Out Now - Medieval Spaces in Comics: Affect and Ideology

I seem to have missed posting on this. My apologies.

Medieval Spaces in Comics: Affect and Ideology

Elizabeth Allyn Woock

Full details and ordering information at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-66493-9. 

Explores the communicative possibilities of the comics format

Brings a comics-based research methodology to the study of space, atmosphere, affect and mood in comics

Layers in a nuanced approach to the depiction of medieval environments

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels (PSCGN)

About this book

This book proposes a conceptual framework for analyzing and discussing narrative space in comics. Building on Mieke Bal’s phenomenological approach to cultural analysis (2002), Gaston Bachelard’s Poetics of Space (1996), and Geraint D’Arcy’s use of the mise en scène to describe space in the comics format (2020), this book layers in a nuanced approach to the depiction of medieval environments through affect theory and poetics to interrogate the staging of ideas which are associated with the medieval period. Considering the action, setting, and story – as well as affect, atmosphere, and mood – medieval space is contextualized as an ethically complex poetic image. This book also explores the communicative possibilities of the comics format, and seeks to show rather than just tell the methodologies of space in comics-based research through illustrating key sections of the text.

About the author

Elizabeth Allyn Woock is an assistant professor in the Department of English and American Studies at Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic. Her work focuses on medieval history and medievalisms, as well as comics studies and comics-based research. She is interested in exploring how the comics format can be harnessed for academic writing and takes every opportunity to explore this methodology.

Coming Soon - Medievalism in Japanese Manga: From Vikings to Samurai

Came across this by accident today. Looks like an exciting collection.

Medievalism in Japanese Manga: From Vikings to Samurai

Edited by Minjie Su

Series: Medievalism

Series Vol. Number: 33

Imprint: D.S.Brewer

Hardcover

9781843848196

Out 01 September 2026

Available to pre-order 03 July 2026

$130.00

(Also available as an ebook.)

Full details and ordering information at https://boydellandbrewer.com/book/medievalism-in-japanese-manga-9781843848196/. 

Description

Examines how the Middle Ages is reimagined in Japanese manga and related media, from berserkr and Bushidōbaseball to Arthurian knights and Valkyries.

While the modern fascination with the Middle Ages has long been observed and discussed in medieval and medievalism studies, the medium of Japanese manga has only recently begun to attract scholarly attention as a rich repertoire of (neo)medievalist imaginative worlds. Given Japan’s geographical, cultural, and historical distance from medieval Europe, this phenomenon raises several questions. What allure does the era hold for Japanese pop culture creators – and why? And in what ways are the Middle Ages reimagined to resonate with different audiences?

This volume addresses these questions through close readings of a selection of globally popular and influential manga and related media, including Vinland Saga, Berserk, ONE PIECE, Attack on Titan, and Fate. Beginning with manga inspired by Old Norse-Icelandic materials, the essays then move on to examine those incorporating medieval(ist) motifs in a broader sense and those merging medieval(ist) Europe with the so-called “medieval” Japan. In doing so, this volume not only examines how individual stories or elements from the Middle Ages are adopted and adapted within Japanese manga media, but also contextualises them within the reception history of the Middle Ages in Japan, highlighting its far-reaching impact on Japan’s perception of its own past.

The introduction and chapter 7 are available as Open Access under the Creative Commons licence CC BY-NC-ND.

Contents

List of Illustrations

List of Contributors

Acknowledgements

Citation Practice

Introduction: Medieval, Medievalism, and Manga

Minjie Su, Maxime Danesin

1 The Translation Movement of Medieval Icelandic Literature in Post-war Japan: From Shizuka Yamamuro to the Present

Minoru Ozawa

2 Rewriting Norse Myths and Culture in Japanese Manga: The Viking’s Violence in ONE PIECE and Vinland Saga

Sayaka Matsumoto

3 War, Peace, and Performance in Jómsvíkinga saga and Vinland Saga

Þórdís Edda Jóhannesdóttir

4 Go Beyond Iceland to the End of the Edge of the World – The Genuine Adventurer Thorfinn Thorsson

Makoto Yukimura, Yao Sun (trans.)

