Comics

  • Comics@CSUN logo by Jed McGowan

Comics@CSUN launches a new series of online essays

September 27, 2016

Ways of Reading Comics demonstrates strategies for the critical reading of comics

Black Widow No. 6 (Oct. 2016), page 1, by Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, et al. © Marvel.

Comics@CSUN co-founder Charles Hatfield, Professor of English, has just launched Ways of Reading Comics, an occasional series of online essays here at the Comics@CSUN website. The aim of this series is to share with a wider public some of the kinds of work done in English 333 (Comics and Graphic Novels), the popular GE course Prof. Hatfield founded in 2005. The first entry in the series offers a formal reading of a single page from the current Marvel comic Black Widow, plus a coda reflecting on the gender ideology implicit in the popular Black Widow character.