Underground and Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels

Comic Studies is an academic field focusing on the contribution of comic books and graphic novels as pop culture texts which increase our understanding of our common culture and analyse the reader's response provoked by the combined text and image. Comic studies theorists situate comics as complex texts requiring multimodal literacy worthy of study and critical interpretation. It is increasingly common to see humanities departments offer individual courses devoted to the study of comics and graphic novels with some academic institutions offering Comic Studies degrees. For the academic librarian seeking to prepare researchers to join this scholarly discourse or expand their existing collection, Alexander Street Press offers Underground and Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels. The review aims to assist librarians in deciding if the database will ably equip them to do so.