5 The Valkyries and Fenrir in the Mangaesque Imaginationscape

Maxime Danesin

6 ‘Ymir’s Wicked Blood’: About the Uses of Nordic Medievalism in Attack on Titan

Gaïa Perreaut

7 A Berserkr in Shining Armour: Berserk Fury, Werewolf, and Mental Trauma in Kentaro Miura’s Manga Berserk

Minjie Su

8 Berserker Knight and the Problem of Anger in Fate

John Lance Griffith

9 Arthurian Legends and Gawain’s Reception in Japan

Hiroki Okamoto

10 Die Like a Warrior in Vain? The Limits of Medievalisation, Counter-gentlemanification, and the Reinscription of Bushidō Baseball in Samurai Giants

Chiharu Hasegawa

Afterword

Minjie Su

Bibliography

Index

About the Editor

MINJIE SU is a Marie Curie Research Fellow at the Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Oslo.

Due out in 2026 - Batman and the Classics

Forthcoming from McFarland:

Batman and the Classics: Echoes of Mythology, Literature and Philosophy in the Comics and Films

Michael D. Nichols

Full details and ordering information at https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/batman-and-the-classics/. 

Format: softcover (6 x 9)

Bibliographic Info: ca. 30 photos, notes, bibliography, index

Copyright Date: 2026

pISBN: 978-1-4766-9722-2

eISBN: 979-8-3686-0030-7

Imprint: McFarland

$49.95 - Pre-Order Now

About the Book

Fans of Batman are used to seeing the Caped Crusader associate with the likes of Superman and Wonder Woman, but what if one were to put the Dark Knight into the company of figures such as Beowulf, Robin Hood, Oedipus, and Sun Tzu, among others? This is the first book to compare famous Batman graphic novels, story arcs, and some films to classic texts of literature and philosophy from around the world. Through this comparison we can see, for instance, how the epic warrior archetype of Beowulf or Roland persists in The Dark Knight Returns, or the metaphor of the journey, found in such works as The Odyssey, can be found in the story arc Knightfall. By placing definitive and famous works of Batman into conversation with such classic texts, this book sheds light on the deeper meanings of key stories of the Dark Knight, as well as how long-lasting themes of literature and philosophy have persisted in the stories of this famous popular culture character.

About the Author

Michael D. Nichols is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Cornerstone Integrated Liberal Arts program at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

New Collection - Comics des Mittelalters – Mittelaltercomics

New book out from transcript Verlag.

Comics des Mittelalters – Mittelaltercomics: Vom Spruchband zur Sprechblase

Marion Darilek / Matthias Däumer (HG.)

20. Mai 2025, 380 Seiten

ISBN: 978-3-8376-6931-2

Sofort versandfertig,

Lieferzeit 3-5 Werktage innerhalb Deutschlands

Full details and ordering information are available at https://www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-6931-2/comics-des-mittelalters-mittelaltercomics/?number=978-3-8376-6931-2. 

Comics sind ein zentrales Medium der Mittelalterrezeption – aber auch mittelalterliche Artefakte weisen bereits comicartige Strukturen auf. Während Comics in der Literaturwissenschaft und Kunstgeschichte längst etabliert sind, fehlt es bislang an mediävistischen Studien, die Mittelalter und Mittelalterrezeption zusammendenken. Ausgehend von der historisch offenen Definition des Comics als ›sequenzielle Kunst‹ analysieren die Beiträger*innen aus Kunstgeschichte, Literaturwissenschaft und -didaktik zum einen ›Comics des Mittelalters‹ und zum anderen ›Mittelaltercomics‹. Dabei zeigen sie, dass Bildgeschichten mehr sind als popularisierende Adaptionen des geschriebenen Wortes – vom Spruchband bis zur Sprechblase, für Forschende wie für Comic-Begeisterte.

