Manuscript in Print: the Materiality of Alternative Comics Emma Tinker* University College London

Literature Compass 4/4 (2007): 1169–1182, 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2007.00478.x

Manuscript in Print: The Materiality of Alternative Comics Emma Tinker* University College London

Abstract This paper forms part of a Literature Compass cluster on Modern Book History. The full cluster is made up of the following articles: ‘Between Then and Now: Modern Book History’, Kate Longworth, Literature Compass 4 (2007), 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2007.00474.x. ‘Ezra Pound’s Cantos: A Compact History of Twentieth-Century Authorship, Publishing and Editing’, Mark Byron, Literature Compass 4 (2007), 10.1111/ j.1741-4113.2007.00475.x. ‘ “The Making of the Book”: Roy Fisher, the Circle Press and the Poetics of Book Art’, Matthew Sperling, Literature Compass 4 (2007), 10.1111/ j.1741-4113.2007.00476.x. ‘Bakhtinian “Journalization” and the Mid-Victorian Literary Marketplace’, Dallas Liddle, Literature Compass 4 (2007), 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2007.00477.x. ‘Manuscript in Print: The Materiality of Alternative Comics’, Emma Tinker, Literature Compass 4 (2007), 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2007.00478.x. ‘Lost in a World of Books: Reading and Identity in Pre-War Japan’, Susan C. Townsend, Literature Compass 4 (2007), 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2007.00479.x. *** This article argues that the writers and illustrators of alternative comics show a particular interest in the material form of their work, and that this preoccupation is linked to the publication history of these texts. It begins by discussing the changes in publication of alternative comics over the past thirty years, including the shift from single issue to trade paperback or ‘graphic novel’ format, the decline of specialist retailers, and the growth in production of small press comics and fanzines. It then considers some implications of this shift, and examines two texts in which authors have directly addressed the materiality of their comics in the books themselves: Craig Thompson’s Blankets and Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan. It argues that comic book authors, who are also readers and collectors, have a strong personal investment in the physical form of comics, and that this interest is also manifest in the content of these texts.

The career of a comics scholar is one of such routine self-justification that amongst those of similar interests it is no longer worthy of comment. Analysts of more widely accepted literary media regularly ask with a puzzled expression, ‘You mean like Superman or The Beano?’ There are some,

© 2007 The Author Journal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 1170 . Manuscript in Print: The Materiality of Alternative Comics however, who have been paying attention to recent trends in the Sunday broadsheets and will ask,‘Do you mean graphic novels?’This magical term often seems to catalyse a significant mental shift: novels and graphic design are both familiar and respectable areas of research, a long way from flimsy, faded Dandy or garish Spiderman comics. In short, comics scholars are always already students of book history because it is impossible, in this field, to avoid constantly encountering the opinion that textual format matters, that it affects and even defines interpretation of a visual narrative. With this in mind, it is perhaps necessary to start by outlining what is meant by the term ‘alternative comics’, because the argument I wish to present here does not apply to Superman, or The Beano, or any of the other multiple-authored comics owned by major companies like DC and Marvel. However, the category is so broad and so widely contested that it makes more sense to suggest a set of commonly shared characteristics than to insist upon a rigid definition. Alternative comics grew out of the underground scene of the 1960s and 70s, and the term itself appeared during the 80s as small press and other independent comics became increasingly diverse. The people who write these tend to define their work by its distinction from a perceived mainstream of superheroes, formulaic sci-fi or fantasy, and children’s humour. The range of visual styles and narrative content found in alternative comics is infinitely broader and often more imaginative than in the comics produced by the mainstream publishers. These alternative comics are generally created and controlled by one or two people, apart from the covers they tend to be printed in black and white, they sell in tiny numbers, and they are either self-published or produced by small independent publishers.1 In his Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature, Charles Hatfield emphasises the importance of the physical form of the comic book itself. Beginning with the underground comics of the 1960s and 70s, he points out that part of the artistic success of these comics derived from ‘the way that they transformed an object that was jejune and mechanical in origin into a radically new kind of expressive object’ (7). Underground comics artists like Robert Crumb, Gilbert Shelton and Spain Rodriguez appropriated a textual shape whose associations were ripe for subversion. As Hatfield explains, there was a deliberate formal irony in their adoption of a package that had for so long been associated with ‘faceless industrial entertainment’ (11). From the beginning, in other words, the physical product – the size, shape and feel of ink on cheap, folded paper – played a crucial role in the reception of alternative comics. Equally significant was the way in which the products of these artists were marketed and distributed. Underground comics were generally produced by small, independent presses and sold via ‘head shops’ (where they existed alongside posters, dope-smoking paraphernalia and all manner of other counterculture-related products). However, the 1970s saw the development of specialist comics shops, and the underground publishers developed into alternative and independent publishers like Fantagraphics, Top Shelf and Black Eye Press.2 Specialist shops generally sold both

