Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University English Dissertations Department of English 5-28-2009 Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan: Honing the Hybridity of the Graphic Novel Dallas Dycus Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss Recommended Citation Dycus, Dallas, "Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan: Honing the Hybridity of the Graphic Novel." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2009. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss/47 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. CHRIS WARE‘S JIMMY CORRIGAN: HONING THE HYBRIDITY OF THE GRAPHIC NOVEL by DALLAS J. DYCUS, JR. Under the Direction of Michael Galchinsky ABSTRACT The genre of comics has had a tumultuous career throughout the twentieth century: it has careened from wildly popular to being perceived as the source of society‘s ills. Despite having been relegated to the lowest rung of the artistic ladder for the better part of the twentieth century, comics has been gaining in quality and respectability over the last couple of decades. My introductory chapter provides a broad, basic introduction to the genre of comics––its historical development, its different forms, and a survey of comics criticism over the last thirty years. In chapter two I clarify the nature of comics by comparing it to literature, film, and pictorial art, thereby highlighting its hybrid nature. It has elements in common with all of these, and yet it is a distinct genre.