Visual Storytellling An Illustrated Reader

Visual Storytelling features a comprehensive survey of contemporary graphic narratives that encourages reflection, discussion, and various response projects in the writing or literature classroom. With its thematic organization, Visual Storytelling uses graphic narrative to identify intersections not just between visual and verbal language, but also between the overarching themes of identity, history, politics, and the arts.

Todd James Pierce is Professor of English and Co-Director of the Creative Writing program at California Polytechnic State University.

Ryan G. Van Cleave teaches writing, literature, and media studies at the Ringling College of Art and Design.

1. IDENTITY

"Love Me Forever! Oh! Oh! Oh!"
Jeremy Sorese

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
Marjane Satrapi

"How to Understand Israel"
Sarah Glidden

Unterzakhn
Leela Corman

2. MEN AND WOMEN

"In the Rough"
Vanessa Davis

"The Dead of Winter"
Debbie Drechsler

"Cecil and Jordan in New York"
Gabrielle Bell

"63 Rue de la Grange aux Belles"
François Avril and Philippe Petit-Roulet

"The Hero"
Brent Anderson

"La Brea Woman"
Martin Cendreda

"Pulverize"
Kevin Huizenga

3. YOUNG ADULTHOOD

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
Alison Bechdel

"Amy was a Babysitter"
Gabrielle Bell

"San Francisco"
Lynda Barry

"When I Was Eleven"
Gabrielle Bell

"The Bank"
Derf

"Blue Note" (excerpt from Fantastic Life)
Kevin Mutch

"Dance with the Ventures"
Jonathan Bennett

4. TRAUMA

The Harlem Hellfighters
Max Brooks and Caanan White

"Complacency Kills," from Journalism
Joe Sacco

Notes for a War Story
Gipi

The Alcoholic
Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel

Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person: A Memoir in Comics
Miriam Engelberg

5. HISTORY

"A Short History of America"
Robert Crumb

Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller
Joseph Lambert

A Bintel Brief: Love and Longing in Old New York
Liana Finck

March
John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell

"Trinity"
Michael Cho

My Friend Dahmer
Derf

6. POLITICS

"Ready to Die"
Kim Deitch

A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge
Josh Neufeld

"Ceci N'est Pas une Comic"
Peter Kuper

"In the Shadow of No Towers"
Art Spiegelman

"The War on Fornication"
Peter Bagge

7.THE ARTS

Stop Forgetting to Remember: The Autobiography of Walter Kurtz
Peter Kuper

"Fiction Versus Nonfiction"
Chris Ware


Further Readings
Credits