© 2007 The Author Literature Compass 4/4 (2007): 1169–1182, 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2007.00478.x Journal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Manuscript in Print: The Materiality of Alternative Comics . 1171 mainstream and alternative comics, supporting innovative work alongside the traditional superhero material. These shops gave comics a home as the newsstand market dried up and the head shops closed down, but they also had the effect of insulating the market. As comics were segregated from other products, consumers were no longer likely to pick up a comic book while shopping for something else, and soon comics became the preserve of a largely male fan culture. Alternative material continued to flourish throughout the 1980s, both through the publication of individual comic books and with the help of anthologies like Art Spiegelman’s Raw and Robert Crumb’s Weirdo. Towards the end of that decade, however, a number of articles began to appear in the mainstream press proclaiming the ‘birth of the graphic novel’. This was partly due to the almost simultaneous publication in 1986 of three major comics texts – Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s Watchmen and the first volume of Art Spiegelman’s Maus.3 This publication conveniently coincided with a gradual relaxing of the criteria by which ‘culture’ was generally defined, with the result that new readers began to perceive comics as sophisticated and cool. Suddenly – the story went – comics had attained adulthood. As Roger Sabin notes,‘it was, and is, a seductive interpretation of events, and has become one of the enduring clichés of arts journalism’ (Adult Comics 1). In reality, what was changing was not the content of comics but their form, readership and cultural status. Richard Kyle had coined the term ‘graphic novel’ in the 1960s (although it is often attributed to Will Eisner, who used it in 1978 to describe his A Contract with God) and its adoption by comics creators and publishers’ marketing teams in the 1980s represented little more than the lucrative repackaging of comics to appeal to an audience more comfortable with book-length works of fiction. Single issues – that is, comics of thirty or so pages, usually folded and stapled together – still exist today, but their sales are in steady decline. In the 1970s, print runs of half a million were not uncommon for mainstream comics; now even these rarely manage more than a hundred thousand per issue.4 These slim booklets rarely, if ever, make it onto the shelves of mainstream booksellers, whereas a two-hundred-page trade paperback is rather more marketable to readers who would not generally go into a specialist comic book shop.5 Numbers of specialist comics shops have declined dramatically throughout recent decades, while numbers of graphic novel sections in mainstream book shops like Waterstones and Borders have increased substantially. In many ways, the graphic novel format seems the preferable choice – writers and artists publishing material in this form are more likely to have their work reviewed in the national press alongside prose fiction, and because their books can be sold in mainstream bookshops they are able to tap a much wider market. Nevertheless, there are several serious disadvantages to publishing a comic solely in trade paperback format. A graphic novel can take a decade or more to complete, and

