Literary Criticism Comics & Graphic Novels
Unpopular Culture
Transforming the European Comic Book in the 1990s
- Publisher
- University of Toronto Press
- Initial publish date
- Dec 2007
- Category
- Comics & Graphic Novels, Publishing, Popular Culture, 20th Century
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780802094124
- Publish Date
- Feb 2007
- List Price
- $40.95
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9780802091338
- Publish Date
- Feb 2007
- List Price
- $85.00
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781442633414
- Publish Date
- Dec 2007
- List Price
- $38.95
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Description
In the last fifteen years or so, a wide community of artists working in a variety of western European nations have overturned the dominant traditions of comic book publishing as it has existed since the end of the Second World War. These artists reject both the traditional form and content of comic books (hardcover, full-colour 'albums' of humour or adventure stories, generally geared towards children), seeking instead to instil the medium with experimental and avant-garde tendencies commonly associated with the visual arts. Unpopular Culture addresses the transformation of the status of the comic book in Europe since 1990.
Increasingly, comic book artists seek to render a traditionally degraded aspect of popular culture un-popular, transforming it through the adoption of values borrowed from the field of 'high art.' The first English-language book to explore these issues, Unpopular Culture represents a challenge to received histories of art and popular culture that downplay significant historical anomalies in favour of more conventional narratives. In tracing the efforts of a large number of artists to disrupt the hegemony of high culture, Bart Beaty raises important questions about cultural value and its place as an important structuring element in contemporary social processes.
About the author
Bart Beaty is associate professor of communication and culture at the University of Calgary. His work has been published in the Comics Journal, International Journal of Comic Art, Canadian Journal of Communication, Essays in Canadian Writing, and Canadian Review of American Studies.
Other titles by
The Origins of Comics
From William Hogarth to Winsor McCay
Of Comics and Men
A Cultural History of American Comic Books
Comics Versus Art
Comics in the Art World
How Canadians Communicate III
Contexts of Canadian Popular Culture
The System of Comics
David Cronenberg's A History of Violence
How Canadians Communicate, Vol. 2
Media, Globalization and Identity
How Canadians Communicate, Vol. 2
Media, Globalization and Identity
Unpopular Culture
Transforming the European Comic Book in the 1990s
