Drawing from the Archives
Comics Memory in the Contemporary Graphic Novel

This book proposes a new history of the graphic novel by examining how it recirculates older comics in the present.

Benoît Crucifix (Author)

9781009250931, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 20 July 2023

280 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.53 kg

Following Art Spiegelman's declaration that 'the future of comics is in the past,' this book considers comics memory in the contemporary North American graphic novel. Cartoonists such as Chris Ware, Seth, Charles Burns, Daniel Clowes, and others have not only produced some of the most important graphic novels, they have also turned to the history of comics as a common visual heritage to pass on to new readers. This book is a full-length study of contemporary cartoonists when they are at work as historians: it offers a detailed description of how they draw from the archives of comics history, examining the different gestures of collecting, curating, reprinting, forging, swiping, and undrawing that give shape to their engagement with the past. In recognizing these different acts of transmission, this book argues for a material and vernacular history of how comics are remembered, shared, and recirculated over time.

Introduction
1. Collecting
2. Curating
3. Reprinting
4. Forging
5. Swiping
6. Undrawing
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Literary theory [DSA]