LibGuides: Comics, Graphic Novels, and Manga: Graphic Novel Research

Researching Comic Books, Graphic Novels, and Manga

This page is dedicated to helping you do research on the topics of graphic novels, comic books, and manga.

On this page you will find:

A link to our library catalog along with some helpful tips and tricks to keep in mind when searching our graphic novel materials.
Links to websites focused on creating citations for comic books, graphic novels, and manga.
Preset database searches for comic book, graphic novel, and manga related articles.
A list of scholarly books related to comic books, graphic novels, and manga.

These resources can also be found on our Library Resources page.

When you are not on campus and try to use the databases, you will be prompted for a username and password. If you do not know these and are a Schoolcraft student, then give the library a call and we will provide you with the information you need.

Our phone number is: (734) 462-4440

Catalog Search (w/ Tips and Tricks)

Schoolcraft Library Catalog

Use the library's catalog to search for graphic novels, manga, and more!

Tips to keep in mind when searching:

1) Searching for "graphic novel", "comics", or "manga" under the Key Word or Subject criteria will not always give you the best results.

2) Instead, if you are searching for graphic novels, manga, or related materials available in our library's collection, then use one or more of the following Congress Subject Headings:

Comic Books, strips, etc.
Graphic novels
Cartooning
Cartoonist

3) As you explore our holdings, you'll discover more specific Subject Headings, such as:

Comic books, strips, etc--Superheroes
Comic books, strips, etc.--Friendship
Comic books, strips, etc.--History and criticism
Comic books, strips, etc.--Physics

These help narrow the focus of the search and can be helpful if you have a specific topic or genre you're interested in exploring. If you want to know all of the Subject Headings for a particular item in our catalog, then click the Catalog Record tab in the item's record. You can click on one of the Subject Headings and it will bring up a list of all the other items in the library that have the same Subject Heading.

Citing Graphic Comic Books, Graphic Novels, and Manga

Cite a Cartoon / Comic (Easybib)
Use Easybib to create a citation for cartoons and comics.
Comic Art in Scholarly Writing A Citation Guide
A website dedicated to creating useful and consistent citations for comics.
How to Cite an Illustrated Book (APA)
This blog post from the APA details how to cite illustrated books, such as graphic novels.
MLA Style Works Cited List: How to Cite Graphic Novels
A video showing how to cite graphic novels in MLA style.

Off Campus Library Database Access

Schoolcraft students, faculty, and staff can access library databases from off-campus through Blackboard by clicking the “Organizations” tab. Go to https://bb.schoolcraft.edu

Databases (w/ Preset Searches for Graphic Novel Related Materials)

Comic Book, Graphic Novel, and Manga Scholarly Materials

The Comic Book Story of Beer by Jonathan Hennessey; Mike Smith; Aaron McConnell (Illustrator)
Call Number: TP 577 .H457 2015
ISBN: 9781607746355
Publication Date: 2015
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We drink it. We love it. But how much do we really know about beer? Starting from around 7000 BC, beer has emerged as a major element driving humankind's development, a role it has continued to play through today's craft brewing explosion. With The Comic Book Story of Beer, the first-ever nonfiction graphic novel focused on this most favored beverage, you can follow along from the very beginning, as authors Jonathan Hennessey and Mike Smith team up with illustrator Aaron McConnell to present the key figures, events, and, yes, beers that shaped and frequently made history.
The Graphic Novel: Critical Insights by Salem Press (Editor); Gary Hoppenstand (General Editor)
Call Number: PN 6710 .G736 2014
ISBN: 9781619252622
Publication Date: 2014
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This book offers an examination and analysis of the contemporary graphic novel as literature. Specific attention will be paid to the use of narrative genre in the graphic novel (e.g. the superhero graphic novel, the crime narrative graphic novel, the horror graphic novel, and the realistic/fantastic graphic novel).

