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Wiring and sensors (replaced with tinted version)

Lightly tinted photo of ominous wiring and sensors on a light pole

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Finally, students have been at work on their first comics analysis papers, most of which are being submitted today:

Comics Analysis #1

Overview
In these medium length (~1,200-1,500 words) papers, you will choose a particular comic or story arc of comics, providing an analysis of the work you choose, including a clear, purposive thesis and support. You should base your analysis on evidence directly from the comics at hand and must integrate the work of at least one academic source (article, essay, chapter), which can be one we have used as a class or one that you find on your own.

Method
Choose a specific issue or run of comics that we've looked at thus far. Specify and analyze the look, tone, character arc(s), themes, and so on of the work and why they appear as they do. What is emphasized or dwelt on, what aspects refer to other comics we've seen, what holds the comics(s) together as a unified whole? Does the comic require context or presume knowledge of its readers? What do you argue the comics is about? In some ways, this will be a conventional analysis, but remember that comics hinge on their visual and presentational qualities, so make sure to engage with them (and include images!).

For example, if you chose Ta-Nehisi Coates and Leinil Yu's "Winter in America" run of Captain America, you would want to consider why it looks the way it does and what it dwells on. What themes and tropes is Coates working with? What does Yu's art emphasize? "Winter in America" has to engage with a convoluted story arc of the 2010s (Secret Empire in 2017Links to an external site.) as well as the recent election of Donald Trump, who took office in 2017--how do those conditions matter, if you think they do? What else comes into the story (the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the crisis of masculinity, the resonance of Coates' notion of "The Dream") and how do they do so?

Considerations
You may want to bounce your ideas for your analysis off your peers and/or me. This doesn't have to be very formal--a sentence or two via email would suffice...

And Evil Knievel, advertised across many Marvel comics of the era:

Evil Knievel ad, Captain America #193 (1976)

We'll deal more with the What If...? series next week, but #5 in particular revisits Avengers #4 and Captain America #110, which we've seen before, turning Steven into a mid-1970s spy, styled as Redford in Three Days of the Condor, which we watch a clip of ("paranoia" being a theme of the 70s).

Captain Britain also debuted in 1976, while DC returned the Freedom Fighters and Marvel started its storied What If....? line, often treating angles on Cap continuity.

Of course, Cap asserts the proper form of patriotism, bursting in on Revolutionary War cosplay party at the end. Over in Bicentennial Battles, Cap is bounced through American history, surveying a history of war and violence, before returning to the American people and cutesy pinups.

Our main comics included the Kirby's "Madbomb" arc and Bicentennial Battles, from 1976, contextualized by the bicentennial itself. We touched on the inclusion of Kissinger, cosplaying Founding Fathers, Kill-Derby (*cough* Rollerball) and Steven taking a tangent on a mid-70s romance film sequence.

Captain America and Nationalism, Week 6: comics analysis and late 1970s Cap. We started the week parsing comic studies writing, using work from @realjdittmer.bsky.social, Osvaldo Oyola, and Deborah Clark Vance, looking at how arguments are structured and aspects of comics cited. #comicsteaching

Week 6, Captain American and Nationalism

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Finally, I collected sketchbooks for a brief check of how students are using them. Please behold these delights. 😎

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The rest of the week was devoted to work with students' initial academic sources, which they are creating Source Annotation Comics in relation to. The final version can be now more that four comics pages (full or 1/2 letter sized), but must surface elements from the original source.

Description
A short-form (no more than 4 pages) comic representing the argument and details of a single academic source, presented for a reader new to the topic and its specifics.

Parameters
Throughout the semester, you will work on multiple aspects of a researched argument project that will include a this source annotation, an argument comic, and a researched comic, as well as the steps to develop and connect these pieces. You will shape this project as the semester proceeds, but the topics of your three main comics should be related and you will draw on sources shared across these works.

For your source annotation, you will compose a short-form comic no more than 4 full--letter-sized (8.5x11") or A4 (210x297mm)--or half-sized comics pages, the material of which will be derived from a single academic source: a journal article, book chapter, or other source of similar length/depth.

