Drawing the Line

Drawing the Line: Comics Studies and INKS, 1994–1997 collects some of the most important essays from INKS: Cartoon and Comic Art Studies, the first peer-reviewed scholarly journal devoted exclusively to comics studies. The volume, edited by Lucy Shelton Caswell, the journal’s founding editor, and Jared Gardner, editor of the new Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society, celebrates this foundational moment in the fast-growing field of comics studies and also serves as a call to contemporary scholars to revisit the roads-not-taken mapped out by these scholars and cartoonist critics.

Included in the volume are essays by pioneering comics scholars on newspaper comic strips, Japanese manga, Chinese lianhuanhua, comic books, graphic novels, and editorial cartoons, alongside writings and artwork by celebrated cartoonists such as Will Eisner, Oliver Harrington, Charles Schulz, and Frank Stack. This volume serves as an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the history and study of the comics form, visual culture, or the history of journalism.

Lucy Shelton Caswell is Professor Emerita and founding curator of The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum.

Jared Gardner is Professor in the Department of English and the film studies program, specializing in American literature, film, and popular culture. He is also the editor of Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society.

Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction

Essays

Comics and the New Literacy: An Essay
WILL EISNER

View from the Back Stairs
OLIVER HARRINGTON

Lyonel Feininger: A Kinder, Gentler Comic Strip
ALAN FRIED

Was Krazy Kat Black?: The Racial Identity of George Herriman
M. THOMAS INGE

Litigation and Early Comic Strips: The Lawsuits of Outcault, Dirks, and Fisher
MARK D. WINCHESTER

Crusading for World Peace: Ding Darling, Woodrow Wilson, and the League of Nations
RICHARD SAMUEL WEST

Picture Stories: Eric Drooker and the Tradition of Woodcut Novels
DAVID BERONÄ

The Captain and the Comics: A Capsule HIstory of the Medium in its Fourth and Fifth Decades
ROBERT C. HARVEY

The “Monumental” Lincoln as an American Cartoon Convention
ROGER A. FISCHER

Easy-Going Daddy, Kaptayn Barbell, and Unmad: American Influences Upon Asian Comics
JOHN A. LENT

Literature in Line: Picture Stories in the People’s Republic of China
JULIA F. ANDREWS

Drawing the Lind: An Absolute Defense for Political Cartoons
CHRISTOPHER LAMB

Black is the Color of my Comic Book Character: An Examination of Ethnic Stereotypes
CHRISTIAN DAVENPORT

Heartbreak Soup: The Interdependence of Theme and Form
CHARLES HATFIELD

Emanata

Percival Chubb and the League for the Improvement of the Children’s Comic Supplement
AMY KISTE NYBERG

Women and Children First
TRINA ROBBINS

Boy Can He Draw
MARK J. COHEN

Book Reviews

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
REVIEWED BY JOSEPH WITEK

Adult Comics: An Introduction by Roger Sabin
REVIEWED BY FRANK STACK

The Art of the Funnies: An Aesthetic History by Robert C. Harvey
REVIEWED BY IAN GORDON

100 Years of American Newspaper Comics edited by Maurice Horn
REVIEWED BY ROBERT C. HARVEY

List of Contributors
Index