scales of Violence, Scales of Justice, and Nate Powell’s Any Empire
Alex Link

Oink: The Story of a Dangerously Funny Comic
David Huxley