Marion Darilek, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Deutschland

Matthias Däumer, Paris Lodron Universität Salzburg, Österreich

Kapitel-Übersicht

Frontmatter

Seite 1

Editorial

Seiten 2 - 4

Inhalt

Seiten 5 - 6

Comics des Mittelalters – Mittelaltercomics

Seiten 7 - 34

Ohne Worte

Seiten 37 - 58

Bildtexte als Träger szenischer Konstruktion

Seiten 59 - 84

Bilderburg, Codex und Teppich ‒ mittelalterliche Artefakte als Comics

Seiten 85 - 116

Gläserne Hagiografie als Sequenz

Seiten 117 - 138

Holzschnittwiederholungen in frühneuhochdeutschen Prosaromanen

Seiten 139 - 180

»Rapunzel, lass dein Haar herunter!«

Seiten 183 - 204

Catchpenny Prints, ›Gawain‹ and ›Lancelot‹

Seiten 205 - 224

The Heterogeneous Epistemic Field of Comic Adaptation and Medievalism

Seiten 225 - 244

Hugo Pratts ›Die Schweizer‹

Seiten 245 - 270

Prinzip Bildgeschichte

Seiten 271 - 300

Aus dem Rahmen fallen?

Seiten 301 - 334

Die Jeanne d’Arc-Figur im zeitgenössischen französischsprachigen Comic

Seiten 335 - 362

›Tristan und Isolde‹ auf A2-Niveau

Seiten 363 - 376

Autorinnen und Autoren

Seiten 377 - 380

Rutledge on Dante and Alan Moore

New work on Dante in the comics from the latest issue of Mythlore:

Rutledge, Zachary. "Hell as an Exploration of Sin: A Comparison of Alan Moore’s Providence to Dante’s Inferno." Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature, vol. 42, no. 2, Spring/Summer 2024, article 10, https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol42/iss2/10.

The full issue can also be purchased from the Mythopoeic Society at https://www.mythsoc.org/mythlore/mythlore-144.htm. 

Smith on Dante and Comics Theory

New scholarship update:

Smith, Philip. “Sandro Botticelli’s Visual Language in Illustrations of The Divine Comedy.” Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society, vol. 7, issue 1, Spring 2023, 49-73. Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/30/article/898386/.



Abstract

“This paper seeks to offer a close reading of Botticelli’s illustrations for The Divine Comedy using Neil Cohn and Thierry Groensteen’s tools of comics analysis. Botticelli uses a visual language, I argue, which is distinct from that of modern comics (what Neil Cohn calls American Visual Language), most notably in its flexible reading paths. Unlike modern comics creators, who use panel ordering as a primary means to convey sequence, Botticelli is not tethered to a specific horizontal reading direction; the vertical book positioning facilitates a narrative path which is not dependent upon a fixed start and end point to a given page but tracks a passage down the page. In the absence of a standard reading path, Botticelli uses a rising perspective and a distinctive color palette for recurring icons to guide his readers through a narrative.”

Don Quijote in Comics New and Recent Scholarship

Just came across the first reference in the recent number of International Journal of Comic Art and found the second reference in the bibliography.


McGowan, Mackenzi. “Quixotic ‘Adaptations’: 21st Century Illustrations and Written Tributes of Don Quijote.:” International Journal of Comic Art, vol. 24, no. 2, Fall/Winter 2022, pp. 337-55.

Warrier, Karuna. “A Recreation of Don Quixote: From Comics to Popular Culture.” Ph.D. dissertation. McGill University, 2018. eScholarship@McGill, https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/37720g31g. 

New Book: Beowulf in Comic Books and Graphic Novels

Cross-posted from Beowulf Transformed: Adaptations and Appropriations of the Beowulf Story.

Just released this week. Congratulations to Scott Nokes:

Beowulf in Comic Books and Graphic Novels

Richard Scott Nokes

(Full details and ordering information from the publisher are available from this link.)