© 2007 The Author Literature Compass 4/4 (2007): 1169–1182, 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2007.00478.x Journal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 1172 . Manuscript in Print: The Materiality of Alternative Comics publishers of alternative comics cannot afford to pay advances even to relatively well-known authors. Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s From Hell, for example, was published in ten instalments between 1989 and 1996, with the single-volume edition finally published in 1998. The comic book medium is nothing if not time consuming, and ten years is a long time to work on a project without getting paid for it. Furthermore, not all narratives are suited to long-form treatment, and many authors simply prefer single-issue format, producing comics that stand on their own and never aspire to collected, ‘graphic novel’ status. It is undoubtedly true that many of those who produce small-scale comics do so because they have no other option – they would dearly love to have a graphic novel published by an independent company like Drawn and Quarterly or Top Shelf, but either they cannot devote the time to a major project, or they have already been turned down by the publishers. However, there are others, like Robert Crumb, for whom the single issue comic is not an inconvenient necessity but an opportunity to work within a neglected format well suited to radical aesthetics and succinct, fast-paced narrative. A similar argument can be made about small press or self-published comics. In the prose fiction market, self-publishing is seen as a sign of desperation and little better than vanity publishing, but in alternative comics it is a perfectly acceptable practice which some choose even when other options are available. Many comic book creators whose work is subsequently produced by independent comics publishers start by producing home-made fanzines of some kind. The increased availability of good-quality photocopiers in the 1980s and 90s meant that it became a lot easier to produce self-published comics and fanzines, and there was a small explosion of these around 1990. One cannot simply order these from Amazon or Waterstones along with the latest graphic novel; to buy a small press comic the reader must find one of the few comic shops prepared to make space for such material, or attend a small press fair such as Caption in Oxford, or contact the creators directly. The small press scene is often described as a community: people know each other, read each other’s work, and help to publicise other comics and fanzines that they like. On the back cover of issue 7 of her comic Dirty Plotte, Julie Doucet advertises other people’s comics and fanzines, placing her own work against others within the self-publishing scene. More recently, many have begun to publicise and sell their work via Web sites such as Small Zone.6 The major advantage of self-publishing is complete artistic freedom over every aspect of the comic from title to paper colour. Crucially, with many small press comics, the handmade quality is part of the appeal. Many have hand-coloured covers, have fabric or other materials glued to them, are tied together with string, are made of different coloured paper or have varying page sizes. Aleksandar Zograf’s Hypnagogic Review comes in a hand-sewn slipcase, with a different image embroidered on each one. Mr Clement’s Window is 5 cm tall and has a leaf-shaped hole in the middle of the cover.

Fig. 1. (From left to right) Aleksandar Zograf, Hypnagogic Review; Mr Clement, Window; Jen Michaelis, You Are Here.

The scraps of coloured paper that form the cover of Jen Michaelis’ You Are Here have clearly been cut out and glued by hand (Fig. 1). There are rare cases of authors like Chris Ware who have sufficient influence with their publishers that they can have it both ways, producing very elaborate texts in unconven- tional formats and selling enough copies that publishers will foot the bill. In the comics edition of the literary journal McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, edited and designed by Ware, there are two miniature comics tucked into a fold in the front cover, and the cover itself folds out into a poster.7 However, there are very few comics authors and artists who can get away with producing books this lavish through a publisher – for most, any kind of non-standard format means that small scale self-publishing is the only option. As I have demonstrated, throughout this period in which the conventions of comics publication have been shifting, the authors and artists of alternative comics have paid increasingly close attention to the formal qualities of their books. I now want to address some of the implications of this, and to consider two cases in which authors have made direct references to the materiality of their books in the comics themselves. I intend to focus on sections from Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan and Craig Thompson’s autobiography Blankets because in these book-length comics both authors spell out a number of ideas that other comics writers and artists gesture towards less explicitly. Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth is one of a small handful of comics to have achieved exceptional success in the literary mainstream. It won an American Book Award in 2001 and the Guardian First Book Award in 2002, as well as a large number of comics awards including the prestigious Book of the Year at the Angoulême Comics Festival. The story is that of a lonely, socially dysfunctional man meeting

© 2007 The Author Literature Compass 4/4 (2007): 1169–1182, 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2007.00478.x Journal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 1174 . Manuscript in Print: The Materiality of Alternative Comics

