Comic Books: The Academic Field
When I was growing up in the 1980s comics were seen as puerile and kinda retro. All the cool kids were playing with Atari or later Nintendo. Reading Teen Titans and or The West Coast Avengers was not an enviable past time. I never brought my comics into school for fear of being ridiculed by teachers…and when I once brought a comic on a school field trip to read on the bus, I was made fun of. Now comics are the bottom feeder for TV and cinema and comic book art can be found in museums. A quick Google search of “comic book studies” reveals a plethora of journals and conferences dedicated to the academic use of comic books. University departments in English, Communications, Cognitive Studies and Linguistics have found their new darling … and I am happy to report that comics have finally grown up!
Here’s a quick list of some links to check out:
http://www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/archive.shtml
http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-issue,id=1804/