ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book builds on and revises what we already know about comics as built material objects made and consumed in time and place. It shows how the labor conditions and market forces of the 1940s led to the making of these "proto-autobiographical comics. The book examines the exciting ways that comics have permeated other media forms such as literature and film. It focuses on Singapore's 1960 anti-comics movement—a movement that went hand in hand with the government's anti-colonial policy making. The book analyses the way comic book creators skillfully use visual shaping devices to complicate reader engagement. It considers the ways that the marginal forms, subjects, and experiences infiltrate and transform centers in the making of inclusive storyworlds and reading communities. The book provides a critical framework for evaluating deliberately juvenile, potentially offensive satirical comics.
