The Graphic Novel Club meets monthly to discuss the graphic novel of the month. Whether you are new to the genre or are a long-time comic-lover you are sure to find interesting conversation and a chance to read something new!
You can join anytime!
Meetings are monthly, and you can contact Professor Sean O'Brien: sobrien3@luc.edu
From Krakow to Krypton
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Superhero Thought Experiments
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Examining the deep philosophical topics addressed in superhero comics, authors Gavaler and Goldberg read plot lines for the complex thought experiments they contain and analyze their implications as if the comic authors were philosophers. Reading superhero comic books through a philosophical lens reveals how they experiment with complex issues of morality, metaphysics, meaning, and medium. Given comics’ ubiquity and influence directly on (especially young) readers—and indirectly on consumers of superhero movies and video games—understanding these deeper meanings is in many ways essential to understanding contemporary popular culture. The result is an entertaining and enlightening look at superhero dilemmas.
Black Women in Sequence
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Graphic Borders
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Serial selves : identity and representation in autobiographical comics
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Autobiography is one of the most dynamic and quickly-growing genres in contemporary comics and graphic narratives. In Serial Selves, Frederik Byrn Køhlert examines the genre's potential for representing lives and perspectives that have been socially marginalized or excluded. With a focus on the comics form's ability to produce alternative and challenging autobiographical narratives, thematic chapters investigate the work of artists writing from perspectives of marginality including gender, sexuality, disability, and race, as well as trauma. Interdisciplinary in scope and attuned to theories and methods from both literary and visual studies, the book provides detailed formal analysis to show that the highly personal and hand-drawn aesthetics of comics can help artists push against established narrative and visual conventions, and in the process invent new ways of seeing and being seen. As the first comparative study of how comics artists from a wide range of backgrounds use the form to write and draw themselves into cultural visibility, Serial Selves will be of interest to anyone interested in the current boom in autobiographical comics, as well as issues of representation in comics and visual culture more broadly.
Black Images in the Comics
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Graphic Novels Core Collection, 1st Edition (2016)
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Monstrous Imaginaries
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Monsters seem inevitably linked to humans and not always as mere opposites. Maaheen Ahmed examines good monsters in comics to show how Romantic themes from the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries persist in today’s popular culture. Comics monsters, questioning the distinction between human and monster, self and other, are valuable conduits of Romantic inclinations.
Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels
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Welcome to Arkham Asylum
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Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane is a staple of the Batman universe, evolving into a franchise comprised of comic books, graphic novels, video games, films, television series and more. The Arkham franchise, supposedly light-weight entertainment, has tackled weighty issues in contemporary psychiatry. Its plotlines reference clinical and ethical controversies that perplex even the most up-to-date professionals. The 25 essays in this collection explore the significance of Arkham's sinister psychiatrists, murderous mental patients, and unethical geneticists. It invites debates about the criminalization of the mentally ill, mental patients who move from defunct state hospitals into expanding prisons, madness versus badness, sociopathy versus psychosis, the "insanity defense" and more. Invoking literary figures from Lovecraft to Poe to Caligari, the 25 essays in this collection are a broad-ranging and thorough assessment of the franchise and its relationship to contemporary psychiatry.
The 101 Best Graphic Novels
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Comic Books and America, Nineteen Forty-Five to Nineteen Fifty-Four
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Hip Hop Family Tree
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This encyclopedic comics history of the formative years of hip hop captures the vivid personalities and magnetic performances of old-school pioneers and early stars like DJ Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, plus the charismatic players behind the scenes like Russell Simmons; Debbie Harry, Keith Haring and other luminaries make cameos.
Lucifer
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Cast out of Heaven, thrown down to rule in Hell, Lucifer Morningstar has resigned his post and abandoned his kingdom for the mortal city of Los Angles. Emerging from the pages of writer Neil Gaiman's award-winning series The Sandman, the former Lord of Hell is now enjoying a quiet retirement as the propretor of Lux, L.A.'s most elite piano bar.
But now an assignment from the Creator Himself is going to change all that.
If Lucifer agrees to do Heaven's dirty work, he can name his own price--but both the task and reward are more than they seem. Thrown into a position of great threat and ultimate opportunity, Lucifer knows that threading a path through this maze will require the harshest of sacrifices.
Saga
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SAGA is the sweeping tale of one young family fighting to find their place in the worlds. When two soldiers from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war fall in love, they risk everything to bring a fragile new life into a dangerous old universe. Fantasy and science fiction are wed like never before in a sexy, subversive drama for adults. This specially priced volume collects the first arc of the smash hit series The Onion A.V. Club calls 'the emotional epic' Hollywood wishes it could make.
Seed of Destruction; Wake the Devil
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Since Mike Mignola’s Hellboy first hit the stands in 1993, it has become a cultural sensation, racking up a dozen Eisner Awards and inspiring numerous spinoffs, from a novel line, to video games, to feature films. Now, Dark Horse is pleased to present the comics that started it all, collected in deluxe hardcover editions. Sized at 9" by 12", and handsomely bound to match The Art of Hellboy hardcover, each volume contains two full story-arcs — the equivalent of two trade-paperbacks. Each volume of the Hellboy Library Editions also includes extensive supplemental materials, including previously unreleased sketches and designs.
The Walking Dead
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This hardcover features the first 12 issues of the hit series along with the covers for the issues in one oversized hardcover volume. Perfect for long time fans, new readers and anyone needing a slightly heavy object with which to fend off the walking dead.
March (Book 1-3)
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Incognegro a Graphic Mystery
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Kindred
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I Am Alfonso Jones
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Hip Hop Family Tree
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Black Panther by Reginald Hudlin: the Complete Collection Vol. 1
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New Kid
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New Kid tells the story of Jordan, a twelve-year-old boy from New York City who's enrolled in a private school where he is one of only a few students of color. This is even more crushing for Jordan, as he secretly dreams to go to an art school. Jerry Craft's New Kid has become the first graphic novel to ever win the Newbery Medal at the 2020 Youth Media Awards in Philadelphia for being the "most distinguished contribution to American Literature for children." While other graphic novels have been considered for the medal in the past, New Kid had enough of an impact on young readers to clinch the esteemed title.
Slings and Arrows Graphic Novel Review Site: The largest site dedicated solely to graphic novel reviews to be found online.
The Crow: Special Edition
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Next meeting TBA
Library of Congress Subject Headings for Comics and Graphic Novels
You can use the following list of LC headings to perform subject-based searching for graphic novels, comic books, books about graphic novels/comic books, and related topics in all library catalogs. Results will include both primary and secondary sources:
You can also search for specific characters and creators as subjects (e.g., "Hellboy" or "Lee, Stan").
