Graphic Novels
General Web Resources
These are freely-available online resources that may be of interest to those studying comics and graphic novels.
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Angouleme International Comics FestivalThe largest annual comics festival in Europe.
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Cartoonists of Color DatabaseContains over 1400 entries for cartoonists of color from around the world.
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The Comic Book DatabaseThis site's goal is to catalog every comic, graphic novel, manga, creator, character and anything else that could possibly relate to the field of comics.
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Comic Book Legal Defense FundDedicated to the preservation of First Amendment rights for members of the comics community.
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Comics Research BibliographyAn international bibliography of comic books, comic strips, animation, caricature, cartoons, bandes dessinees, and related topics.
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Comix-Scholars Discussion ListAn academic forum which serves the interests of those involved in research, criticism and teaching related to comics art.
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Diamond Comic DistributorsDiamond is a distributor of English-language comics, graphic novels, and related pop-culture merchandise. The site includes Previews - a catalog of soon-to-be-released comics and graphic novels. Articles, press releases and reviews are also found here.
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ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studiesa web journal dedicated to furthering comics scholarship in a variety of disciplines and theoretical perspectives.
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Lambiek ComiclopediaAn illustrated compendium of over 10,000 comic artists from around the world.
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Queer Cartoonists DatabaseContains entries for over 1400 cartoonists who identify as queer.
Databases
- EBSCO Research Library
Search across all of our EBSCO subscriptions for full-text articles and abstracts in almost every discipline.
- Project Muse
Subjects covered include literature and criticism, history, education, philosophy, political science, and gender studies.
Contents: Full-text peer-reviewed articles.
- JSTOR
Includes archival journal collections in the Arts & Sciences and Life Sciences covering language and literature, history, economics, political science, and health sciences.
Contents: Full-text articles and books.
- ERIC (EBSCO interface)
Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education, covers all aspects of education.
Contents: Abstracts, citations, and some full-text of journal articles, research and technical reports, and an education-specific thesaurus. 1966-present.
Bibliographic Resources
ComicBookDB.com
"The first goal of this project is to catalog every comic, graphic novel, manga, creator, character and anything else that could possibly relate to the field of comics. But that is only the beginning. The second goal of ComicBookDB.com is to make this wealth of information as useful as possible. This means making as many connections as possible from one issue, one creator, one character to everything else in the site."
ComicsResearch.org
"...covers book-length works about comic books and comic strips, from 'fannish' histories to academic monographs, providing detailed information and guidance on further research. Each entry will include the book's Table of Contents as well as (if applicable) a list of comics works reprinted in it (and their sources, sometimes undocumented), other general notes on content and organization, ISBN numbers, and reviews--either included on these pages, listed from print sources, or linked to from on-line sources. Books in any language, about comics from any country, are included." Also maintains a list of comics-related dissertations and theses.
Comics Research Bibliography
"This is an international bibliography of comic books, comic strips, animation, caricature, cartoons, bandes dessinees, and related topics. We have divided the bibliography into four sections, arranged alphabetically by author, for ease of use." Searchable, or browse by topic. Last updated in 2009.
Cover Browser
Web site containing covers for many U.S. comic titles, displayed in chronological/issue number order. No annotations or credits included, just covers.
DC Comics Database
A wiki-based resource that bills itself as "the world's largest DC Comics encyclopedia that anyone can edit, hosted by wikia. Our project contains 75,606 articles and 85,796 images." [as of 1/13] Focus is on the major DC superheroes. Searchable.
Digital Comic Museum
Provides free access to hundreds of pre-1959 public-domain comic books uploaded by users who often offer historical research and commentary alongside high-quality scans.
The Grand Comics Database (GCD)
Created by "a nonprofit, Internet-based organization of international volunteers dedicated to building a database covering all printed comics throughout the world." Contains more than 400,000 cover images, artist/writer credits, and individual issue annotations spanning the history of the form. It's goal is to "contain data for every comic book ever published in every country around the planet."
Marvel Comics Database
Wiki-based resources similar to the DC Comics Database.Covers the contents of Marvel comics published since 1939, including cover images, story synopses, credits, etc. Searchable and browsable by title, year, etc.
