Charles Hatfield’s Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature, published in 2005, arrived at a time of immense excitement in the comics culture. The international new wave of comics had been changing the way we read and thought about comics for a good decade and were gaining an increasing institutional foothold, most notably in the cultural consolidation of the so-called ‘graphic novel.’ These developments are continuing, and comics, though increasingly visible institutionally, are still in a state of evolutionary flux. Hatfield’s book promised an in-depth analysis of this remarkable development, the objects of which he terms ‘alternative comics.’ But for all the book’s qualities, it did not fully to deliver on this, frankly seeming a bit of a missed opportunity. Books stick around however, and good books continue to inform and raise questions—a fact this ongoing re-evaluation at Hooded Utilitarian happily bespeaks.

But let me back up a bit and explain briefly the disappointment occasioned by the book’s promise. Continue reading →