This introduction to studying comics and graphic novels is a structured guide to a popular topic. It deploys novel cognitive approaches to analyze the importance of psychological and physical aspects of reader experience and features activities and exercises throughout.
When readers become victims of the murder mysteries they are immersed in, when superheroes embark on a quest to challenge their authors or when the fictional rock band Gorillaz flirt with Madonna during their performance, then metalepsis in popular culture occurs. Metalepsis describes the transgression of the boundary between the fictional world and (a representation of) the real world. This volume establishes a transmedial definition of metalepsis and explores the phenomenon in twelve case studies across media and genres of popular culture: from film, TV series, animated cartoons, graphic novels and popular fiction to pop music, music videos, holographic projections and fan cultures. Narrative studies have considered metalepsis so far largely as a phenomenon of postmodern or avant-garde literature. Metalepsis in Popular Culture investigates metalepsis’ ties to the popular and traces its transmedial importance through a wealth of examples from the turn of the 20th century to this day. The articles also address larger issues such as readerly immersion, the appeal of complexity in popular culture, or the negotiation of fiction and reality in media, and invite readers to rethink these issues through the prism of metalepsis.
Nach dem Golden Age der Superheldencomics kam das Silver Age, so die Comic-Geschichtsschreibung – und danach revolutionierte der britische Autor Alan Moore das Genre mit Watchmen (1986). Elegante Erzählstrukturen, feinsinnige Charakterskizzen und differenzierte Ideologiekritik waren vor Watchmen kaum ein Merkmal der Superhelden, doch Moore schuf aus der populären Tradition eines halben Jahrhunderts eine vielschichtige graphic novel und ein präzises Porträt des Kalten Krieges. Karin Kukkonen zeichnet die unterschiedlichen Perspektiven, die Watchmen auf die Superhelden wirft, auf der Grundlage von M. M. Bachtins Konzept der Polyphonie, des Dialogs menschlicher Blickwinkel, nach. Eine ausführliche Analyse des Leseprozesses im Comic beleuchtet Erzähltechnik und Charakterisierungsstrategien und verortet Watchmen in seinen kultur- und zeitgeschichtlichen Kontexten. „Who watches the Watchmen?“ – Jeder, der Literatur auf höchstem Niveau schätzt. Dieser Band weist Wege zu einer informierten Lektüre von Moores Meilenstein der Comicgeschichte.