I didn't have the time to write about this at the time, but thanks to a last-minute schedule adjustment I had the opportunity to teach a second class on comics and graphic novels last spring. This one fell under the category of a "Fiction Across Cultures" class, giving me the opportunity to teach comics from around the world--even if about half of them aren't fiction. Here's the reading list:
Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics
Alan Moore and David Lloyd, V for Vendetta
Art Spiegelman, Maus I and II
Joe Sacco, Palestine
Rutu Modan, Exit Wounds
Hergé, The Adventures of Tintin vol. 6 (Calculus Affair, Red Sea Sharks, Tibet)
David B, "The Armed Garden" and "The Veiled Prophet"
Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis
Osamu Tezuka, Phoenix vol. 3 (Yamato/Space)
Moto Hagio, "Bianca," "A Drunken Dream," and "Hanshin: Half-God"
Yoshiharu Tsuge, "Screw-Style"
Guy Delisle, Pyongyang
Plus the usual assortment of reserve readings, including comics (Chris Ware's "Thrilling Adventure Stories/I Guess," Richard McGuire's "Here," Alan Moore and Rick Veitch's "How Things Work Out") and comics criticism (Bart Beaty, Jonathan Frome, Dylan Horrocks, Maggie Gray, R.C. Harvey, Joseph Witek, Adam Rosenblatt and Andrea Lunsford, Ariel Kahn, Jean-Marie Apostolides, Hillary Chute, and Paul Gravett).
It's a shame I wasn't able to write about these classes week by week--I thought they were even more successful than the American comics class last year. Then again, with Hergé, Tezuka, Sacco, Rutu Modan, and David B on the syllabus it's hard to go wrong.
No idea when the next comics class will come up, but with two in two years I'm not complaining.
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