CMS 318 Comic Books, Graphic Novels and Visual Storytelling Full Curriculum Program Fall 2022 Semester CEA & JCU Hybrid - Rome

The course will be devoted to ?comix? (understood as both serialized comic strips and comic-books) and the more contemporary format of the ?graphic novel?. Other forms of graphic storytelling, ranging from tapestries to children?s book illustrations to the underground graphic productions of the counterculture, will also be investigated, including traditions of sequential art in a global context. An initial historical contextualization will be followed by analyses of the form?s specificity through a number of theoretical perspectives (including visual culture studies, critical theory, narrative and narration, authorship, ideology, postmodernism, fan cultures and reception), allowing students to critically engage the works as ?texts?. The relation of the specific visual culture of comics with other mediums -particularly the cinema and gaming- as well as its influence in other realms of popular culture will also be explored.