MISSION STATEMENT

This site is dedicated to the exploration of comics and literature at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The comic book is in a process of transformation, from a species of pulp fiction on the margins of children’s literature to a powerful art form. How the academic system will deal with that transformation remains an unanswered question. A number of creators and critics have announced that this new art form is not literary, that comics and graphic novels constitute their own medium. To this, we set out three main claims:

1. That the view of comics as their own medium is myopic and does a disservice to both comics and to more established forms of literature.
2. That cartoons, comics, and graphic novels, as well as verse and prose—call them what you like, but we call them graphia—are all linked by the common use of the page to create a lasting material expression in the face of the relentless and alienating force of time.
3. That we can become more sophisticated readers of the page by studying all forms of graphia.

Professor William Kuskin
Boulder, Colorado – 2009

FEATURED COMIC: GRAPHIA

English Language Notes 46.2, the special issue on comics, contains an embedded story by William Kuskin and Matthew Slade. Read the first two pages here.

For more information clink the blue cover on your right.

 

 

The Graphiaology website was created by the Spring 2009 Advanced Comics class at the University of Colorado at Boulder.