Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the formal aspects of comics, including properties of visual form, sequential language, and narrative strategies. It also focuses on intertextual, contextual, and paratextual relationships between comics artifacts and other texts, media, and artifacts. Readers can have relationships with publishers, creators, titles, or characters. In the case of long-running comic strips and serialized comic books, readers can have decades-long relationships with fictional universes or characters. The book provides the tools for reducing that deficit of attention, and new ways to understand comics not just as a medium or an art form, but an aspect of the cultural life of many people around the world. It demonstrates the application of a method or approach that students will be able to follow in their own critical analysis of comics.