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Lee Weeks discusses how he moved from fan to professional, the influences on his art, and his current perceptions of the comics industry and superheroes across media.

"From Senator Kamala Harris comes a picture book memoir with an empowering message: Superheroes are all around us--and if we try, we can all be heroes too. Also available in Spanish! Before Kamala Harris became a district attorney and a United States senator, she was a little girl who loved superheroes. And when she looked around, she was amazed to find them everywhere! In her family, among her friends, even down the street--there were superheroes wherever she looked. And those superheroes showed her that all you need to do to be a superhero is to be the best that you can be. In this empowering and joyful picture-book memoir that speaks directly to kids, Kamala Harris takes readers through her life and shows them that the power to make the world a better place is inside all of us. And with fun and engaging art by Mechal Renee Roe, as well as a guide to being a superhero at the end, this book is sure to have kids taking up the superhero mantle (cape and mask optional)"--

DCs comic book character Batwoman made her debut in the 1956 issue #233 of Detective Comics by Bob Kane and Sheldon Moldoff. Riding in on her motorcycle to save Batman and Robin from accusations of homosexuality and from crooks, and using her tear gas disguised in a perfume bottle, she was an ultra-feminine member of the bat-family and a potential love interest for Batman. After 1979 there was a long absence of her character while Batman's popularity continued to endure, and then in 2006 Batwoman reappeared, this time as an independent, serious, militaristic figure, written as one of mainstream comic's first out lesbian heroes. My thesis traces the cultural and historical agents for the changes and similarities between the two versions of Batwoman by examining three objects that are consistently used to define her character: her lipstick smile, her motorcycle, and her shoulder bag utility case (purse) versus her utility belt. I'm approaching the broad subjects of gender and sexuality-particularly their changing representations in history and popular culture-by tightly focusing in on these specific objects which, having traversed through decades and profound changes in society, have significant things to say. By choosing objects that were used by both versions of the Batwoman character, with differences in their forms to varying degrees, my thesis seeks to place the character in the broader context of U.S cultural history and current representations of women in popular culture, particularly action-based roles. In my examinations I find that the contemporary Batwoman presents us with a dark, dangerous, independent, and sexual figure who carries on her back a sexist history, and it's my goal to draw out an understanding of the significant changes which led to this evolution that occurred over a time of fifty years.

American comics are, still today, often regarded as undemanding books starring a few well-known superheroes wearing masks and costumes. This is only partially true: comics are not necessarily about superheroes, the latter being starred, in fact, only in a limited amount of the comics ever published and circulated in the US. The golden age of comics, which saw superhero comics gain immense popularity, reached its momentum in the 1930s, when Superman, Captain America and Wonder Woman were created in order to give a body and a face to traditional American values (like freedom and democracy), and, thus, to symbolically vilify the European dictatorships of the time. Before the 1930s, however, comic strips published in magazines and newspaper chiefly featured ordinary people (or sometimes animals), often portrayed in surreal and paradoxical contexts. In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, superheroes were not the only protagonists of comic stories, horror and science fiction comics being, at the time, as much as popular as the stories about superheroes. The supremacy of superheroes in American comics was sanctioned during the Cold War. When the Comics Code Authority, established in order to prevent young people from reading those comics that would encourage bad behavior, imposed its ban upon a high number of publications, only superheroes were spared, since they clearly met at least one of the Authority's requirements: "in every instance good shall triumph over evil and the criminal punished for his misdeeds" (Johnson 81). From the 1960s, the traditional superhero's features started to change: no longer an exclusively "positive" figure, the new superhero was "the psychologically torn hero-villain" (Witek 49). The late 1960s and (especially) the 1970s, saw the increasing popularity of independent and underground comics, which in few years secured their niche in the comics industry: stories of antiheroes, as well as parodies of the most celebrated comics heroes, gained an almost immediate following. The era of graphic novel (from the late 1970s on), finally, witnessed the birth of art comics, radically different, on the whole, from old superheroes magazines, and the growing importance of authorship over marketability.

