"[Comics] were just right for an end-of-the world moment" (Art Spiegelman, In The Shadow of No Towers) Can graphic narratives (or comics), long disregarded as trivial entertainment, adequately depict the horrors of war? What effect does the subjectivity of the artist's handmark in drawn images have on how we perceive nonfiction comics? What possibilities does the hybrid form of comics, the combination of text and image, offer in contrast to representations of war in other media? Why have nonfiction comics with war as their subject become increasingly popular in the last few years? These are some of the questions we will explore in this course. Beginning with an overview of comics scholarship to learn how to analyze sequential art, (drawing on Scott McCloud and Thierry Groensteen as well as other sources), we will then examine both the form and the content of a range of works by such influential artists as Art Spiegelman, Joe Sacco, Emmanuel Guibert and Will Eisner to gain insight into how these comics use the unique possibilities of their medium to engage with the wars past and present that are their theme. close