Fig. 2. Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth. Back cover of the paperback edition (2001). his father for the first time, a narrative interwoven with scenes from his grandfather’s childhood in the late nineteenth century. Of particular interest here, however, is a twenty-three panel strip that appears on the back cover of the paperback edition (Figs. 2 and 3). This tells the story not of Jimmy Corrigan the character but of copy number 58463 of the book, Jimmy Corrigan. The text is shown to have a life and a body of its own, with adventures, embarrassments and disappointments analogous to the failures of Jimmy Corrigan himself. The book starts its journey ‘somewhere near Hong Kong’ (Ware has admitted that the only way to produce a full-colour

Fig. 3. Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth. Back cover of the paperback edition (detail). edition cheaply was to have the book manufactured in China). On its arrival at ‘Barnes Ignoble’ bookshop in the US, the book experiences the indignity of being excluded from the literature section and categorised as ‘a graffik nohvel . . . it’s kid’s lit . . . you know . . . superhero stuff . . . for retards!’ As the bookshop manager explains to his innocent employee, the graphic novel section is ‘somewhere near science fiction and role-playing games I think . . .’ Copy number 58463 listens anxiously as a potential buyer is directed towards a ‘rock band lyric book’, which is included in the literature section. Unsold, copy 58463 ends up being thrown away, then rescued from homelessness and starvation by the author himself. In the final few panels the author is shown with a collection of similar happy-looking books, lamenting, ‘All my children . . . I love you so . . . but . . . I can’t keep taking you all in by myself like this . . .’ There is, of course, a good deal of self-deprecating posturing in Ware’s narrative, and one sometimes cannot help feeling that he revels in the traditionally low status of his chosen medium, in spite of the conspicuous literariness of his texts. Nevertheless, for graphic fiction, the question of categorisation and location within the publishing world and the individual bookshop is a crucial issue, as inaccurate association with science fiction or children’s literature continues to lose the form a number of potential readers. Furthermore, this narrative has the effect of emphasising the physicality of individual copies of the book: although they are mass produced and essentially identical,Ware implies that a different story could be told about each one. The content may not differ from one copy to another, but each has a physical body that can be lost, damaged, burnt, loaned or treasured by its owner. Ware’s attitude recalls Walter Benjamin’s observation that for the book collector, ‘not only books, but also copies of books have their fates. And in this sense, the most important fate of a copy is its encounter with him, with his own collection’ (Illuminations 61). However,Ware goes even further than Benjamin’s collector in his implied relationship with the individual copy. Although Jimmy Corrigan is not autobiographical, there are many similarities between the author and his protagonist (the Chicago setting,

© 2007 The Author Literature Compass 4/4 (2007): 1169–1182, 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2007.00478.x Journal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 1176 . Manuscript in Print: The Materiality of Alternative Comics the absent father, the morbidly low self-esteem) and Ware’s attempt to endow the book itself with the same characteristics of misunderstood loner implies identification not only with his narrative but with the paper, card, ink and glue of its body. In other words, the identity crises narrated within the comic are also imposed on the physical book itself. Craig Thompson’s Blankets describes the author’s evangelical Christian childhood and charts his transition to adulthood through the story of his first romantic relationship. However, love plot aside, Blankets is peculiarly concerned with the value of books and papers. Early on, the comic’s protagonist, Craig, burns his drawings partly because they ‘had been distracting me from my Bible studies’, but also, he admits, because they represent memories that he would rather forget (56). Drawings, for young Craig, are intimately linked with selfhood, but he justifies their destruction by arguing that they cannot be allowed to compete with another text. Later, when Craig develops a relationship with Raina, he says of her letters that ‘they renewed my faith in the notion of making marks on paper’ (142). It is a significant remark because it stresses Craig’s view that drawing and handwriting are essentially parts of the same activity. He describes their correspondence as ‘a flirtation – from timid notes to perfumed packages overflowing with flowers and poems, tape-recorded love songs, and sweet high school nothings’ (Figs. 4 and 5). On the following page he talks not only about her handwriting but ‘the indentations traced on each page from the page above’ and observes that ‘she must have been pressing her pen hard’ (145–6). There are two points to be made about this extract. First, there is no question that he is talking not just about writing, but about handwriting. Later on in the book, Craig implicitly criticises Raina for transcribing her handwritten poems on a typewriter. Here, he is clearly making a connection between the flow of Raina’s handwriting, the pressure of pen on paper, and the body that made the marks: for Craig, the trace of the writer’s hand gives manuscript an erotic appeal. The connection between writing and the body is spelled out in this instance by the fact that Craig’s discussion of Raina’s letters develops into an anecdote about masturbation (which in itself is part of a long tradition of sexual autobiography going back to Crumb in the late 60s). The point of all this is that Thompson himself is writing in a medium in which text is handwritten, and the relationship between words and images is substantially closer than one might expect in other forms of illustrated text. As various critics have pointed out, comics are hybrids of different kinds of information, and words and images work together to form an integral visual language.8 Most quality comics still use hand lettering rather than digital fonts, because it is much easier to achieve a visual unity of word and image if both retain the same style and texture of marks. For writers of alternative comics, the concern with the balance between word and image and the interest in the form of the book are impossible to separate. The second point that I want to raise about this extract has to do with the multimedia nature of Craig and Raina’s correspondence, because Craig

