Super Bodies: Comic Book Illustration, Artistic Styles, and Narrative Impact

An examination of the art in superhero comics and how style influences comic narratives.

For many, the idea of comic book art implies simplistic four-color renderings of stiff characters slugging it out. In fact, modern superhero comic books showcase a range of complex artistic styles, with diverse connotations. Leading comics scholar Jeffrey A. Brown assesses six distinct approaches to superhero illustration--idealism, realism, cute, retro, grotesque, and noir--examining how each visually represents the superhero as a symbolic construct freighted with meaning.

Whereas comic book studies tend to focus on text and narrative, Super Bodies gives overdue credit to the artwork, which is not only a principal source of the appeal of comic books but also central to the values these works embody. Brown argues that superheroes are to be taken not as representations of people but as iconic types, and the art conveys this. Even the most realistic comic illustrations are designed to suggest not persons but ideas--ideas about bodies and societies. Thus the appearance of superheroes both directly and indirectly influences the story being told as well as the opinions readers form concerning justice, authority, gender, puberty, sexuality, ethnicity, violence, and other concepts central to political and cultural life.

Author: Jeffrey A. Brown
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 08/01/2023
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.50lbs
Size: 10.08h x 7.09w x 0.94d
ISBN: 9781477327364

Review Citation(s):
Choice 10/01/2023

About the Author

Jeffrey A. Brown is a professor of popular culture at Bowling Green State University. He is the author of Batman and the Multiplicity of Identity: The Contemporary Comic Book Superhero as Cultural Nexus; Love, Sex, Gender, and Superheroes; and other books on comic books and superheroes.