Customer Reviews

Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature

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Hatfield has written a very good account of the formal qualities of the comic art form. He deals with the interaction between visual and textual elements in comics at a theoretical level not previously broached. His work shows how these qualities play out in comics creating narratives and meaning for their readers. Having delineated these qualities he then sets about a formal reading of specific works in chapters 3 to 5. In these chapters he addresses both the cultural context of alternative comics and their formal aspects. His central argument is that comics need to be reconsidered in socio-historical and aesthetic terms. While acknowledging comics lowbrow origins he points to the emergence of alternative comics and shows that they offer new ways of understanding fiction and readers' engagement in constructing meaning.

Given that Hatfield is arguing for a greater complexity to the comic art form than is popularly ascribed, and that this requires an interpretative language and theory, his work is direct. Theory of this sort often drifts into abstract language and complex abstractions. Hatfield avoids this pitfall grounding his work in description of comics. Hatfield also addresses broader issues than the simple formal aspects of these comics, or what might in other works be called their literary quality giving a broader context to his work.