New US Book On Comics - "The System of Comics"

[esquirecomics]

Now available in an English version (originally in French). Perhaps our French board members can comment on the book.

 

 

The System of Comics (Hardcover)

by Thierry Groensteen (Author), Bart Beaty (Translator), Nick Nguyen (Translator)

 

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List Price: $40.00

 

 

Editorial Reviews

 

Book Description

This edition of Thierry Groensteen’s The System of Comics makes available in English a groundbreaking work on comics by one of the medium’s foremost scholars. In this book, originally published in France in 1999, Groensteen explains clearly the subtle, complex workings of the medium and its unique way of combining visual, verbal, spatial, and chronological expressions. The author explores the nineteenth-century pioneer Rodolphe Töpffer, contemporary Japanese creators, George Herriman’s Krazy Kat, and modern American autobiographical comics.

The System of Comics uses examples from a wide variety of countries including the United States, England, Japan, France, and Argentina. It describes and analyzes the properties and functions of speech and thought balloons, panels, strips, and pages to examine methodically and insightfully the medium’s fundamental processes.

 

From this, Groensteen develops his own coherent, overarching theory of comics, a "system" that both builds on existing studies of the "word and image" paradigm and adds innovative approaches of his own. Examining both meaning and appreciation, the book provides a wealth of ideas that will challenge the way scholars approach the study of comics. By emphasizing not simply "storytelling techniques" but also the qualities of the printed page and the reader’s engagement, the book’s approach is broadly applicable to all forms of interpreting this evolving art.

 

From the Publisher

This authoritative exploration of how the comics achieve meaning, form, and function

 

--- Provides first English-language edition of a groundbreaking study of comics

 

--- Includes a new introduction by the translators that puts Groensteen’s work in critical and historical context

 

--- Provides English-language scholars with Groensteen’s revolutionary examination of how the mechanics of the comics create meaning

 

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Product Details

 

Hardcover: 192 pages

Publisher: University Press of Mississippi (February 2007)

[oldmilwaukee6er]

aphoric, spendy academic drek that likely tries to tie obscure french literary critical approaches (eg. barthes, derrida, etc) to the form of comics. 'sides, 40 bones for 192 pgs... probably pass. but it probably does well to further strengthen the 'comics as literature movement' underway in the academy.

 

i do enjoy browsing through UMISS's pro-comics publications. received ALTERNATIVE COMICS: An Emerging Literature for Christmas and i had really high hopes, but it's so boring it puts me to sleep. basically reading somebody's dissertation.

[adams]

Is this in direct competition with Beerbohm's book?

Any mention of OO ?

[binarysunrise]

Does UMISS publish many books on comic history?

[osborn_fr]

First time i hear of this book. But i'm incult.

[oldmilwaukee6er]

Does UMISS publish many books on comic history?

Not so much comics history... more academic works on comics (e.g. the two aformentioned works, linguistical works like The Language of Comics, etc.). They publish some artists under their "Conversations" line; R Crumb, Carl Banks, Schulz...

 

I don't mean to be down on this title... I enjoy UMISS Press' listings and the wife, on the verge of her PhD in linguistics/engl lit, gets all their pre-sale mailers. I will probably wait for the paperback on this one and save 1/2...

[djpinkpanther67]

It would probably overload my brain if I tried to read it...