Abstract
In Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean, pop culture critic Douglas Wolk proposes the idea of metacomics—namely, comics series that are aimed at an audience extensively steeped in the lore of the medium. These “superreaders,” as Wolk calls them, will recognize the additional levels beyond narrative plot at which a metacomic is operating, its “commentary on the conventions of superhero stories or on familiar characters.”1
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Notes
Ellis, Warren (w), and John Cassaday (a). Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth. La Jolla, CA: Wildstorm, 2003. 27–28.
See Miller, Frank, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (New York: DC Comics, 1986. 31).
Kraemer, Christine Hoff, and J. Lawton Winslade. “‘The Magic Circus of the Mind’: Alan Moore’s Promethea and the Transformation of Consciousness through Comics.” In Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books and Graphic Novels, ed. A. David Lewis and Christine Hoff Kraemer. New York: Continuum, 2010. 279.
Karin Kukkonen. “Navigating Infinite Earths: Readers, Mental Models, and the Multiverse of Superhero Comics.” Story Worlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies 2 (2010): 47.
See Miller, J. Hillis, Illustration (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. 73).
Derrida, Jacques. Margins of Philosophy. Trans. Alan Bass. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. 230.
Miller, J. Hillis. Reading Narrative. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998. 5.
Ellis, Warren (w), and John Cassaday (a). Planetary: All over the World and Other Stories. La Jolla, CA: Wildstorm Productions, 2000. 147.
Darius, Julian. “Appendix: Sequencing Planetary.” Keeping the World Strange: A Planetary Guide. Edwardsville, IL: Sequart Research & Literary Organization, 2011. 159–64.
Hyman, David. Notes toward a Super Fiction: Revision, Temporality and the Superhero Genre. Diss. City University of New York, 2010. 105–06.
Ellis, Warren (w), and John Cassaday (a). Planetary: Spacetime Archeology. La Jolla, CA: Wildstorm Productions, 2010. 129
For more on game play in Planetary, see Lewis, A. David, “The Man Who Knew the Game,” Keeping the World Strange: A Planetary Guide (Edwardsville, IL: Sequart Research & Literary Organization, 2011).
Romero-Jódar, Andrés. “A Hammer to Shape Reality: Alan Moore’s Graphic Novels and the Avant-Gardes.” Studies in Comics 2. 1 (2011): 39.
Moore, Alan (w), and J. H. Williams III (a). Promethea, Book Two. La Jolla, CA: Americâs Best Comics, 2001. 63.
Ayres, Jackson. “Promethea.” The Encyclopedia of Comic Books and Graphic Novels, volume 2. Denver, CO: Greenwood, 2010. 489.
Moore, Alan (w), and J. H. Williams III (a). Promethea, Book Five. La Jolla, CA: Americâs Best Comics, 2005. 155.
Klock, Geoff. “Planetary: A Rant about Story Failures.” Remarkable: Short Appreciations of Poetry and Pop Culture, October 30, 2006. Web. http://geoffklock.blogspot.com/2006/10/planetary-rant-about-story-failures.html (accessed July 31, 2014).
Ellis, Warren (w), and John Cassaday (a). Planetary: The Fourth Man. La Jolla, CA: Wildstorm Productions, 2001. 38.
Ellis, Warren (w), and John Cassaday (a). Planetary: Leaving the Twentieth Century. La Jolla, CA: Wildstorm Productions, 2004. 1.
Moore, Alan (w), and J. H. Williams III (a). Promethea, Book Three. La Jolla, CA: Americâs Best Comics, 2002. 30.
Moore, Alan (w), and J. H. Williams III (a). Promethea, Book Four. La Jolla, CA: Americâs Best Comics, 2003. 14–23.
Allred, Will. “Planetary.” The Encyclopedia of Comic Books and Graphic Novels, volume 2. Denver, CO: Greenwood, 2010. 466.
Klock, Geoff. “Planetary 27.” Remarkable: Short Appreciations of Poetry and Pop Culture, October 13, 2009. Web. (http://geoffllock.blogspot.com/2009/10/planetary-27.html (accessed July 31, 2014).
Blake, Charlie. “Pirate Multiplicities: Aion, Chronos and Magical Inscription in the Graphic Novels of Alan Moore.” Studies in Comics 2. 1 (2011): 126.
Valereto, Deneb Kozikoski. “Philosophy in the Fairground: Thoughts on Madness and Madness in Thought in The Killing Joke.” Studies in Comics 2. 1 (2011): 75.
See Round, Julia, “Fragmented Identity: The Superhero Condition,” The International Journal of Comic Art (Fall 2005): 358–69.
Murray, Chad. “Interview with The Magus.” Studies in Comics 2. 1 (2011): 16–17.
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© 2014 A. David Lewis
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Lewis, A.D. (2014). Planetary, Promethea, and the Multiplicity of Selfhood. In: American Comics, Literary Theory, and Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137463609_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137463609_5
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