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date: 05 March 2021

Abstract and Keywords

This chapter challenges the long-standing exclusion of single-panel comics from being seen as comics because they do not contain what is commonly regarded as a core feature of the genre: images arranged in a sequence. Accordingly, it offers not merely a defense of but what might even be called a manifesto for single-panel comics as comics. Titles belonging to this category have played an important role in the origins, evolution, and popularization of the genre in the United States. They have embodied some of the most successful and acclaimed works in the history of the medium. In many respects, sequential art as we know it would not be the same without comics that consist of only one panel. Accordingly, this chapter moves single-panel comics back into the genre where they belong. Single-panel comics are not simply comics; they are often examples of the medium at its most concentrated, controlled, and efficient.

Keywords: comics theory, aesthetics, formalism, single-panel comics, The Far Side, Ziggy, The Family Circus, Little Lulu

Michelle Ann Abate

Michelle Ann Abate, The Ohio State University

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