The Routledge Companion to Gender and Sexuality in Comic Book Studies is a comprehensive, global, and interdisciplinary examination of the essential relationship between Gender, Sexuality, Comics, and Graphic Novels.

A diverse range of international and interdisciplinary scholars take a closer look at how gender and sexuality have been essential in the evolution of comics, and how gender and sexuality in comics demand that we re-frame and re-view comics history. Chapters cover a wide array of intersectional topics including Queer Underground and Alternative comics, Feminist Autobiography, re-drawing disability, Latina testimony, and re-evaluating the critical whiteness and masculinity of superheroes in this first truly global reference text to gender and sexuality in comics.

Comics have always been an important place for the radical exploration of feminist and non-binary sexualities and identities, and the growth of non-normative comic book traditions as a field of inquiry makes this an essential text for upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates, and researchers studying Comics Studies, Women's and Gender Studies, Literary Studies, and Cultural Studies.

About the Author

Frederick Luis Aldama is Distinguished University Professor at the Ohio State University. He is the award-winning author, co-author, and editor of over 40 books, including the Eisner Award-winning Latinx Superheroes in Mainstream Comics. He is the editor of nine book series, including Latinographix, a trade-press series that publishes Latinx graphic fiction and nonfiction. He is creator of the first documentary on the history of Latinx superheroes in comics (Amazon Prime) and co-founder and director of SOL-CON: Brown & Black Comix Expo. He is the founder and director of the Obama White House award-winning LASER: Latinx Space for Enrichment & Research as well as the founder and co-director of the Humanities & Cognitive Sciences High School Summer Institute. He holds joint appointments in English, Spanish, and Portuguese and is faculty affiliate in Film Studies and the Center for Cognitive and Brain Sciences. In 2020, he debuted his first children's book, The Adventures of Chupacabra Charlie.

Reviews

"Yet another milestone in Aldama's overturning of long held misconceptions that the world of comics and graphic novels lacks space for marginalized voices and diverse perspectives, this collection is essential reading for anyone studying and, more importantly, making comics. While taking a comprehensive look back at gender and sexuality in cartooning of the past, the carefully curated essays suggest a future for comics where previously underrepresented voices will all have equal opportunity to take center stage"

Matt Silady, Eisner-nominated comics creator and Chair of the MFA in Comics program, California College of the Arts

"A veritable cornucopia of sophisticated, intersectional analysis that digs deep into the history of the comics industry and the sequential art medium to examine how gender and sexuality have shaped our understanding of storytelling, our worldview, and ourselves. This is a necessary compendium that will continue to push comics forward."

Barbra Dillon, Fanbase Press Editor-in-Chief

"With its overarching intersectional framework used to investigate a medium uniquely suited for both personal exploration and collective expression, this volume goes way beyond a cliched understanding of comics as a playground for pulp anxieties. A remarkably comprehensive tome on an elusive subject!"

Katie Skelly, award-winning comics creator and author of Maids with Fantagraphics

"Yet another milestone in Aldama's overturning of long held misconceptions that the world of comics and graphic novels lacks space for marginalized voices and diverse perspectives, this collection is essential reading for anyone studying and, more importantly, making comics. While taking a comprehensive look back at gender and sexuality in cartooning of the past, the carefully curated essays suggest a future for comics where previously underrepresented voices will all have equal opportunity to take center stage"

Matt Silady, Eisner-nominated comics creator and Chair of the MFA in Comics program, California College of the Arts

"A veritable cornucopia of sophisticated, intersectional analysis that digs deep into the history of the comics industry and the sequential art medium to examine how gender and sexuality have shaped our understanding of storytelling, our worldview, and ourselves. This is a necessary compendium that will continue to push comics forward."

Barbra Dillon, Fanbase Press Editor-in-Chief

"With its overarching intersectional framework used to investigate a medium uniquely suited for both personal exploration and collective expression, this volume goes way beyond a cliched understanding of comics as a playground for pulp anxieties. A remarkably comprehensive tome on an elusive subject!"

Katie Skelly, award-winning comics creator and author of Maids with Fantagraphics

Book Information
ISBN 9780367505295
Author Frederick Luis Aldama
Format Paperback
Page Count 570
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 1060g