Selected Resources for Communication 222: Comic Books as Culture

Fall Semester 2010

Books | Periodicals | Web Sites

BOOKS

LC subject headings | LC Call Number Classes | Library Catalogs | Reference Books | Top

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Comic books, strips, etc.
Graphic novels
Underground comic books, strips, etc.
Comic book fans

Library of Congress Classifications (a selected list)

PN 6700 - 6790 Comic books, strips, etc., including:
PN 6710 - General works, including history
PN 6712 - Moral and religious aspects
PN 6720 - General collections
PN 6725-6728 - United States
PN 6735-6738 - Great Britain
PN 6790 .J3 - Japan

See also: our list of Books of or about Comics and Graphic Novels Shelved in Unusual Places (ie, materials not in the Main Stacks PN 6700s)

Bibliographies

  • Comics Scholarship Annotated Bibliographies
  • Gravett, Paul. Graphic Novels: Everything You Need to Know. New York: Collins Design, 2005. [check availability in EZRA] — An excellent visual and textual guide to influential graphic novels and the works they influenced. A great way to get an overview of various graphic novel styles.

    • Locating Books in Library Catalogs

    At Wittenberg: EZRA
    At other Ohio Libraries OhioLINK Catalog
    In North America For ILL WorldCat

    Comics Research Libraries

    Michigan State University's List of Comics Research Libraries, including:

  • Ohio State U - Cartoon Research Library [description] [library web page]
  • Kent State U [description] [library web page]
  • Bowling Green State U - Popular Culture Lib [description] [library web page]
  • Michigan State U - Comic Art Collection [description] [library web page]
  • Indiana U - Michael E. Uslan Collection [description] [library web page]

    • Periodicals

    Comics Journal, 1973-
    Held at BGSU and OSU; also at Denison from 2003-
    Not indexed? Many interviews with comics authors/artists available on their website
    Image [&] Narrative
    Free online web journal. Searchable.
    ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies, 2004-
    Free online web journal
    Table of Contents online
    International Journal of Comic Art, 1999-
    Held at BGSU, Miami U, OSU, and U of Cincinnati
    Indexed in MLA Bibliography
    Journal of Popular Culture
    Wittenberg has v.1 to present, plus online starting in 1970.
    Indexed in ?

    Scholarly v. Popular Articles/Periodicals

    Indexes to periodicals for Comics Research

    America: History and Life
    Art Abstracts
    Historical Abstracts
    Humanities Abstracts
    JSTOR (searchable fulltext journals!)
    Modern Language Association Bibliography
    ** Index to Comic Book Artist and Alter Ego
    Partial index; will add content throughout semester. See Dr. Smith for the magazine issues. Special thanks to Comm Dept student assistant Jamie Dougherty (Spring 2006) and Josh Cohick (Fall 2006-)for doing the data entry.

    Other Useful Indexes

    PsycINFO
    Religion & Philosophy Collection
    Sociological Abstracts
    Sociological Collection

    Locating Journals:

    At Wittenberg:
    EZRA, the library catalog: Web EZRA
    See our online list of Journals the Library Has
    At other Ohio academic libraries:
    OhioLINK Central Catalog (Note: you cannot usually get periodicals through OhioLINK)

    Web Resources

    WikiProject Comics - a subset of the Wikipedia online encyclopedia. Note: content is editable by anyone and should therefore be treated with special attention to possible errors.

    Evaluating Web Sites

    Useful Literary Web Sites

    Compiled by Ken Irwin, kirwin@wittenberg.edu.