Fig. 4. Craig Thompson, Blankets, p. 145. is not just talking about letters, but describing a broader sensory experience. The image on the first page of this extract shows photographs, drawings, a cassette tape with a handwritten track listing, flowers and so on. The cassette is particularly worthy of attention. A compilation tape of pre-recorded songs arranged for a particular person is an odd hybrid of original and copy, intensely personal yet reproduced. This, I would suggest, is analogous to the form of the comic book itself. Although alternative comics writers know that their work is for mass production, they are nevertheless curiously nostalgic for the personal, the handmade, the manuscript.

© 2007 The Author Literature Compass 4/4 (2007): 1169–1182, 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2007.00478.x Journal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 1178 . Manuscript in Print: The Materiality of Alternative Comics

Fig. 5. Craig Thompson, Blankets, p. 146.

WComic art is made for reproduction. Although original artwork by famous comic book artists does sell for substantial sums of money, the original is not generally regarded in quite the same light as a drawing that was not made with publication in mind. It is perfectly acceptable for artists to use Tipp-ex, or white-out, on comics originals, and to leave outlines in pale blue pencil which are not picked up in reproduction. When Robert Crumb lamented having lost some of his early work, it was not desire for the originals that he expressed but regret that the photocopies he has now are of such poor quality. On the other hand, the finished, printed comics are often treated like original art works. They tend to be produced in very small print runs, and purchasing them sometimes involves contact with the creators themselves. Crumb folded and stapled issue 1 of Zap himself and wandered around San Francisco selling it in the street. Although the comics collectors’ market has long been in decline, these early underground comics, like many mainstream comics from the pre-war period, are still incredibly valuable. However, it is important to note that no sane person would go into alternative comics for the money, and the vast majority of these comics do not become collectors’ items. Many comics artists are highly skilled graphic designers who could be making much more money doing other things. At best, one might hope to cover the production costs and have enough to live on while working on the next project; at worst, many creators just hope not to lose too much money. This is especially true for producers of self-published fanzines. The Wikipedia definition of a fanzine makes it sound like a positively altruistic enterprise: it describes the fanzine as ‘a non-professional publication produced by fans of a particular subject for the pleasure of others who share their interest’. It also stresses that these publications are generally sold at ‘a nominal cost to defray postage or production expenses’.9 Whatever these writers and artists gain from their extraordinarily labour-intensive creations, it is certainly not profit. Even in well-established alternative comics it is rare to see anyone making much money. Both Fantagraphics and Top Shelf have, within the past five or six years, been saved from near-bankruptcy by Web site postings in which they openly begged comics fans to buy their books. That such undisguised pleading works at all is a testament to the exceptional loyalty that readers feel towards the producers and publishers of alternative comics, but that it is necessary remains rather worrying for the industry. A long way from the mainstream publishers whose comics are now largely subsidised by film and merchandising, alternative comics publishers seem to exist on the borders of capitalism, distributing work which is barely capable of sustaining itself financially. It is hardly surprising that so many are no longer in business.10 If alternative comics writers’ devotion to the material form of their work is not primarily about constructing a lucrative end product, it is worth considering what is at stake. The evidence presented above suggests that in many cases, the emphasis on the physicality of their texts reflects a desire to express something personal and individual, something of their identity

