Edited by George Kovacs and C. W. Marshall
Since at least 1939, when daily-strip caveman Alley Oop time-traveled to the Trojan War, comics have been drawing (on) material from Greek and Roman myth, literature and history. At times the connection is cosmetic - as perhaps with Wonder Woman's Amazonian heritage - and at times it is almost
irrelevant - as with Hercules' starfaring adventures in the 1982 Marvel miniseries. But all of these make implicit or explicit claims about the place of classics in modern literary culture.
Classics and Comics is the first book to explore the engagement of classics with the epitome of
modern popular literature, the comic book. The volume collects sixteen articles, all specially commissioned for this volume, that look at how classical content is deployed in comics and reconfigured for a modern audience. It opens with a detailed historical introduction surveying the role of
classical material in comics since the 1930s. Subsequent chapters cover a broad range of topics, including the incorporation of modern theories of myth into the creation and interpretation of comic books, the appropriation of characters from classical literature and myth, and the reconfiguration of
motif into a modern literary medium. Among the well-known comics considered in the collection are Frank Miller's 300 and Sin City, DC Comics' Wonder Woman, Jack Kirby's The Eternals, Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and examples of Japanese manga. The volume also includes an original 12-page "comics-essay,"
drawn and written by Eisner Award-winning Eric Shanower, creator of the graphic novel series Age of Bronze.
C.W. Marshall and George Kovacs: Preface
Acknowledgments
1. George Kovacs: Comics and Classics: Establishing a Critical Frame
Seeing the Past through Sequential Art
2. Gideon Nisbet: An Ancient Greek Graphic Novel (P. Oxy . XXII 2331)
3. Kyle Johnson: Sequential
Narrative and the Shield of Achilles
4. Nicholas A. Theisen: Declassicizing the classical in Japanese comics
5. Brett M. Rogers: Heroes Un limited
Gods and Superheroes
6. C.W. Marshall: The Furies, Wonder Woman, and Dream
7. Craig Dethloff: Coming up to Code: Ancient
Divinities Revisited
8. R. Clinton Simms: The Burden of War: From Homer to Oeming
9. Benjamin Stevens: 'Seven Thunders Utter Their Voices'
Drawing (on) History
10. Vincent Tomasso: Hard-Boiled Hot Gates
11. Emily Fairey: Persians in Frank Miller's 300 and Greek
vase-painting
12. Anise K. Strong: A Dream of Augustus
13. Martin Dinter: Francophone Romes: Antiquity in les Bandes Dessinees
The Desires of Troy
14. Eric Shanower: Twenty-First Century Troy
15. Chiara Sulprizio: Sex and Love in Eric Shanower's Age of Bronze
16.
Thomas E. Jenkins: Heavy Metal Homer
A reading list of Classics in Comics
Contributors
Bibliography
Index
There are no Instructor/Student Resources available at this time.
George Kovacs teaches at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. C.W. Marshall is Associate Professor of Greek and Roman Theatre at the University of British Columbia.
Making Sense - Margot Northey and Joan McKibbin