Bibliographic Details

Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 209
Bibliographic Info: 25 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2023
pISBN: 978-1-4766-8778-0 ($49.95)
eISBN: 978-1-4766-4842-2
Imprint: McFarland

About the Book

The legendary story of Beowulf comes to us in only one medieval manuscript with no illustrations. Modern comic book and graphic novel artists have created visual interpretations of Beowulf for decades, both illustrating and altering the classic story to pull out new themes.
This book examines the growing canon of Beowulf comic books and graphic novels since the 1940s, and shows the remarkable emergence of new traditions—from re-envisioning the medieval look, to creating new plotlines, and even to transforming his identity. While placing Beowulf in a fantastical medieval setting, a techno-dystopia of the future, or modern-day America, artists have appropriated the tale to comment on social issues such as war, environmental issues, masculinity, and consumerism. Whether Beowulf is fighting new monsters or allying with popular comic book superheroes, these artists are creating a new canon of illustration that redefines Beowulf’s place in our culture.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vi
Timeline of Beowulf Comic Books and Graphic Novels ix
Note on Citations xi
Preface 1
Introduction 5
1. The Artist as Manuscript Illustrator 13
2. The Further Adventures of Beowulf 74
3. Beowulf as Storyteller 96
4. Beowulf Transformed 107
5. Beowulf for Younger Readers 129
Conclusion 172
Chapter Notes 177
Bibliography 189
Index 193

About the Author(s)

Richard Scott Nokes is a professor of medieval literature at Troy University in Troy, Alabama. His previous published research has focused on popular medievalism and manuscript culture.

Medieval Comics Papers at NeMLA 2023

Please support Casey and Rachael if you are attending this year's meeting of NeMLA.

Northeast Modern Language Association 54th Annual Convention
Niagara Falls Convention Center (Niagara Falls, NY)
23-26 March 2023
(full schedule at this link)

• Friday, 3/24: Track 7 (10:00-11:30 AM): 7.15 King Arthur's Coconuts: Towards an Understanding of Animals and the Medieval Mind (Olmstead / NCC) - Karen (Casey) Casebier (University of Tennessee-Chattanooga) presents 1st on "Men and Monsters in the Old French Werewolf Lays and Merlin, the Graphic Novel". 

• Sunday, 3/26: Track 21 (10:30 AM -12:15 PM): 21.18 Discrimination in Comic Books (Part 2) (Whitney / NCC) - Rachael Warmington (Seton Hall University) presents 3rd on "Oppressive Isms in Comic and Graphic Novel Adaptations of Arthurian Legend".

Coming Soon from McFarland: Beowulf in Comic Books and Graphic Novels

Beowulf in Comic Books and Graphic Novels

Not Yet Published

$39.95
New 2022 Pre-Order

Available for pre-order at https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/beowulf-in-comic-books-and-graphic-novels/




Richard Scott Nokes
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages:
Bibliographic Info: ca. 24 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2022
pISBN: 978-1-4766-8778-0
eISBN: 978-1-4766-4842-2
Imprint: McFarland




Richard Scott Nokes is a professor of medieval literature at Troy University in Troy, Alabama. His previous published research has focused on popular medievalism and manuscript culture.

Murphy on Comics and Teaching

Published recently in SMART is a fascinating essay by medievalist and cartoonist Patrick Murphy of Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio. The full issue can be purchased directly from SMART. 

Here is the citation:

Murphy, Patrick. “Teaching the History of the English Language with Comics.” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching, vol. 28, no. 1, Spring 2021, pp. 101-21. 

Comics scholarship in From Iceland to the Americas

My thanks to Kevin J. Harty for alerting me of this collection, which contains two items of interest:

From Iceland to the Americas: Vinland and Historical Imagination 
https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526128751/ (with full contents)

Edited by Tim William Machan and Jón Karl Helgason
Book Information
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-5261-2875-1
Pages: 304
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Series: Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture
Price: £80.00 / $120.00
Published Date: April 2020


Description

This volume investigates the reception of a small historical fact with wide-ranging social, cultural and imaginative consequences. Inspired by Leif Eiriksson's visit to Vinland in about the year 1000, novels, poetry, history, politics, arts and crafts, comics, films and video games have all come to reflect rising interest in the medieval Norse and their North American presence. Uniquely in reception studies, From Iceland to the Americas approaches this dynamic between Nordic history and its reception by bringing together international authorities on mythology, language, film and cultural studies, as well as on the literature that has dominated critical reception. Collectively, the chapters not only explore the connections among medieval Iceland and the modern Americas, but also probe why medieval contact has become a modern cultural touchstone.