© 2007 The Author Literature Compass 4/4 (2007): 1169–1182, 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2007.00478.x Journal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 1180 . Manuscript in Print: The Materiality of Alternative Comics through their comics. Just as the teenage Craig Thompson was sexually aroused by his girlfriend’s handwriting, so many comics writers seek to imprint a trace of themselves, of their bodies in their hand-drawn, handwritten, homemade texts. It is no coincidence that over the last thirty years, autobiography has become one of the most popular genres of alternative comics, and one could cite an almost endless list of authors and artists who have narrated personal experiences in comic book form.11 During this period in which comics have been a marginalised form, seen as the preserve of isolated young males, creators have developed a powerful sense of loyalty towards their medium. Unlike Scott McCloud, who claims that readers identify with comics’ protagonists due to the stylised and simplified nature of the cartoon drawing, I suggest that the most important identification in alternative comics is not between readers and characters but between creators and the medium itself (Understanding Comics 24ff ). Most creators of alternative comics are also voracious readers and collectors, and as Benjamin points out, ‘Collectors are beings with tactile instincts’ (Arcades Project 206). Alternative comics are surrounded by a collectors’ culture in which authors laboriously hand-colour the covers of their texts and buy extra books to save a beloved publisher from bankruptcy, and it is this culture that encourages authors to feel and express a personal investment in the comic book form. In 2000 Scott McCloud argued that in the future, comics would increasingly rely on digital media for their design, production and delivery (Reinventing Comics). He did not quite prophesy the end of pen and paper, but his was a distinctly futuristic vision which not many people shared. In terms of distribution he has largely been proven right: the Internet has had an incalculable impact on the availability of small press and alternative comics. Production methods have also changed considerably, with digital presses increasingly becoming the norm. Design methods, however, have so far changed relatively little. Dave McKean, who has used Adobe Photoshop in the design of his comics since the early 1990s, has expressed frustration at other comics artists’technophobia,comparing them to ‘Neanderthals standing around a typewriter, prodding it and wondering if it will bite’ (70). Nevertheless, McKean goes on to explain, ‘I’m not a fan of stuff that is wholly computer generated . . . That stuff is always clinically clean, there’s never any dust, there’s never any blur or scratches’ (86). In his own work, McKean uses computer technology to put his pages together, to organise, colour and blend his materials, but the drawings themselves are very much handmade. Likewise, web comics are certainly flourishing, and some are created entirely through digital means,but they are generally short narratives and are not, so far, threatening to replace print comics. It is hard to imagine reading Jimmy Corrigan or Blankets entirely from a screen. Whether this trend that I have outlined does just represent a brief phase of resistance in what is otherwise a steady shift towards digital production, or whether this preoccupation with the material form of comics will help

© 2007 The Author Literature Compass 4/4 (2007): 1169–1182, 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2007.00478.x Journal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Manuscript in Print: The Materiality of Alternative Comics . 1181 to prohibit such a transition is impossible to judge. The publishing world of alternative comics continues to change. At time of writing, the Random House imprint Pantheon has been producing graphic novels for less than four years, but is now publishing many of the biggest names in the business. The potential impact of print-on-demand technology has yet to be seen, and as computer technology continues to develop it may be that the practice of reading comics from a screen becomes more common. Nevertheless, at present the physicality of comics remains central to their reception, and neither creators nor producers can afford to ignore this if they seek to introduce substantial changes to the form in future.

