A Concise Dictionary of Comics

There has been an undeniable rise in the popularity of graphic novels and superhero movies for a few decades. This increase in awareness has seen a surge in academic studies of, and pedagogical books devoted to, comics. Pedri (English, Memorial Univ. of Newfoundland; Experiencing Visual Storyworlds: Focalization in Comics) found a gap in the related literature—a dearth of reference resources dedicated to terms commonly utilized in the study of comic books and its culture. The result is her creation of this jargon-free compendium of definitions, which features more than 1,000 terms related to comics studies, collecting, and publishing. Topics range from collecting to visual elements of comics, all of which will help lay readers using this dictionary to thoroughly study comics. The brief definitions will show readers how certain terms can function in the comic world. References used throughout the book are included in the closing 95-page bibliography of comics scholarship. An index of thematic groupings is included to make the work more user friendly for those who are not yet familiar with comics.