Through the combination of text and images, comic books offer a unique opportunity to explore deep questions about aesthetics, ethics, and epistemology in nontraditional ways. The essays in this collection focus on a wide variety of genres, from mainstream superhero comics, to graphic novels that exercise social realism, to European adventure classics. p Included among the contributions are essays on existentialism in Daniel Clowes's graphic novel iGhost World/i, ecocriticism in Paul Chadwick's long-running iConcrete/i series, and political philosophies in Herge's perennially popular iThe Adventures of Tintin/i. Modern political concerns inform Terry Kading's discussion of how superhero comics have responded to 9/11 and how the genre reflects the anxieties of the contemporary world. pEssayists also explore the issues surrounding the development and appreciation of comics. Amy Kiste Nyberg examines the rise of the Comics Code, using it as a springboard for discussing the