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Comics, Law, and Aesthetics: Towards the Use of Graphic Fiction in Legal Studies

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 6; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5235/175214812800745672

1752-1491

Thomas Giddens,

Cinema History and Criticism

Japan, with works being produced for consumption by various demographics, and reaching a worldwide English-speaking audience through companies such as VIZ Media.Like Western comics, manga also traverses a wide variety of genres and audiences, from the political horror and violence of Battle Royale, to the calculating supernatural crime drama of DeathNote, to the epic post-apocalyptic fantasy of Nausicaä, to the various genre-specific imprints such as VIZ's Shojo Beat romance manga.In short, comics are published globally, in many varieties, for many audiences, and about many different topics and themes (from romance to adventure, from crime-fighting to science fiction, from horror to erotica).In addition to this international publishing activity, some of the most visible evidence of comics' cultural popularity can be seen in the large number of mainstream films that are based upon comics and their characters, 8 and in the existence of TV tie-ins such as the 'offscreen' narratives of Heroes 9 and the continuation of series such as Buffy 10 and Firefly 11 in comics form.Given this widespread diversity and popularity, the medium is undoubtedly of great cultural significance.Accordingly, comics have not escaped the interest of academics.Although far from being the main focus of discussion, fields such as politics, 12 geopolitics, 13 business ethics, 14 disability studies, 15 environmental philosophy, 16 philosophy, 17 and even to some extent criminal justice 18 and law, 19 have all positively engaged at some level with the medium.However, comics still remain drastically under-researched in the context of interdisciplinary legal studies.As titles such as 'Justice League' might suggest, many works in the mainstream, and particularly in Western superhero genres, are embedded with themes of criminal justice and social order. 20But even beyond this popular 'superhero'