Matthew J Smith

Critical Approaches to Comics offers students a deeper understanding of the artistic and cultural significance of comic books and graphic novels by introducing key theories and critical methods for analyzing comics. Each chapter explains and then demonstrates a critical method or approach, which students can then apply to interrogate and critique the meanings and forms of comic books, graphic...

This collection of 13 essays employs ethnographic methods to investigate San Diego's Comic-Con international, the largest annual celebration of the popular arts in North America. Working from a common grounding in fan studies, these individual explorations examine a range of cultural practices at an event drawing crowds of nearly 150,000 each summer.

Fully revised and updated for its second edition, The Power of Comics remains the most authoritative introduction to comic books and graphic novels ? the history of the medium, its many forms and manifestations and their place in contemporary culture. ...

In Performance and Religion in Early Modern England, Matthew J. Smith seeks to expand our view of ?the theatrical.? By revealing the creative and phenomenal ways that performances reshaped religious material in early modern England, he offers a more inclusive and integrative view of performance culture.Smith argues that early modern theatrical and religious practices are better understood through...

Offers undergraduate students with an understanding of the comics medium and its communication potential. This book deals with comic books and graphic novels. It focuses on comic books because in their longer form they have the potential for complexity of expression.

In Performance and Religion in Early Modern England, Matthew J. Smith seeks to expand our view of ?the theatrical.? By revealing the creative and phenomenal ways that performances reshaped religious material in early modern England, he offers a more inclusive and integrative view of performance culture....