Sources
We will work on finding and choosing sources as part of our daily course work, but you will need to set aside some time to explore a potential topic and find one or more potential sources before you have enough to proceed. For our purposes, the topic that links your source annotation, argument, and researched comics will need to be a contemporary issue or debate, but can be at any level. Examples to consider for their range:

student mental health support on campus
the impacts of changes to federal visa policies
who should be responsible for changes due to AI in a specific category
how demographics and partisanship are tied together
what should be done about the increase in surveillance technology
You will refine your topic as you proceed, but will need to find a specific academic source on which your source annotation will be based. There are many reputable ways to find academic sources:

EBSCO Academic Search Ultimate
Google ScholarLinks to an external site.
Databases linked to the UIUC Library "Find Articles Guide"

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We used the excerpts from Radtke and Squarzoni to address how each frames the material from their sources, noting how they make the work others visible as well as the choices of framing, style, and tone each employs.

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Comics & Rhetoric, Week 6: the week started with We @elerimai.bsky.social & @mirkdrop.bsky.social's chapter in Making Nonfiction Comics on "Data, Science, and Graphic Medicine" and excerpts from @kristenradtke.bsky.social's Seek You and Philippe Squarzoni's Climate Changed. #comicsteaching

Week 6
Monday, Sept 28 - Friday, Oct 2
Design and Making Comics
Please complete everything listed under “prepare before class” ahead of each class meeting and bring your sketchbook and drawing implements of choice to class every time we meet.

a table containing an overview of the week's assignments and due dates
Date Prepare Before Class In-Class Activities
Mon
Sept 28
Eleri Harris & Shay Mirk, Making Nonfiction Comics, ch. 7: “Data, Science, and Graphic Medicine"
comics
Kristen Radtke, Seek You (2021), excerpts (.pdf)Download excerpts (.pdf)
Philippe Squarzzoni, Climate Changed (2012/2014), excerptsDownload excerpts
discuss source use and how sources are made visible
group exercise on the mechanics of source integration
hand me your sketchbook at the end of class, which I will return on Sept 30
we will have an observer in class, there to observe my instruction, who may also participate in class
Wed
Sept 30
Nick Sousanis & Emily Beitiks, "Comics Beyond SightLinks to an external site." (2023) [see additional information/versionsLinks to an external site.]
Eleri Harris & Shay Mirk, Making Nonfiction Comics, ch. 8: “Editing”
Lynda Barry, Making Comics, p. 154-170
discuss accessibility and the materiality of comics
discuss comics drafting and editing
practice editing and giving feedback on comics comics drafts
Fri
Oct 2
Source Annotation Comic draft
in-class peer review
Due: Source Annotation Comic draft (due by Oct 2, 9am)

Making Nonfiction Comics (2025), page 179

Shawn Gilmore @gipperfish.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Captain America II: Death Too Soon (dir. Ivan Nagy, 1979)

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Nice! We just did a Madden-based exercise last week (to practice some distinctions between iterations in 99 Ways) in my Comics & Rhetoric course! 😎 #comicsteaching

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Shawn Gilmore @gipperfish.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

It's in ASM #537 (2007), which we're reading along with the Civil War and Death of Cap stuff in about 5 weeks. 😎

"No, you move" in Amazing Spider-Man #537 (2007)

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Shawn Gilmore @gipperfish.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Anti-AI sidewalk chalk popped up on campus this week

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Shawn Gilmore @gipperfish.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

My Captain America and Nationalism class is reading Bicentennial Cap comics by Jack Kirby, which feature both the “Big Daddy” Madbomb and Cap watching an atomic test. Much, as they say, to consider. #comicsteaching

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In Captain American: The Winter Soldier, Redford's character in the MCU (Alexander Pierce) has an office with a window that overlooks the Watergate, as does the corner of the Triskelion, btw. 😎

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

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We contextualize this via Jewett on "The Grand Conspiracy" and the model of prophetic realism that recurs through the American project, with the increase in paranoia in the middle of the 20th century.

