Expanding Art of Comics

<p>In <em>The Expanding Art of Comics: Ten Modern Masterpieces</em> prominent scholar Thierry Groensteen offers a distinct perspective on important evolutions in comics since the 1960s through close readings of ten seminal works. He covers over half a century of comics production sampling a single work from the sixties (<em>Ballad of the Salt Sea</em> by Hugo Pratt) seventies (<em>The Airtight Garage of Jerry Cornelius</em> by Moebius) eighties (<em>Watchmen</em> by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons) and nineties (<em>Epileptic</em> by David B.). Then this remarkable critic scholar and author of <em>The System of Comics</em> and <em>Comics and Narration</em> delves into recent masterpieces such as <em>Building Stories</em> by Chris Ware.</p><p>Each of these books created an opening achieved a breakthrough offered a new narrative model or took up an emerging tendency and perfected it. Groensteen recaptures the impact with which these works each in its own way broke with what had gone before. He regards comics as an expanding art not only because groundbreaking works such as these are increasing in number but also because it is an art that has only gradually become aware of its considerable potential and is unceasingly opening up new expressive terrain.</p>