Graphic Novels, Comic Books, and Sequential Art

Use this guide as a starting point for information on graphic novels, comic books, and other sequential art. Included is a guide to locating these materials in the Libraries as well as reference, database, and internet resources relating to the form.

Databases with Critical Commentary

Underground and Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels This link opens in a new window
Contains writer/artist interviews, commentary, theory, and criticism from journals, books, and magazines, including The Comics Journal.
Project Muse This link opens in a new window
Contains full-text articles and ebooks from a variety of Humanities and Social Science disciplines.
MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
Find citations (and some full-text) to articles on literature, language and linguistics, folklore, literary theory and criticism, dramatic arts, and much more.

Search Terms to Try Using

Some key search terms:

graphic novels
comic book
comics
sequential art
comix (alternative press publications)
the name of an author (e.g. Alan Moore)
the name of an artist (e.g. Jack Kirby)
the name of a publisher (e.g. Fantagraphics)

Journals on Comic Studies

The Comics Journal
A magazine that covers the comics medium from an arts-first perspective, owned and operated by Fantagraphics Books, an alternative comics publisher.
European Comic Art
The first English-language scholarly publication devoted to the study of European-language graphic novels, comic strips, comic books and caricature.
Image and Narrative
A peer-reviewed e-journal on visual narratology in the broadest sense of the term.
ImageText
A peer-reviewed, open access journal dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of comics and related media published by the English Department at the University of Florida.
International Journal of Comic Art
IJOCA aims to publish scholarly and readable research on any aspect of comic art, defined as animation, comic books, newspaper and magazine strips, caricature, gag and political cartoons, humorous art, and humor or cartoon magazines.