Part interpretive criticism, part philosophical meditation, Regarding Frames: Thinking with Comics in the Twenty-First Century explores the ways that literary comics engage readers in the mutual construction of meaning. Kwa draws from a wide range of philosophical, critical, and theoretical texts to analyze the visual and verbal narrative strategies that artists use. She examines the work of comic artists Gabrielle Bell, Michael DeForge, Kevin Huizenga, Laura Park, and Dash Shaw who construct their particular visions of the world.

The popularity of horror comics in the 1950s was curtailed by a suppression of popular horror stories by those concerned with juvenile delinquency and bad taste. Thirty years later, creators Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman produced popular and artful comics like Swamp Thing and The Sandman that took advantage of the new shape of American culture in the 1980s. Terrence Wandtke details the history and re-shaping of horror comics and its relevance to popular series such as Hellboy, The Goon, and The Walking Dead. 

Crime comic books in the 1950s caused controversy leading to their suppression and near extinction. Twenty-five years later, the dark hero, femme fatale, and bleak outlook of crime story comic books are even more striking and subversive. Terrence Wandtke traces the history of crime comics from their beginnings to the current resurgence and analyzes the cultural forces that give rise to influential works like Frank Miller’s Sin City, Brian Azzarello’s 100 Bullets, and Ed Brubaker’s Criminal.

As the founding fathers of the superhero comic books, Superman and Batman have defined a genre of American mythology from the mid-twentieth century to the present. The author describes how the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight dealt with their midlife crises brought on by the cultural and social changes of the 1960s and 1970s. Johnson describes how the superheroes’ problems and adaptations mirror much of American societal changes during that time.

Superheroes in Crisis is the second book published in the RIT Press Comics Studies Monograph Series.