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Comics and Sequential Art

Author	Will Eisner
Language	English
Subject	Comics
Publisher	Poorhouse Press
Publication date	1985; 1990 (Expanded Edition)
Publication place	United States
Pages	164 (Expanded Edition)
Followed by	Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative

Comics and Sequential Art is a book by American cartoonist Will Eisner that analyzes the comics medium, published in 1985 and revised in 1990. It is based on a series of essays that appeared in The Spirit magazine, themselves based on Eisner's experience teaching a course on comics at the School of Visual Arts. It is not presented as a teaching guide, however, but as a series of demonstrations of principles and methods. A 1990 expanded edition of the book includes short sections on the print process and the use of computers in comics. Eisner followed with a companion volume, Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative, in 1996.

Content

In contrast to earlier books on comics, which focused on specific aspects such as drawing anatomy, Eisner's book takes an overall approach, devoting different chapters to different aspects of comics. A revised edition included a chapter on computer techniques. To demonstrate many of the concepts the book introduces, Einser provides a ten-page adaptation of the "To be or not to be..." soliloquy from Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Publication history

Since the 1970s Eisner had been lecturing on comics at the School of Visual Arts. He was unable to find a textbook that focused on theoretical aspects of comics, and began writing essays based on the subject for The Sppirit magazine; these essays came to form the basis of Comics and Sequential Art.

Legacy

Along with Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics]] (1993), Comics and Sequential Art is considered to form the foundations for formal comics studies in English. Eisner followed up the book in different ways: he expanded the "Expressive Anatomy" chapter into a book with the same title two decades later, and followed up the book itself with Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative in 1996.

References

1. ^ Schumacher 2010.
2. Heer & Worcester 2009, p. xiv; Holston 2010, p. 16.

Works cited

• Heer, Jeet; Worcester, Kent (2009). "Introduction". A Comics Studies Reader. University Press of Mississippi. pp. xi–xv. ISBN 978-1-60473-109-5. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editor1-first1= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editor1-last1= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editor2-first2= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editor2-last2= ignored (help)
• Holston, Alicia (2010). "A Librarian's Guide to the History of Graphic Novels". In Weiner, Robert G. (ed.). Graphic Novels and Comics in Libraries and Archives: Essays on Readers, Research, History and Cataloging. McFarland. pp. 9–16. ISBN 978-0-7864-5693-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Schumacher, Michael (2010). Will Eisner: A Dreamer's Life in Comics. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-60819-524-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Comics

• 1985 books
• Books about comics
• Books by Will Eisner