Contents

11 'Who is this upstart Hitler?': Norse gods and American comics during the Second World War - Jón Karl Helgason

12 'There's no going back': The Dark Knight and Balder's descent to Hel - Dustin Geeraert





Editors

Tim William Machan is Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame

Jón Karl Helgason is Professor of Icelandic and Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Iceland

New Scholarship in The Year's Work in Medievalism 33 (2018)

The latest volume of The Year's Work in Medievalism includes two items of interest to scholars of medieval comics:


The Year's Work in Medievalism 33 (2018)

Edited by Valerie Johnson & Renée Ward, with Laura Harrison


Karl Fugelso: A Mickey Mouse Inferno: Medievalist Legacies and the Marketing of the Middle Ages pdf

Scott Manning: Warriors “Hedgehogged” in Arrows: Crusaders, Samurai, and Wolverine in Medieval Chronicles and Popular Culture pdf


The complete volume can be accessed at https://sites.google.com/site/theyearsworkinmedievalism/all-issues/33-2018.

Hurlbut on Medieval Comics

From a recent number of the International Journal of Comic Art:

Hurlbut, Jesse D. “Comics Theory for the Ages: Text and Image Relations in Medieval Manuscripts.” International Journal of Comic Art Vol. 19, No. 1, Spring/Summer 2017, pp. 353-83. 

Ordering information available at http://ijoca.blogspot.com/.

Morrison on Beowulf. Leggenda cristiana dell’antica Danimarca

New well-illustrated article on Beowulf in the comics:

Morrison, Susan Signe. “Grendel’s Mother in Fascist Italy: Beowulf in a Catholic Youth Publication.” International Journal of Comics Art, Vol. 20, no. 1, Spring/Summer 2018, pp. 331-48.

Morrison includes the following information about the essay on her blog (http://www.susansignemorrison.com/blog.htm?post=1084681):

I’m delighted that my article “Grendel’s Mother in Fascist Italy: Beowulf in a Catholic Youth Publication,” has just been published in the International Journal of Comic Art. This essay focuses on a 1940-41 Italian comic book version by Enrico Basari (author) and Kurt Caesar (illustrator). An anti-semitic portrayal of Grendel’s Mother grows out of German views of Beowulf in the 1930s. The anti-semitic overtones present in German Beowulf youth translations and adaptations sympathetic to Nazi German propaganda, produced in the decade before and simultaneously with the publication of the comic under scrutiny here, likewise crop up under the Italian fascist reign. The fraught nature of Grendel’s Mother takes on insidious dimensions in Enrico Basari’s Beowulf. Leggenda cristiana dell’antica Danimarca, appearing in serial form from Oct. 5, 1940-Jan. 25, 1941. It was featured in Il Vittorioso, a Catholic youth publication, “a nationalist publication often distributed through Catholic parishes” (Calderón, 2007:112), that attempted to go beyond mere Fascist propaganda for young people. Just how could an anti-semitic inflected Beowulf comic have affected youth readers?

New Book: Beowulf's Popular Afterlife in Literature, Comic Books, and Film

I'm excited about this new book but also frustrated that it is so expensive; publishers (like Routledge and Palgrave) need to produce all works of scholarship in both hardcovers for libraries and affordable softcovers for individuals and students.


