The Rise of the Graphic Novel: Computational Criticism and the Evolution of Literary Value 1009182935, 9781009182935

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THE RISE OF THE GRAPHIC NOVEL Bringing digital humanities methods to the study of comics, this monograph traces the emergence of the graphic novel at the intersection of popular and literary culture. Based on a representative corpus of over 250 graphic novels from the United States, Canada, and Great Britain, it shows how the genre has built on the visual style of comics while adopting selected features of the contemporary novel. This argument positions the graphic novel as a crucial case study for our understanding of twenty-firstcentury culture. More than simply a niche format, graphic novels demonstrate how contemporary literature reworks elements of genre narrative, reconfiguring rather than abolishing distinctions between high and low. The book also puts forward a new historical periodization for the graphic novel, centered on integration into the literary marketplace and leading to an explosive growth in page length and a diversification of aesthetic styles. Alexander Dunst teaches American Studies at Paderborn University. His research focuses on twentieth-century cultural history, the digital humanities, and contemporary US literature. He is the author of Madness in Cold War America (2016) and coedited the essay collection Empirical Comics Research (2018).

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CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN GRAPHIC NARRATIVES Editors Jan Baetens, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Hugo Frey, University of Chichester Martha Kuhlman, Bryant University This series has been established to give readers access to the latest groundbreaking research on graphic narratives. Combining meticulously researched historical studies with new theoretically rich critical engagements, it will publish the leading scholars at work today. Graphic narrative – the study of both comics and graphic novels, as well as other associated text-image materials – is a deliberately open approach that invites a move away from sterile, and too insider, discussions on the definition of forms. Works published in the series will be focussed on Anglophone and North American graphic narrative but will also explore where that milieu is central to the developments of ‘world’ graphic narrative. The series will upgrade notions of where graphic narrative has come from and where it is going next. It will provide original re-interpretation of classic works and bring to new attention missing masterpieces now ripe for reevaluation. It opens a new conversation on how text and image combine to tell powerful stories that really matter. In a period of significant change in how texts and images are consumed via digital platforms, the series is intended to be a research landmark that will shape scholarly thinking and teaching through the 2020s.

Published online by Cambridge University Press

THE RISE OF THE GRAPHIC NOVEL Computational Criticism and the Evolution of Literary Value

Alexander Dunst Paderborn University

Published online by Cambridge University Press

Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8EA, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 103 Penang Road, #05–06/07, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore 238467 Cambridge University Press is part of Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a department of the University of Cambridge. We share the University’s mission to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781009182935 DOI: 10.1017/9781009182942 © Alexander Dunst 2023 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press & Assessment. First published 2023 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. A Cataloging-in-Publication data record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-1-009-18293-5 Hardback Cambridge University Press & Assessment has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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Contents

page vii ix xi

List of Figures List of Tables Preface

1 Introduction: Computational Criticism and the Transformation of Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.1 Periodizing the Rise of the Graphic Novel 6 1.2 Aesthetic Gentrification and the Struggle over Popular Culture 11 1.3 On Method: Towards a Situated Reading 19 2 How We Read Comics Now: Graphic Narrative beyond Close Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 2.1 From Corpus Design to Computational Criticism 30 2.2 The Graphic Novel in an Age of Digital Scholarship 46 2.3 Graphic Narrative beyond Close Reading 56 3 Time, Color, and Cultural Capital in Graphic Narrative 3.1 Graphic Nonfiction and the Historical Turn 3.2 Past/Present/Future: Popular Narrative and the Contemporary 3.3 What Color Is the Past?

. . . . . 62 65

4 Novel Values: The Density of the Comic Book as Graphic Novel 4.1 Computing Complexity 4.2 Literary Surplus Value and the Labor of Density 4.3 An Information History of Graphic Narrative

81 90 104 113 120 134

5 The Social Imagination of Graphic Narrative . . . . . . . . . . 147 5.1 Comics as Character Systems 150 5.2 The Personal, the Family, and the Social 155 5.3 Towards an Intersectional Analysis of Graphic Narrative 166 v Published online by Cambridge University Press

CONTENTS

6 Conclusion: The Contact Zones of Contemporary Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Appendix: List of Titles in the Graphic Narrative Corpus (GNC) Notes Bibliography Index

vi Published online by Cambridge University Press

185 192 223 236

Figures

2.1 Graphic Narrative Corpus (GNC) divided by subgenre

. . . . . page 40

2.2 Authorship categories by genre. Y-axis specifies number of titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 2.3 Publication format by genre

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

2.4 Relative percentage and overall number of mentions in Bonn Bibliography of Comics Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 2.5 Number of pages per book title by year of publication . . . . . . . . . . 47 2.6 Brightness per genre. The Anova test shows statistical significance for the following genre pairings: graphic memoir – graphic novel, graphic fantasy – graphic novel, graphic fantasy – graphic memoir, graphic fantasy – graphic nonfiction

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

2.7 Historical development of mean brightness per macro-genre . . . . . . 55 2.8 Titles along the axes of popularity and prestige

. . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

3.1 Temporal settings in the GNC by decade. Y-axis specifies the number of titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 3.2 Relative share of temporal settings correlated with categories of prestige and popularity

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

3.3 Temporal settings for macro-genres in the GNC. Y-axis specifies the number of titles per macro-genre. Distinctions are significant for past settings, with F