Perfect Copies

Reproduction and the Contemporary Comic

By Shiamin Kwa

Rutgers University Press

Analyzing the way that recent works of graphic narrative use the comics form to engage with the “problem” of reproduction, Shiamin Kwa’s Perfect Copies reminds us that the mode of production and the manner in which we perceive comics are often quite similar to the stories they tell. Perfect Copies considers the dual notions of reproduction, mechanical as well as biological, and explores how comics are works of reproduction that embed questions about the nature of reproduction itself. Through close readings of the comics My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris, The Black Project by Gareth Brookes, The Generous Bosom series by Conor Stechschulte, Sabrina by Nick Drnaso, and Panther by Brecht Evens, Perfect Copies shows how these comics makers push the limits of different ideas of “reproduction” in strikingly different ways. Kwa suggests that reading and thinking about books like these, that push us to engage with these complicated questions, teaches us how to become better readers.

Perfect Copies is about the creation and impact of comics that skirt the line of what readers might imagine would be considered typical within the medium. This book pushes readers to think about the ways that comics creators nudge the boundaries of how comics might look, 'read' and visually 'feel.’ It is a must read for everyone who loves the ways that comics have revolutionized art and aesthetics and that art has revolutionized comics and notions of reproduction. Rachel Marie-Crane Williams, Dean of Liberal Arts, UNC School of The Arts

Shiamin Kwa is an associate professor of East Asian languages and cultures and comparative literature at Bryn Mawr College. She is the author of Regarding Frames: Thinking with Comics in the Twenty-first Century for the Comics Studies (RIT Press, 2020).

Introduction
1          The People Upstairs: Space, Memory, and the Queered Family in My Favorite Thing Is Monsters
2          Reach Out and Touch Someone: The Haptic Dreams of Gareth Brookes
3          Phantom Threads: Seeing in the Dark and Conor Stechschulte
4          If You See Something Say Something: Nick Drnaso’s Sabrina
5          There is a Monster in My Closet: Brecht Evens’s Panther
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index

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