Comics is…: Debating the Subject of Comics Studies

Taking the contested and contestable meaning of “comics” as its starting point, Comics is… brings together ten comics scholars from different disciplines and with different approaches to what some of us call comics, to debate and discuss the foundations of Comics Studies in a provocative and thought-provoking way. The book is built around a three-part structure: each contributor writes a sentence or brief statement, starting from the prompt “Comics is…”; a colleague replies to the statement with a reflection, critique, or application of the statement or the position it advances; and, finally, the author of the statement responds to the reply in a brief essay. Through its dialogical format, the book is likely to spark new conversations in the field; the statement–response–reply format will illustrate that the ways we think as comics scholars are processual, and any reader will find things they agree and disagree with in its pages - and, more importantly, will find occasion to reevaluate their own thinking. Furthermore, when taken together, the “Comics is…” statements along with the responses and replies provide a barometer of the state of Comics Studies at present, exemplifying current approaches within the field and some of the thinking behind why some of us do our work in certain ways, while others choose sometimes radically different ones.