This article aims to analyse the superhero subgenre in comic books and webcomics. First, the study focuses on the characteristics of hero, superhero and antihero categories. Then we briefly describe some contemporary aspect of the history of the stories in superhero comics to propose the inclusion of two new sub-categories: the over-hero and the poser-hero. The theoretical foundation is based on authors such as: Moya (1977; 1994; 2003), Eco (1993), Mix (1993), Beirce (1993), Bloom (2002; 2003), McLauglin (2005), Knowles (2008), Irwin (2009), Mazur; Danner (2014), among others. The literature specializing in comic books and philosophical perspectives functions as analytical and theoretical support for the interpretation of themes taken from the superhero universe.With the advent of computer graphics and the internet, comic books have conquered new formats, new technologies and new audiences from a democratized distribution. In addition, two factors are important to understand the relevance of webcomics to the history of comics. First, as comics in print are scanned, the comics/webcomics distinction is not exclusive. In this text, we discuss about heroes and superheroes that can be found and read in both printed and digital formats. Second, webcomics have enabled many artists to achieve more visibility for their work through social media. From this perspective, we argue that the notion of webcomics evolve from the notion of comics. In the field of studies and research on sequential art, pop culture and other media the superhero subgenre is widespread. However, in the context of philosophical theorization, for a long time, the productions were limited to the perspective of superheroes from impassable conceptual and methodological approaches. From the 1970s to the mid-1990s, the analyses of comic books and, particularly, about the superhero subgenre suffered from the same kind of modeling approach that in many ways led to the same result. This is because, whether critical reading is favorable or unfavorable to superheroism, none of the cited theoretical-methodological contributions gave theoretical primacy to the sequential art, being merely relegated to the condition of object of study. Our proposal here implies subverting this scenario from the proposition of reading comics and webcomics as philosophy and as poetic theory. From this perspective, we will widely use arguments, contexts, and influences from comic book characters and sagas to review, deflect, and redirect some elements of the comic itself. In other words, we will draw our arguments indistinctly from philosophy or literature and comics and webcomics, without establishing any sort of hierarchy between them, in order to propose that the genre of superheroes itself evolved, and, besides heroes, superheroes and antiheroes, we now also have over-heroes and poser-heroes.

Intro -- Contents -- Series Foreword -- Chapter 1. Introduction -- Part I: Theoretical Overview -- Chapter 2. Holy War in the Media: Images of Jihad -- Chapter 3. Between Enemies and Traitors: Black Press Coverage of September 11 and the Predicaments of National "Others" -- Chapter 4. Commodifying September 11: Advertising, Myth, and Hegemony -- Chapter 5. Rituals of Trauma: How the Media Fabricated September 11 -- Part II: News Texts and Cultural Resonance -- Chapter 6. "America under Attack": CNN's Verbal and Visual Framing of September 11 -- Chapter 7. Internet News Representations of September 11: Archival Impulse in the Age of Information -- Chapter 8. Reporting, Remembering, and Reconstructing September 11, 2001 -- Chapter 9. Creating Memories: Exploring How Narratives Help Define the Memorialization of Tragedy -- Part III: Popular Narratives -- Chapter 10. Step Aside, Superman... This Is a Job for [Captain] America! Comic Books and Superheroes Post September 11 -- Chapter 11. Of Heroes and Superheroes -- Chapter 12. Narrative Reconstruction at Ground Zero -- Chapter 13. Agony and Art: The Songs of September 11 -- Notes -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z -- About the Contributors.

This paper examines concepts of authority, law, and justice in the genre of superhero comics. Despite the common view that comic book superheroes do not warrant (and have not received) significant academic attention except as art form (rather than social/legal commentary), they do, in fact, present a locus in which visions of law and its relationship with society are played out with a degree of intellectual and jurisprudential sophistication. This is because superheroes reflect perceptions of failed or deficient law. They are therefore another vehicle for thinking discursively about law because of what they can say about society and its perceptions of the effectiveness of law, in the context of their manifesting a pre-modern, sacralised, view of embodied justice as opposed to modern constructs of law. Using a typology of pre-modern, modern, and postmodern justice, the paper briefly explores the characteristics of justice found in superhero comics. The post-modern superhero is characterized in terms of a relation to rationality (they exist in opposition to it); in relation to law (they supplement its failures); and in terms of action (they are proactive). Finally some ways of relating these accounts of justice are exemplified in the superhero figure of Matt Murdock and Daredevil. Law, Culture and the Humanities 2007; 3: 455—476

