UNIVERSITY PRESS OF MISSISSIPP
MYSTERIOUS TRAVELERS DITKO & SEARCH FOR NEW LIBERAL IDENTITY
(W) Zack Kruse (A) Steve Ditko
Steve Ditko is one of the most important contributors to American comic books. As the co-creator of Spider-Man and sole creator of Doctor Strange, Ditko made an indelible mark on American popular culture. Always inward facing, Ditko's narratives employed superhero and supernatural fantasy in the service of self-examination, and with characters like the Question, Mr. A, and Static, Ditko turned ordinary superhero comics into philosophic treatises. In this book, Zack Kruse argues that Ditko's philosophy draws on a complicated network of ideas that is best understood as mystic liberalism, and his comics provide a unique window into how such an ideology operates in popular media.
R CRUMB LITERATURE AUTOBIOGRAPHY & QUEST FOR SELF
(W) David Stephen Calonne (A) R. Crumb
R. Crumb: Literature, Autobiography, and the Quest for Self charts Crumb's intellectual trajectory and explore the recurring philosophical themes that permeate his depictions of literary and biographical works and the ways he responds to them through innovative, dazzling compositional techniques. Calonne explores the ways Crumb develops concepts of solitude, despair, desire, and conflict as aspects of the quest for self.