LibGuides: Graphic Novels: Graphic Novels, and Scholarly Criticism &amp; Interpretation

Searching Tips

Due to the wide variety of terminology used by creators, readers, and cataloguers, it would be wise to try a number of keywords in your seaches for results.

graphic novels
cartoonists
cartoon
comics
comic books
comic strips
manga
bandes dessinees, bande dessine
anime

Related terms: interviews, criticism, interpretation, authorship

Books in the Library Catalogue

Here is the result of a broad search for books relating to graphic novels held at our library.

For specific, known titles, search by "Title begins with" field within the library's catalogue (Books & media).

Graphic Novels -- History and Criticism

For a more focused set of book results of scholarly work related to graphic novels, see the list of titles falling under the following subject heading:

Graphic Novels -- History and Criticism

Best Article Databases for Graphic Novels

Academic Search Complete
Multidisciplinary resource with articles on a range of subjects including current events, health, humanities, sciences, and technology.
Project MUSE
Provides access to the full text of articles from recent years of over 100 research journals from a variety of fields, with special strength in the humanities. A search engine allows a user to search all the journals in the group by keyword.
JSTOR
JSTOR preserves and archives the complete back runs of important scholarly journals. 1124 online academic journals. Date coverage varies from the 1890s to 2-5 years ago.
MLA International Bibliography
MLA International Bibliography is a bibliography of journal articles, books and dissertations. Produced by the Modern Language Association, the electronic version of the Bibliography dates back to 1963 and contains over 1.5 million citations from more than 4,400 journals and series and 1,000 book publishers.
Humanities Abstracts
Cites articles for more than 700 periodicals, including some of the best-known scholarly journals and numerous specialized magazines covering archaeology, classical studies, dance, journalism, linguistics, philosophy, theology and much more. Indexing goes back to 1984, and abstracts back to 1994.

Journals about Graphic Novels

Here is a list of journals available in the library catalogue. These are good for browsing for articles and for serendipitous discoveries.

To find articles on a specific topics, use a journal database (as above) to retrieve results of published academic articles.