The Graphic Novel

Graphic Novels
ENGL 2750-C
Spring 2021
Seamus O’Malley
Seamus.O'Malley@yu.edu

Superheroes Memoirs The Avant-Garde

In the early part of the twentieth century, American newspapers began publishing strips of
sequential art that became known as “comics,” because of their often humorous nature. Decades
later, publishers started to collect these strips into small pamphlets, and eventually publishers
began putting out pamphlets with original, as opposed to reproduced material. The term
“comics” stuck, hence the “comic book.”
As Marshall McLuhan theorized, new media often works in the language and modes of
older media: novels were first called “histories,” early films were conceived as
“photoplays” . Comics were no different, first trying to imitate preexisting genres like war
narratives and crime dramas. Eventually, however, comics contributed a new, unique
genre that for decades could only be found in comic book form: the superhero.
Most superhero books followed a similar format. A young man, often in some way
marginalized from society, gets in some way transformed—often via radiation, that
obsession of mid-century Nuclear Age America—and becomes super-human, possessing
remarkable powers. Part of the drama always came from the split personality most
superheroes must undergo, as the awesome powers of the alter ego are often no match
for the mortal problems faced by the secret identity.
Such a paradigm proved ripe for young, mostly male memoirists of the 1980s and 1990s.
But first many writers and artists were looking back at veteran comics-writer Will Eisner,
who in 1978 wrote A Contract with God, a series of vignettes depicting the Jewish Lower
East Side. This work is now seen as the first “graphic novel,” since it is not a collection of
separate comic books (often referred to as a “trade paperback”) but instead a complete
work of original material designed to be published and read in one unit. (While this will
be our working definition of a graphic novel, several of the works we will consider should
more technically be called trade paperbacks.)
After pioneering superhero writers like Frank Miller and Alan Moore proved that comics
could tackle adult themes, and be as aesthetically complex and rewarding as other forms
of art, the comics memoir, utilizing the graphic novel format, took off: writer/artists like
Chester Brown, Seth, and Chris Ware took many of the superhero tropes and techniques
and adapted them for narrating their very un-super lives. Female artists followed suit,
especially in the last decade that has seen work by Vanessa Davis, Marjane Satrapi and
Alison Bechdel.
While we will touch on this diachronic development of the graphic novel, we will be
mostly concerned with synchrony: we will ask how comics work, what is their shared
vocabulary, what happens to the reader/viewer as we “read” a comic. We will try to
determine the complex relationship between graphic novels the traditional novel, also
how they relate to other forms of visual art (especially painting, but also cinema).
Appreciating graphic novels means borrowing from both literary and art criticism, but
will also need a critical look at what makes the form so unique. We will turn to several
secondary sources, especially Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, to provide some
models for critical appreciation.
 
Required Texts (in order)
Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics (William Morrow, 1994) 978-0060976255
Frank Miller, The Dark Knight Returns (DC Comics, 1997) 978-1563893421
Dan Clowes, The Death Ray (Drawn & Quarterly, 2011) 978-1770460515
Chester Brown, I Never Liked You (Drawn & Quarterly, 2002) 978-1896597140
Lynda Barry, One Hundred Demons (Sasquatch, 2005) 978-1570614590
Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis (Pantheon, 2004) 037571457X
Alison Bechdel, Fun Home (Houghton Mifflin/Mariner, 2006) 978-0618871711
Art Spiegelman, Maus I & II (Pantheon, 1991 & 1993) 978-0394747231, 978-
0679729778
Gabrielle Bell, Everything is Flammable (Uncivilized Books, 2017) 978-1941250181
David Mazzucchelli, Asterios Polyp (Pantheon, 2009) 978-0307377326
 
Grade Distribution (click for more info on each item):
Quizzes (8): 50%
Reading Response Posts (11): 20%
Midterm: 10%
Final Exam: 20%
 
