Paul Williams (18) (1979–)

In Dreaming the Graphic Novel: The Novelization of Comics, Paul Williams seeks to enlarge the “appreciation of the transformation of comics into novels, not only showing that the range and volume of texts produced in the long 1970s were much greater than usually understood but illuminating the complex interplay between fans and cultural producers as they articulated the novel as a desirable model and examining how institutional transformations in various cultural industries (including fandom) powered those articulations” (pg. 3, parentheses in the original). Williams draws extensively on period analyses and commentary, such as in The Comics Journal and fanzines, as well as an examination of the direct market in order to unpack the events surrounding the rise of the graphic novel. He presents a system with varying power relationships in credentialing work, with writers, artists, publishers, distributors, retailers, fans, and collectors all shaping the popular understanding of comic books and graphic novels (pg. 12).

Williams begins with an examination of the industry perception that comic books were fading into obscurity in the 1970s and that, without a diversified readership that included adult collectors willing to pay for more premium work, publishers would not remain solvent (pg. 32). He demonstrates how the example of the Franco-Belgian market, specifically comics albums, offered one example of alternative work. Discussing the direct market, Williams writes that it “made the production of commodities targeted at fans more viable than ever before, and small independent companies (“independents”) sprang up to cater to this audience. The independents enjoyed much greater freedom of content because comics distributed on the direct market did not have to abide by the Comics Magazine Association of America’s Comics Code” (pg. 63). At the same time that mainstream comics began exploring new types of stories, the underground comix market imploded due to a glutted market and increased concerns of local obscenity ordinances. Worse, with headshops as their primary marketplace, they posed a risk to headshop owners. Williams writes, “Headshop owners defended the sale of rolling papers, bongs, and hookahs on the grounds that they were intended for legal tobacco use, but this argument held little sway when the headshops sold comix depicting those same products being used to smoke marijuana” (pg. 75).

Williams defines those who promoted graphic novels as novelizers, arguing that, “in the long 1970s [they] sought to insert comics into a literary tradition that had itself been riven by status battles earlier in the century, when proponents of the art novel or modernist novel sought to distance themselves from the impersonal production of novels for a mass readership” (pg. 124). He further writes, “The belief that a comic could be a novel only if that novel was a pulp novel was a symptom of status anxiety,” thereby evoking Lawrence Levine’s high culture/low culture dialectic (pg. 133). Williams argues, “Most invocations of the novel looked past its history as a mass-market entertainment device produced for profit and latched onto the textual fantasy offered by the discourse of the art-novel, the novel as one artist’s attempt to realize a perfect whole free of the dictates of publishing for profit” (pg. 155). He offers the example of Marvel and DC’s 1970s titles seeking to address the issues of the day as contributing to industry and fan debate. Williams writes, “The relevancy movement in mainstream comics, which saw the Big Two’s superheroes addressing contemporary political and social issues such as drug abuse, racism, and environmental damage, was a touchstone for these debates” over comics’ literary merits (pg. 167). The 1970s also witnessed the rise in academic scholarship on comics. Williams writes, “When comics were taught in a university context, academics often used approaches that fans had previously adopted, such as close reading images, genre studies, psychoanalytical interpretations, and identifying mythic archetypes,” all of which helped further define the literary merits of comics and the scope of intellectual discourse (pg. 170).

Williams’ monograph includes a survey of novel-related terms in fan-oriented publications and draws upon a great deal of current – and historic – comics studies literature. Dreaming the Graphic Novel will primarily appeal to those studying comic books as literature or for history/American studies as much of the detail and references draw extensively upon academic discourses. The book would work well as a reader for English and cultural history courses, while individual chapters might work as supplementary readings. This further demonstrates the high quality of comics scholarship currently on offer from Rutgers University Press.… (mere)