"The superhero permeates popular culture from comic books to film and television to internet memes, merchandise, and street art. As of 2018, Marvel Studios and DC Films have produced over twenty male-centric films, but only two female-centric films. Despite growing popular interest in and scholarly attention to female superheroes, most superheroes in the current cultural landscape are men. Toxic Masculinity: Mapping the Monstrous in Our Heroes asks what kind of men these heroes are and if they are worthy of the unbalanced amount of attention. Contributors to the volume investigate how the (super)hero in popular culture conveys messages about heroism and masculinity, considering the social implications of this narrative within a cultural (re)production of dominant, hegemonic values and the possibility of subaltern ideas, norms, and values to be imagined within that (re)production. Divided into three sections, the volume takes an interdisciplinary approach, positioning the impact of hypermasculinity on toxic masculinity and the vilification of "other" identities through such mediums as film, TV, and print comic book literature. The first part, "Understanding Super Men," analyzes hegemonic masculinity and the spectrum of hypermasculinity through comics, television, and film, while the second part, "The Monstrous Other," focuses on queer identity and femininity in these same mediums. The final section, "Strategies of Resistance," offers criticism and solutions to the existing lack of diversity through targeted studies on the performance of gender. Ultimately, the volume identifies the ways in which superhero narratives have promulgated and glorified toxic masculinity and offers alternative strategies to consider how characters can resist the hegemonic model and productively demonstrate new masculinities"--

This thesis project argues that war has been the greatest catalyst for the American comic book medium to become a socio-political change agent within western society. Comic books have become one of the most pervasive influences to global popular culture, with superheroes dominating nearly every popular art form. Yet, the academic world has often ignored the comic book medium as a niche market instead of integrated into the broader discussions on cultural production and conflict studies. This paper intends to bridge the gap between what has been classified as comic book studies and the greater academic world to demonstrate the reciprocal relationship between was representation in comics, society, and war. This thesis outlines how the relationship between war and comics have been baked into the dawn of the modern American comic book during the interwar period and how that relationship has evolved over time to today.

MICHELLE HENNING (Art) Seen and Unseen, The MilSpouse Project Sponsor: Lilla Samson (Art and Art History, Emerita) I was a military spouse for 20 years. To honor this closing chapter of my life, I developed a project to interview and paint several military friends. My intention was to create a theme of the overlooked, often unseen, spouse. This is not absolute, and it is not to detract from the service of the soldier; but Military Spouses are often misunderstood or mis-represented. I hope to celebrate the inspiring people that form the group known as "MilSpouses". For that reason, I interviewed former and current military spouses that I know personally. Collecting the good, bad, happy, and painful stories, I looked at the threads that bind us. The reason for including my own story was to illustrate a common theme; there are thousands of these same connections in each military community. This is a small glimpse of those who stand beside their soldiers. Although the stories are anonymous, they show how we are not that different from "civilian spouses". We share many of the same hardships, in different forms, and we are not Superheroes. During the time of Covid, while coordinating over zoom, email, and FaceTime, I completed seven oil paintings that represent the strength and spirit of these friends to accompany the stories. Beauty, diversity, and tremendous courage, I wanted this to show through in these portraits, while keeping their identities secure.

Making the short video documentary, "Deconstructing the Superhero: American Idols in Film" on the politics of superheros was a whirlwind experience. We learned film making techniques while expanding our analysis of popular culture, especially in relation to media constructions of masculinity. Research was situated within the historical context of film studies and included interactions with students and faculty, both inside and outside of the classroom. Our film contained both short interviews with students framed by a longer interview with Emeritus Professor John Lawrence who has written extensively on the role of superheros in American culture. We then juxtaposed these interviews with clips from a number of recent superhero films. Our documentary not only offered an entry way into video/ film making techniques, but it also encouraged a more critical view of media itself.