Editorial

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Notes

1 There is confusion about the best term to apply to the expressive medium that Scott McCloud has defined as ‘Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer’ (1994, 20). We will follow McCloud and use ‘comics’ as a generic term to encompass everything from four panel comic strips to book length fiction and non-fiction graphic narratives.

2 The Eisner awards were first given in 1988 and are the comic-form equivalent of the Oscars. They are named after Will Eisner (1917–2005), who was a leading figure in the evolution from the comic book to the ‘graphic novel.’

3 Two recent indicators of growth in the comic book industry indicate very rapid growth of the industry: Albanese (2022) https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/89976-librarypass-says-comics-plus-circulation-has-doubled-in-first-half-of-2022.html ; Library Pass (2022) https://librarypass.com/2022/07/19/comics-plus-doubles-circulation-in-first-half-of-2022/