I n his statesmanlike account of the origins of the Vietnam War,
Louis J. Halle describes the impact of the conspiracy theory on
American thought. It led American planners to misunderstand the
nationalistic thrust of Ho Chi Minh and his movement, to link them
prematurely with the Chinese Communists against whom they were
seeking to maintain their independence, and to take over the abortive
French efforts to sustain a pro-Western regime there. " From the
beginning the West was governed by the myth of a single conspiracy
for world conquest under the direction of a satanic band in the
Kremlin to whom all who called themselves Communists, the world
over, gave blind obedience."1 Since the mid-1950s, we have discovered
how little the Russians actually were able to control events in
allied countries. The split between Russia and China, preceded by
the independence movements in Communist countries of Eastern
Europe, gave the lie to the conspiratorial premise. Nevertheless, we
committed ourselves to the civil war in Indochina on false premises
and were unable to disentangle ourselves even after signing peace
agreements.

the frustration
of American hopes was explained by what Eric F. Goldman
called the "Great Conspiracy." The premise of this theory was that
the "hated developments could all have been prevented .... The
rise of Communism around the world did not result from long-running
historical forces; the red advances came from the Alger Hisses,
who had contrived to bring them about."10 Senator Joseph
McCarthy rose to give the most coherent statement of this theory,
charging in his June 14, 1951, speech before the Senate that Secretary
of State George Marshall had been party to "a conspiracy so immense,
an infamy so black, as to dwarf any in the history of man .... (a conspiracy directed] to the end that we shall be contained, frustrated
and finally fall victim to Soviet intrigue from within and Russian
military might from without."11 Despite the groundlessness of
such charges, there was an enormous readiness on the part of the
American public to receive them.

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We examined how these comics directly engage with their political moment, as Steve rejects the role of Captain America and becomes peak 1970s. This leads to a narrative muddle, only solved by the return of Red Skull, which forced Steve back into his Cap guise.

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Number 1 lands on the lawn of the White House, and, his champion Moonstone defeated, runs inside, revealing himself as Nixon to Cap, killing himself in the Oval Office. Note that Captain America #175 was released on April 9, 1974, All the President's Men on June 15, with Nixon resigning in August.

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In the back half of the week, we read the Secret Empire arc (#169-176), a Watergate allegory in which the Committee to Regain America's Principles (CRAP, instead of CReeP) under Harderman (instead of Haldeman), implicates Cap in murder to sideline him for the rise of the Secret Empire.

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Alongside this, we looked at two chapters from Robert Jewett's The Captain America Complex (1973), which explicitly frames Captain America as the latest in a long line of problematic zealous nationalism. Over at DC, Uncle Sam comes back with the Freedom Fighters.

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Captain America #153-156 introduce William Burnside (Bad Cap) to explain the 1950s Commie Smasher Cap stories and the gaps in time that bring the continuity to 1972. We explored the narrative logic of these stories and how retroactive continuity was being developed at the time.

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Captain America and Nationalism, Week 5: 1970s Cap in full force, with a retconned explanation of the 1950s Cap stories and the incredible Secret Empire run #comicsteaching

Week 5
Secret Empire
September 21-25

Monday, September 21
Captain America critiquing the use of "avenge" in Avengers #80

▲ Avengers #80 (1970)

comics:

Captain America #153, #154, #155, #156 (1972)
Marvel Team-Up #13 (1973)
Uncle Sam in Justice League of America #107 (1973)
prose:

Robert Jewett, The Captain America Complex (1973, rev. ed. 1984), ch. 5: "Consumed by Zeal (.pdf)" [unchanged from 1973 ed.; feel free to skip past some of the Biblical analysis and examples before the 20th c.]
Two panels from Captain America #131 (1970)
▲ Captain America #131 (1970) {the story "Bucky Reborn!" is interesting]
Wednesday, September 23
comics:

Captain America vol. 1 #169-173 (1974) [Secret Empire TPB]
prose:

Robert Jewett, The Captain America Complex (1973, rev. ed. 1984), ch. 6: "The Grand Conspiracy (.pdf)" [unchanged from 1973 ed.; skim through, but note the genealogy of those considered conspiritorial]
Friday, September 25
comics:

Captain America #174-176 (1974-75) [Secret Empire TPB]
"Nomad" in Captain America #177, #178, #179, #180, #181, #182, #183, #184, #185, #186 (1974-75) [don't skip the muscle ads and Cap's costuming in #180]
Captain Canuck #1 (1975)
prose:

Robert Jewett & John Shelton Lawrence, Captain America and the Crusade Against Evil (2003), ch. 3: "Popular Culture as a Bearer of the National Complex (.pdf)"

