With original essays examining everything from Little Nemo to Calvin and Hobbes, from Batman to the Lumberjanes, from Bone to Maus, this collection of companion essays is your online introduction to the larger questions and contexts of the groundbreaking new exhibit at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum (part of the Ohio State University Libraries).

Citation:  Abate, Michelle Ann, and Joe Sutliff Sanders, eds. Good Grief! Children and Comics. Columbus, OH: Ohio state University Libraries, 2016. PDF. DOI: 10.18061/1811/77539

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Table of Contents

1. Joe Sutliff Sanders, “How Comics Became Kids’ Stuff”
2. James Curtis, “‘Let’s Go Exploring!’:  Illustrating Childhood Development in Calvin and Hobbes”
3. Jennifer Duggan, “Traumatic Origins:  Orphanhood and the Superhero”
4. Kyle Eveleth, “Striking Camp:  Empowerment and Re-Presentation in Lumberjanes“
5. Annette Wannamaker, “The Great American Graphic Novel:  Jeff Smith’s Bone and Its Influences”
6. Camila Z. Tessler, “There Are Some Things You Can’t Fix with a Magic Wand:  Politics in Children’s Comics”
7. Taraneh Matloob Haghanikar, “The Character in the Mask:  An Analysis of Mask in Art Spiegelman’s Maus“

Contributors

Michelle Ann Abate is Associate Professor of Literature for Children and Young Adults at The Ohio State University.  Michelle has published on comics and graphic novels in Jeunesse and The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. With Karly Marie Grice, Michelle co-curated the exhibit “ ‘Good Grief!’: Children and Comics,” which was on display at The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum in Summer 2016.

James M. Curtis is Assistant Professor of English at Tougaloo College. His research focuses on psychoanalysis and children’s literature and can be found in the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, Children’s Literature in Education, and other edited collections on children’s literature and culture.

Jennifer Duggan is an assistant professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.  Her previous work has examined Carroll’s Alice books and other Victorian mathematical narratives, amongst other topics.

Kyle Eveleth is a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Kentucky, specializing in American Literature, Children’s and Young Adult Literature, and graphic narrative. His dissertation examines the creation and proliferation of adolescent literature and culture in the early 20th century.

Taraneh Matloob Haghanikar defended her Ph.D. dissertation in January 2016 at Oakland University. She is fascinated by the world of multicultural children’s literature. In 2008, Taraneh was awarded a three-month fellowship for specialists in the field of children’s literature at the International Youth Library of Munich.

Joe Sutliff Sanders is an associate professor in the children’s literature track of the English Department at Kansas State University. He is the author of multiple essays on comics, and his collection The Comics of Hergé:  When the Lines Are not so Clear will appear in August 2016.

Camila Tessler is a Special Collections Description and Access Program Assistant at The Ohio State University. She has a Master of Letters in Children’s Literature from Newcastle University and an MLS from the University of Arizona.

Annette Wannamaker is Professor of Children’s Literature in the English Department at Eastern Michigan University, where she teaches courses about illustrated texts, children’s media, and criticism of children’s literature. She is North American Editor of Children’s Literature in Education, has edited several collections of academic essays, and is the author of Boys in Children’s Literature and Popular Culture: Masculinity, Abjection, and the Fictional Child.