Short Biography Emma Tinker is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Department of English at University College London, writing on representations of subjectivity in alternative comics. Her research interests span a broad range of topics at the interface of image and text, with particular emphasis on twentieth-century popular literature and culture. Drawn to the interdisciplinary nature of comics research, she recently spent a year at the Slade School of Fine Art, supported by UCL’s Cross-Disciplinary Research Scholarship programme. Her forthcoming publications include an article on BBC television series The Office, and she also reviews graphic novels for the Times Literary Supplement.

Notes * Correspondence: Department of English Language and Literature, University College London, Gower Street, London,WC1E 6BT, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. 1 I am indebted to Sabin and Triggs’s Below Critical Radar for this definition of alternative comics. I also recommend Sabin’s Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels and Adult Comics as general introductions to this field. 2 The term ‘independent’ generally includes both alternative publishers and those like Pacific and Valiant which produced superhero material separate from, but similar to, that being published by the major houses like DC and Marvel. 3 It is worth noting, as an aside, that two of these titles were superhero comics produced by mainstream publishers, and therefore sit somewhat problematically on the edge of the alternative field. They are generally included in discussions of alternative comics due to their sophistication and adult nature. 4 Dez Skinn, Comics International 195 (April 2006). . 5 The term ‘trade paperback’ includes graphic novels and book-length collections of material that was not originally intended to be read as a continuous sequence. The term ‘graphic novel’ is often contested, and publishers often use it to market relatively uncohesive collections of material. 6 Shane Chebsey, Small Zone. 29th April 2006. . 7 Incidentally, these very small comics are not the same as ‘mini-comics’, a term which (confusingly) refers to print run rather than physical dimensions. It is more or less synonymous with ‘small press comics’. 8 See, for example, McCloud, Understanding Comics. This text remains one of the most accessible introductions to the interpretation of comics, although many of McCloud’s views have been

© 2007 The Author Literature Compass 4/4 (2007): 1169–1182, 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2007.00478.x Journal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 1182 . Manuscript in Print: The Materiality of Alternative Comics contested by subsequent critics. For an alternate perspective, see the essays in Magnussen and Christiansen (eds.), in which many writers place themselves against McCloud. 9 Wikipedia,‘Fanzine’ . 10 A list of comics publishers no longer in business can be found here: . 11 To readers new to autobiographical comics I would recommend (in no particular order) Art Spiegelman, Marjane Satrapi, Robert Crumb, Harvey Pekar, Julie Doucet, David B, Debbie Drechsler, Lynda Barry,Alison Bechdel and Chester Brown.

Works Cited Benjamin,Walter. The Arcades Project.Trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard UP, 1999. ——. Illuminations.Trans. Harry Zohn. Ed. Hannah Arendt. London: Jonathan Cape, 1970. ‘Fanzine’. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 2006. Wikimedia Foundations, Inc. . 29 April 2006. Hatfield, Charles. Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature. Jackson, MI: UP of Mississippi, 2005. McCloud, Scott. Reinventing Comics. New York: Paradox Press, 2000. ——. Understanding Comics. New York: Paradox Press, 1993. McKean, Dave. ‘Interview with Chris Brayshaw’. The Comics Journal 196 ( June 1997): 58–89. Magnussen,Anne and Hans-Christian Christiansen, eds.Comics and Culture: Analytical and Theoretical Approaches to Comics. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2000. Sabin, Roger. Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels. London: Phaidon, 1996. ——. Adult Comics. London: Routledge, 1993. —— and Teal Triggs. Below Critical Radar: Fanzines and Alternative Comics from 1976 to the Present Day. Brighton: Slab’o’Concrete, 2000. Thompson, Craig. Blankets. Marietta, GA:Top Shelf, 2003. Varnum, Robin and Christina T. Gibbons. The Language of Comics: Word and Image. Jackson, MI: UP of Mississippi, 2001. Ware, Chris. Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth. London: Jonathan Cape, 2003 [2000].