Beowulf's Popular Afterlife in Literature, Comic Books, and Film
https://www.routledge.com/Beowulfs-Popular-Afterlife-in-Literature-Comic-Books-and-Film/Forni/p/book/9781138609839
By Kathleen Forni

Routledge
208 pages

Hardback: 9781138609839
pub: 2018-06-04
USD $140.00

eBook (VitalSource) : 9780429466014
pub: 2018-08-06
Purchase eBook $54.95


Description


Beowulf's presence on the popular cultural radar has increased in the past two decades, coincident with cultural crisis and change. Why? By way of a fusion of cultural studies, adaptation theory, and monster theory, Beowulf's Popular Afterlife examines a wide range of Anglo-American retellings and appropriations found in literary texts, comic books, and film. The most remarkable feature of popular adaptations of the poem is that its monsters, frequently victims of organized militarism, male aggression, or social injustice, are provided with strong motives for their retaliatory brutality. Popular adaptations invert the heroic ideology of the poem, and monsters are not only created by powerful men but are projections of their own pathological behavior. At the same time there is no question that the monsters created by human malfeasance must be eradicated.



Table of Contents

Chapter One Introduction: Why Beowulf?

Chapter Two Beowulf's Monsters

Retellings

Chapter Three Adult Fiction

Chapter Four Beowulf for Kids

Chapter Five Comic Books

Chapter Six Film and T.V.

Chapter Seven Appropriations Across Genres and Media

Chapter Eight Conclusion, or, The Monsters are the Critics

Bibliography

Index



About the Author

Kathleen Forni is a Professor in the English Department at Loyola University Maryland. Her previous publications include, in addition to a number of journal articles, three books examining the formation of Chaucer's canon and Chaucer's twentieth-century reception.

Coming Soon: Shakespeare and Superheroes

I applaud the effort, but wish the price was more reasonable. We need more affordable scholarship on comics with medieval and Renaissance themes.

Shakespeare and Superheroes
https://arc-humanities.org/products/s-83104-101115-27-8023/
Jeffrey Kahan

Price In US $	$79.00
Price In Sterling	£55.00
Imprint	Arc Humanities Press
Series	Recreational Shakespeare
ISBN	9781942401773
Publication Date	July 2018
Format	Hardback
Dimensions (HxW)	234 x 156 mm
Page Count	110
Illustrations	Illustrations, colour 6

 

Description 

 

This short book offers a series of thought experiments and invites Shakespeareans to rediscover the wonders and pleasures of fandom. Shakespeare Studies conferences and Comic-Cons are celebrations, unless, of course, the participants involved forget the nature of play. And that, in the instance of formal literary study, is arguably what has happened.

Shakespeare and Superheroes does not argue that comic books can or should replace Shakespeare. The goal is to explore both, to think of comics as allusively Shakespearean, telling similar stories, expressing similar concerns, exploring similar values.

Readers of Shakespeare and Superman alike may need to re-evaluate their assumptions and hierarchies; Shakespeare and Superheroes encourages all readers to engage in and to respond to literary arguments using their own personal tastes, interests, and experiences. The author argues that the more readers trust themselves, the more they bring of themselves to the text or texts, the greater the rewards.

 

Contents

Introduction

“I have shot mine arrow o’er the house, / And hurt my brother”: Death and Redemption in Hamlet and Arrow

Of Guise and Gals: Wonder Woman and Shakespearean Cross-Dressing

Tonight at the Improv: Comedians Slay!—Two Drink Minimum

Postscript

Author Bio(s)

Jeffrey Kahan is the author of several books on Shakespeare and has been a featured speaker on BBC TV and NPR. He is a Professor of English at the University of La Verne and comic book nerd.

Of Interest: Echoes of Valhalla

Echoes of Valhalla: The Afterlife of the Eddas and Sagas
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/E/bo26297607.html

Jón Karl Helgason; Translated by Jane Appleton
Distributed for Reaktion Books


256 pages | 50 halftones | 5 1/2 x 8 1/2

Cloth $24.95
ISBN: 9781780237152
Published June 2017
For sale in North and South America only

Tolkien’s wizard Gandalf, Wagner’s Valkyrie Brünnhilde, Marvel’s superhero the Mighty Thor, the warrior heading for Valhalla in Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song,” and Donald Crisp’s portrayal of Leif Eriksson in the classic film The Viking—these are just a few examples of how Icelandic medieval literature has shaped human imagination during the past 150 years. Echoes of Valhalla is a unique look at modern adaptations of the Icelandic eddas (poems of Norse mythology) and sagas (ancient prose accounts of Viking history, voyages, and battles) across an astonishing breadth of art forms.