Attention will also be paid to the most important and most frequently discussed graphic novels published during the past three decades, including Batman: The Drak Knight Returns by Frank Miller, Watchman by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, The Walking Dead: Days Gone Bye by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore, A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories by Will Eisner, Maus by Art Spiegelman. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi, and Sandman: preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman, Sam Keith (et al).
Information Now by Matt Upson; C. Michael Hall; Kevin Cannon
Call Number: ZA 3075 .U67 2015
ISBN: 9780226095691
Publication Date: 2015
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Information Now is an innovative approach to information literacy that will reinvent the way college students think about research. Instead of the typical textbook format, it uses illustrations, humor, and reflective exercises to teach students how to become savvy researchers. Students will learn how to evaluate information, to incorporate it into their existing knowledge base, to wield it effectively, and to understand the ethical issues surrounding its use. Written by two library professionals, it incorporates concepts and skills drawn from the Association of College and Research Libraries' Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education and their Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Thoroughly researched and highly engaging, Information Now offers the tools that students need to become powerful consumers and creators of information.
Marvel Comics: The Untold Story by Sean Howe
Call Number: PN 6725 .H69 2013
ISBN: 9780061992117
Publication Date: 2013
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For the first time, Marvel Comics reveals the outsized personalities behind the scenes, including Martin Goodman, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and generations of editors, artists, and writers who struggled with commercial mandates, a fickle audience, and—over matters of credit and control—one another. Marvel Comics is a story of fertile imaginations, lifelong friendships, action-packed fistfights, and third-act betrayals—a narrative of one of the most extraordinary, beloved, and beleaguered pop-cultural entities in America's history.
Redrawing the Historical Past by Martha J. Cutter (Editor); Angela Laflen (Contribution by); Catherine H. Nguyen (Contribution by); Jorge Santos (Contribution by); Jeffrey Santa Ana (Contribution by); Cathy J. Schlund-Vials (Editor); Frederick Luis Aldama (Contribution by); Julie Armstrong (Contribution by); Katharine Capshaw (Contribution by); Monica Chiu (Contribution by); Jennifer Glaser (Contribution by); Taylor Hagood (Contribution by); Caroline Kyungah Hong (Contribution by)
Call Number: PN 6714 .R43 2018
ISBN: 9780820352008
Publication Date: 2018
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Redrawing the Historical Past examines how multiethnic graphic novels portray and revise U.S. history. This is the first collection to focus exclusively on the interplay of history and memory in multiethnic graphic novels. Such interplay enables a new understanding of the past. The twelve essays explore Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece’s Incognegro, Gene Luen Yang’s Boxers and Saints, GB Tran’s Vietnamerica, Scott McCloud’s The New Adventures of Abraham Lincoln, Art Spiegelman’s post-Maus work, and G. Neri and Randy DuBurke’s Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty, among many others.

The collection represents an original body of criticism about recently published works that have received scant scholarly attention. The chapters confront issues of history and memory in contemporary multiethnic graphic novels, employing diverse methodologies and approaches while adhering to three main guidelines. First, using a global lens, contributors reconsider the concept of history and how it is manifest in their chosen texts. Second, contributors consider the ways in which graphic novels, as a distinct genre, can formally renovate or intervene in notions of the historical past. Third, contributors take seriously the possibilities and limitations of these historical revisions with regard to envisioning new, different, or even more positive versions of both the present and future. As a whole, the volume demonstrates that graphic novelists use the open and flexible space of the graphic narrative page―in which readers can move not only forward but also backward, upward, downward, and in several other directions―to present history as an open realm of struggle that is continually being revised.
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
Call Number: PN 6710 M335 1994
ISBN: 9780060976255
Publication Date: 1994
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Praised throughout the cartoon industry by such luminaries as Art Spiegelman, Matt Groening, and Will Eisner, this innovative comic book provides a detailed look at the history, meaning, and art of comics and cartooning.
Unflattening by Nick Sousanis
Call Number: BF241 .S645 2015
ISBN: 9780674744431
Publication Date: 2015
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The primacy of words over images has deep roots in Western culture. But what if the two are inextricably linked, equal partners in meaning-making? Written and drawn entirely as comics, Unflattening is an experiment in visual thinking. Nick Sousanis defies conventional forms of scholarly discourse to offer readers both a stunning work of graphic art and a serious inquiry into the ways humans construct knowledge.

Unflattening is an insurrection against the fixed viewpoint. Weaving together diverse ways of seeing drawn from science, philosophy, art, literature, and mythology, it uses the collage-like capacity of comics to show that perception is always an active process of incorporating and reevaluating different vantage points. While its vibrant, constantly morphing images occasionally serve as illustrations of text, they more often connect in nonlinear fashion to other visual references throughout the book. They become allusions, allegories, and motifs, pitting realism against abstraction and making us aware that more meets the eye than is presented on the page.

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