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Frank McConnell (essay date 28 February 1992)

SOURCE: "Comic Relief: From 'Gilgamesh' to 'Spiderman,'" in Commonweal, Vol. CXIX, No. 4, February 28, 1992, pp. 21-2.

[In the essay below, McConnell remarks on the development of comics and their relationship to society and traditional literature.]

The first time I assigned a comic book—Frank Miller's grimly revisionist Batman saga, The Dark Knight Returns—for my course in "The Art of Narrative," the consensus of my colleagues (I heard it through the grapevine) was "God—what's he trying to do now?"

Well, maybe just be honest. The fact is—though you're not going to hear it from many of the tenured priesthood of what Ezra Pound contemptuously called "Kulchur"—that some of the best and most human fiction in America, not to mention the rest of the world, is appearing not as "novels" but as that more-than-faintly-contemptible form, the comic book.

Of course,...

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1. Introduction
2. History And Overviews
   1. Russell Schechter (essay date August 1989)
   2. Keith R. A. DeCandido (essay date 15 March 1990)
   3. Pagan Kennedy (essay date 19 March 1990)
   4. Mikal Gilmore (essay date 17 May 1990)
   5. Frank McConnell (essay date 28 February 1992)
   6. Gordon Nore (essay date November 1992)
   7. Peter Plagens and Yahlin Chang (essay date 5 September 1994)
   8. Calvin Reid (essay date 19 September 1994)
3. The Classics Illustrated Series
   1. Beth Levine (essay date 24 November 1989)
4. Reviews Of Recent Works
   1. Roz Kaveney (review date 18-25 December 1987–1 January 1988)
   2. Mark Sinker (review date 29 July 1988)
   3. Publishers Weekly (review date 17 February 1989)
   4. Publishers Weekly (review date 27 July 1990)
   5. Publishers Weekly (review date 27 July 1990)
   6. Tom Easton (review date January 1991)
   7. James Colbert (review date 8 November 1992)
   8. Marty Cohen (review date February-March 1993)
   9. Bill Jones (review date February-March 1993)
   10. Publishers Weekly (review date 18 July 1994)
   11. Publishers Weekly (review date 8 August 1994)
   12. Publishers Weekly (review date 8 August 1994)
   13. Publishers Weekly (review date 22 August 1994)
   14. Publishers Weekly (review date 29 August 1994)
   15. Publishers Weekly (review date 19 September 1994)
   16. Publishers Weekly (review date 19 September 1994)
   17. Karal Ann Marling (review date 9 October 1994)
   18. Publishers Weekly (review date 24 October 1994)
   19. Publishers Weekly (review date 24 October 1994)
   20. Publishers Weekly (review date 24 October 1994)
5. Further Reading
6. Copyright