Zoom Attendance. You are required to attend all of each class when we have a Zoom
session, with your camera on.  (Close all other apps on your device. It is obvious from
one’s face when shopping or on social media.) Logging on late, leaving early, or not being
visible throughout class may be counted as an absence. Unexcused absences are not
acceptable and will affect your final grade. Grounds for excused absence are
documented cases of illness or family emergency, and other pressing personal
circumstances. If you are in an incompatible time zone, please make arrangements with
me so that we can make sure you are able to fulfill the attendance requirements.
Email:  In order to take this class, you must check your email frequently. Due to privacy
concerns, the only way I am allowed to send a mass email to the class is through the
Yeshiva University email system. Thus, you must either frequently check your official YU
email account or set up mail forwarding to your main email address (at least for the
duration of this class).
I conduct a significant portion of the class through email, including correspondence
regarding your papers, class protocol, updates regarding assignments, discussion points,
and tips for succeeding on your papers. If you do not check your official Yeshiva
University email account frequently, you will miss crucial information. This will
jeopardize your grade.
Students who Require Special Accommodations: Students with disabilities who are
enrolled in this course and who will be requesting documented disability-related
accommodations should make an appointment with the Office of Disability Services,
rkohn1@yu.edu during the first week of class. The office is located in 215 Lexington Ave,
Suite 505.  Once you have been approved for accommodations, please submit your
accommodation letter and discuss any specifics with me to ensure the successful
implementation of your accommodations.
Library Resources: The Yeshiva University Libraries (library.yu.edu (Links to an external
site.)) offer individualized consultations that will help you locate and cite journal articles,
books, and other credible sources for solid papers, presentations, and reports.  Skilled
information-seekers succeed academically and in the workplace.  Prepare for the future
by contacting the library at https://library.yu.edu/ask_the_library (Links to an external
site.).
Plagiarism and Cheating: Cheating on exams is a violation of academic integrity. (From
“Academic Integrity Policy" for YU.) “If it is determined that a student has cheated on a
written exam, he/she will receive an "F" in the course and will be dismissed from Yeshiva
University." Plagiarism means presenting someone else’s work as your own. Plagiarism
can be an act of deliberate fraud, such as turning in as your own work a paper wholly or
partially cut-and-pasted from the Internet, or it may be an inadvertent error, such as
forgetting to cite a source whose ideas you paraphrased or meant to quote. “Possible
penalties include, but are not limited to, dismissal from the University, suspension, failure
in the course, failure of the assignment, lowering of the grade in the assignment, or a
notation in the student's personal file.”
Graphic disclaimer: As the name of the form implies, what we will read and see will sometimes
be graphic. None of the chosen works are gratuitous in their depiction of sex or violence, but, as
in a course in Art History or Film, we are dealing with a visual medium and students should be
advised that they will encounter some explicit images. I will provide a list of pages students can
skip if they so choose, but there can be no substitution of the chosen works.
Course Schedule: After the first course day the course will be divided into three
Modules. We will have a Zoom session every Wednesday, so the course will be a blend
of synchronous and asynchronous. Click below for more information (or the quick links
at the top of the page):
Module 1: Superheroes (Jan 25-Feb 10)
Module 2: Memoir (Feb 15-Apr 7)
Module 3: The Avant-Garde (Apr 12-May 3)

M1 Superheroes
Date Reading due Assignment due
January 25 Scott McCloud Video
McCloud, Understandin
g Comics Chapter 1
January 27 Frank Miller, The Dark Reading Response
Zoom (Links to an Knight Returns (parts 1 Post
external site.) & 2)
February 1 McCloud Chapter 2 McCloud Video
Quiz
February 3 Frank Miller, The Dark Reading Response
Zoom (Links to an Knight Returns (parts 3 Post
external site.) & 4)
February 8 McCloud Chapter 3 McCloud Video
Quiz
February 10 Dan Clowes, The Death Reading Response
Zoom (Links to an Ray Post
external site.)

M2 Memoirs
February 15 McCloud Chapter 4 McCloud
Video
Quiz

February 17 Chester Brown, I Reading

Zoom (Link Never Liked You Response
s to an Post
external
site.)
February 22 McCloud Chapter 5 McCloud
Video
Quiz

February 24 Lynda Barry, One Reading

Zoom (Link Hundred Demons Response
s to an Post
external
site.)
March 1 McCloud Chapter 6 McCloud
Video
Quiz

March 3 Marjane Reading

Zoom (Link Satrapi, Persepolis Response
s to an Post
external
site.)
March 8 review for Midterm  

March 10   Midterm
Zoom (Link
s to an
external
site.)
March 15 Alison Monday
Zoom (Link Bechdel, Fun Zoom
s to an Home session
external Reading
site.) Response
Post

March 17 Alison  
Zoom (Link Bechdel, Fun
s to an Home
external
site.)
March 22 McCloud Chapter 7 McCloud
Video
Quiz

March 24 Art Reading

Zoom (Link Spiegelman, Maus I Response
s to an & II Post
external
site.)
   Break  
April 7 Art Reading
Zoom (Link Spiegelman, Maus I Response
s to an & II Post
external
site.)

M3 The Avant-Garde
April 12 McCloud Chapter 8 McCloud Video
Quiz
April 14 Gabrielle Reading Response
Zoom (Links to an Bell, Everything is Post
external site.) Flammable
April 19 McCloud Chapter 9 McCloud Video
Quiz
April 21 David Reading Response
Zoom (Links to an Mazzucchelli, Asterio Post
external site.) s Polyp
April 26    
April 28 David  
Zoom (Links to an Mazzucchelli, Asterio
external site.) s Polyp
May 3   Review
Zoom (Links to an
external site.)
May 21 (Friday)   Final Exam