Finally, students handed my their first memoir minicomics--a sampling of the delights. #comicsteaching 😎

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We also worked through more of @elerimai.bsky.social & @mirkdrop.bsky.social's Making Nonfiction Comics, work up to their first nonfiction comics. Students found initial sources and created some potential illustrations using a variation on Lynda Barry's "Sister Image Diary" method.

instructions for an in-class comics exercise on a chalkboard

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Comics & Rhetoric, Week 5: a brief recap after a long week. Some last descriptive work on words and images using @scottmccloud.bsky.social and Jan Baetens. (Side note, we have a lovely copy of the Laocoön statue group on campus : www.spurlock.illinois.edu/exhibits/per... .) #comicsteaching

Week 5
Monday, Sept 21 - Friday, Sept 25
Styles and Structures of Comics
Please complete everything listed under “prepare before class” ahead of each class meeting and bring your sketchbook and drawing implements of choice to class every time we meet.

a table containing an overview of the week's assignments and due dates
Date Prepare Before Class In-Class Activities
Mon
Sept 21
Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics, ch. 6: "Show and Tell"
Jan Baetens, "Words and Images (.pdf)Download Words and Images (.pdf)"
Matt Madden, 99 Ways to Tell a Story, excerptsDownload excerpts
compare examples from Madden withe the descriptive language in McCloud and Baetens
exercise dissecting a Madden example
Wed
Sept 23
Eleri Harris & Shay Mirk, Making Nonfiction Comics, ch. 6: “Drawing Nonfiction”
discuss how information appears in comics panels and pages
Source Annotation work, including finding useful sources [bring a device such as a laptop or tablet]
Fri
Sept 25
Lynda Barry, Making Comics, p. 124-153
Source work
Barry exercises
Due: Memoir Comic #1 (due by Sept 25, 11:59pm)
Due: Memoir Comic #1 reflection (due by Sept 25, 11:59pm)

Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics (1993)

From a classical point of view, the discussion of words and images is a discussion
of words versus images, for in Western culture, it is the differences rather
than the analogies that have been stressed. Culturally and ideologically, word
and image have never been equal partners: our Western history is deeply rooted
in logocentrism (which considers language more valuable than images), the corollary
of which is iconoclasm (which tends to mistrust or devalue the image in
favor of language).6 According to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, whose Laocoön
(1766) continues to be a major reference in the comics debate, words belong to
the field of the arts of time, whose signs are read consecutively, whereas images
belong to the arts of space, whose signs are processed simultaneously. From this
general observation, the German philosopher also infers the (highly contentious)
idea that words are a more appropriate medium for the representation
of actions, while (fixed) images should focus on the representation of descriptions.
These and other issues are still crucial in art-historical
controversies on the
relative status of verbal and visual media and the supposed qualities or disadvantages
of “impure” media.

Shawn Gilmore @gipperfish.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Four iterations of the sequence I’m writing about today for the Marvelman/Mircaleman book, from Warrior #20 (1982), Miracleman #5 (1985), Miracleman Book Two (1990), and Miracleman Book Two (2014). #marvelman

Warrior #20 (1982), Miracleman #5 (1985), Miracleman Book Two (1990), and Miracleman Book Two (2014)

The issue is not in the digital version of the trade or the original panels from Captain America #173 (1974).

My students found an unfortunate skin-tone issue re: Sam Wilson/Falcon in the print edition of the Captain America and the Falcon: Secret Empire TPB (2005 ed.)we are using. Sam in yellow shirt and red cap on two successive pages. #comicsteaching

Captain America and the Falcon: Secret Empire TPB (2005)

Steel structure, crane, protected walkway

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They do a lot of theatrical and circus framing, so I’ve always suspected it’s related to those sorts of costumes (especially the tights). Also worth remembering that nobody was planning ahead and just dashing off superheroes alongside westerns, crime, romance, and illustration work.

From Van Lente & Dunlavey’s Comic Book History of Comics:

Long story very short—there were only a few shops doing most of the art for a dozen or so publishers in the run up to WWII, so those shop styles coalesced very quickly, with Simon and Kirby’s style dominating. The artists following those who went off to war maintained that style and here we are.

Joe Simon and Jack Kirby present Stuntman