Jón Karl Helgason looks at comic books, plays, travel books, music, and films in order to explore the reincarnations of a range of legendary characters, from the Nordic gods Thor and Odin to the saga characters Hallgerd Long-legs, Gunnar of Hlidarendi, and Leif the Lucky. Roaming the globe, Helgason unearths echoes of Nordic lore in Scandinavia, Britain, America, Germany, Italy, and Japan. He examines the comic work of Jack Kirby and cartoon work of Peter Madsen; reads the plays of Henrik Ibsen and Gordon Bottomley; engages thought travelogues by Frederick Metcalfe and Poul Vad; listens to the music of Richard Wagner, Edward Elgar, and the metal band Manowar; and watches films by directors such as Roy William Neill and Richard Fleischer, outlining the presence of the eddas and sagas in these nineteenth- and twentieth-century works.

Altogether, Echoes of Valhalla tells the remarkable story of how disparate, age-old poetry and prose originally recorded in remote areas of medieval Iceland have come to be a part of our shared cultural experience today—how Nordic gods and saga heroes have survived and how their colorful cast of characters and adventures they went on are as vibrant as ever.

Bishop's Medievalist Comics and the American Century

With apologies to the author for the long delay:

Medievalist Comics and the American Century
By Chris Bishop 

http://www.upress.state.ms.us/books/1959

(preview at Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=01UDDQAAQBAJ)

University Press of Mississippi

 

224 pages (approx.), 6 x 9 inches, bibliography, index

9781496808509 Printed casebinding $65.00S

 

WHY SO MANY AMERICAN COMICS FANS AVIDLY FOLLOW MEDIEVAL HEROES

The comic book has become an essential icon of the American Century, an era defined by optimism in the face of change and by recognition of the intrinsic value of democracy and modernization. For many, the Middle Ages stand as an antithesis to these ideals, and yet medievalist comics have emerged and endured, even thrived alongside their superhero counterparts. Chris Bishop presents a reception history of medievalist comics, setting them against a greater backdrop of modern American history.

From its genesis in the 1930s to the present, Bishop surveys the medievalist comic, its stories, characters, settings, and themes drawn from the European Middle Ages. Hal Foster's Prince Valiant emerged from an America at odds with monarchy, but still in love with King Arthur. Green Arrow remains the continuation of a long fascination with Robin Hood that has become as central to the American identity as it was to the British. The Mighty Thor re ects the legacy of Germanic migration into the United States. The rugged individualism of Conan the Barbarian owes more to the western cowboy than it does to the continental knight-errant. In the narrative of Red Sonja, we can trace a parallel history of feminism. Bishop regards these comics as not merely happenchance, but each success (Prince Valiant and The Mighty Thor) or failure (Beowulf: Dragon Slayer) as a result and an indicator of certain American preoccupations amid a larger cultural context.

Intrinsically modernist paragons of pop-culture ephemera, American comics have ironically continued to engage with the European Middle Ages. Bishop illuminates some of the ways in which we use an imagined past to navigate the present and plots some possible futures as we valiantly shape a new century.



CHRIS BISHOP, Canberra, Australia, teaches classics at the Australian National University. He has published widely on the history of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, as well as comic book studies. In 2012 Bishop was awarded a Kluge Fellowship at the Library of Congress for his research.

 

 

Utz Reviews Bishop

The latest number (Vol. 27, No. 2) of Arthuriana has a review by Richard Utz on Chris Bishop's book Medievialist Comics and the American Century (more on this to follow).

You can read the review on Project MUSE (or preview you it if,like myself,you have no access to the site) at https://muse.jhu.edu/article/663297.