Resurrection: Comics in Post-Soviet Russia: Studies in Comics and Cartoons
Autor José Alanizen Limba Engleză Paperback – 21 feb 2022
Resurrection: Comics in Post-Soviet Russia traces the “kopecks to rubles” journey of Russian comics at the turn of the century. As the follow-up to José Alaniz’s groundbreaking Komiks: Comic Art in Russia (2010), Resurrection authoritatively and exhaustively details the Russian comic landscape of the last three decades: beginning after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union and encompassing the fourth Putin administration, the COVID-19 crisis, and beyond. Bolstering his analysis with interviews with some of the major figures in Russia’s comics industry, Alaniz particularly focuses on the representation of masculinity, disability, historical trauma, and superheroes, as well as on the recent rise of fandom, alternative micropresses, and nonfiction graphic narrative. Resurrection is a sweeping discussion of the metamorphosis of contemporary Russian comic art from its rebirth to its entry into mainstream culture.
| Toate formatele și edițiile | Preț | Express |
|---|---|---|
| Paperback (1) | 349.23 lei 38-45 zile | |
| Ohio State University Press – 21 feb 2022 | 349.23 lei 38-45 zile | |
| Hardback (1) | 927.86 lei 38-45 zile | |
| Ohio State University Press – 21 feb 2022 | 927.86 lei 38-45 zile |
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9780814258217
ISBN-10: 0814258212
Pagini: 248
Ilustrații: 25 b&w illustrations
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 23 mm
Greutate: 0.39 kg
Editura: Ohio State University Press
Colecția Ohio State University Press
Seria Studies in Comics and Cartoons
ISBN-10: 0814258212
Pagini: 248
Ilustrații: 25 b&w illustrations
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 23 mm
Greutate: 0.39 kg
Editura: Ohio State University Press
Colecția Ohio State University Press
Seria Studies in Comics and Cartoons
Recenzii
“Alaniz has established himself as not just the leading scholar in Russian comics but also as a luminary in the entire comics field. The vastness of his knowledge and the broad scope of his access to key figures in the Russian comics world is remarkable.” —Eliot Borenstein, author of Overkill: Sex and Violence in Contemporary Russian Popular Culture
"The breadth and depth of Alaniz’s examination of modern Russian comics culture will make Resurrection a valuable resource in classrooms in not only the US but Russia as well, where comics studies are still in their infancy." —Michael F. Scholz, co-editor of The Image of the Baltic
“[Alaniz’s] book is an excellent one for those interested in contemporary Russia, the history of comic books and their place in society, or media studies. It provides an intimate look into a growing community and is a unique contribution to the field. Alaniz’s work is a love letter to comics broadly and the Russian form of the art specifically. His deep regard for his subjects shines throughout the book.” —Benjamin Griffin, H-Net
"The breadth and depth of Alaniz’s examination of modern Russian comics culture will make Resurrection a valuable resource in classrooms in not only the US but Russia as well, where comics studies are still in their infancy." —Michael F. Scholz, co-editor of The Image of the Baltic
“[Alaniz’s] book is an excellent one for those interested in contemporary Russia, the history of comic books and their place in society, or media studies. It provides an intimate look into a growing community and is a unique contribution to the field. Alaniz’s work is a love letter to comics broadly and the Russian form of the art specifically. His deep regard for his subjects shines throughout the book.” —Benjamin Griffin, H-Net
Notă biografică
José Alaniz is Professor in the Departments of Slavic Languages & Literatures and Cinema & Media Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. He is the author of Komiks: Comic Art in Russia and Death, Disability, and the Superhero: The Silver Age and Beyond.
Extras
We can date it almost down to the hour: by sometime just before Victory Day (May 9), 2015, comics in Russia started to matter.
Leading up to what Russians call the maiskie kanikuly (May holidays), when Moscow celebrates the Soviet Union’s World War II victory over the Germans with period street decorations (banners, posters, slogans), Red Square military parades, and fireworks—that is, a time of peak patriotism—Maus disappeared from bookstore shelves.
It’s true that Art Spiegelman’s seminal 1991 comics memoir about his father’s experiences during the Holocaust, released in Russian translation in 2013 by the prestige publisher Corpus Press, had been selling handsomely. But that’s not why copies started going missing all at once, in late April. Press reports noted that one suddenly could not find Maus at branches of two major Moscow bookstores, Dom Knigi (House of the Book) and Moskva. You couldn’t find the book on the latter store’s website either. No explanation given. “Why they’re removing them, no one has said. We just know they removed them,” one journalist was told when she phoned Dom Knigi. A customer, Margarita Varlamova, wrote on Facebook on April 23 that she had sought Maus in Dom Knigi, and when she couldn’t find it, she asked staff. According to her account: “The clerk, avoiding eye contact, said, ‘Come back after May 9.’” Moreover, the clerk said they had removed the book because of the swastika on the cover. Varlamova managed to convince the staff member to sell her a copy on the sly anyway (Berezina, “Komiks”).
So: Mystery solved. The cover of the Russian Maus, like other editions throughout the world, sports a swastika with a stylized Hitler cat face. The Russian parliament one year before had passed the Law Against Rehabilitation of Nazism, which punishes “the spreading of information on military and memorial commemorative dates related to Russia’s defense that is clearly disrespectful of society, and to publicly desecrate symbols of Russia’s military glory” (Kurilla, PONARS: 2). Individual store managers and salesclerks had evidently taken it upon themselves to withdraw the “inappropriate” item, at least for the duration of the Victory Day celebrations. The fact that other stores did have the book in stock and in plain view indicates that this was not a top-down, coordinated policy, but the actions of individuals leery of drawing the wrong kind of attention during the most “pro-Russia” time of year (Berezina, “Komiks”). The ad hoc nature of the phenomenon was confirmed when journalist Darya Peshchikova actually did find the book at Dom Knigi on April 26—but when she asked staff about reports it had been removed, “the salesclerk saw the swastika and pulled Maus from the shelf herself!” (Rothrock, “Gone”).
...
Only the rare politically charged instances of censorship, such as that of Denis Lopatin’s explicitly anti-government comics at the 2008 KomMissia (see Alaniz, Komiks: 218–219), could compare to what happened with Maus. But whereas those other cases never went beyond the confines of the local (a provincial city) or the elitist (the Moscow and St. Petersburg art scenes), Mausgate penetrated everywhere, involving well-known mainstream bookstore chains, eliciting media coverage throughout Russia (and worldwide).
As Russian pop culture scholar Eliot Borenstein puts it: “You can tell a lot about a community based on what it decides to censor” (Plots: 1).
And so I repeat, comics in Russia now mattered. They mattered because—in a time-honored tradition—Russians of the twenty-first century, on a wide scale, once more considered them dangerous objects that had earned the right to be banned. (Even if informally, and on hysterical grounds.)
To get to this point, where comics were newly deemed worthy of repression (as opposed to mere disdain), they had had to negotiate many twists, turns, and disasters since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Clearly Russia had changed since the early 1990s.
What a long, strange trip it had been.
Leading up to what Russians call the maiskie kanikuly (May holidays), when Moscow celebrates the Soviet Union’s World War II victory over the Germans with period street decorations (banners, posters, slogans), Red Square military parades, and fireworks—that is, a time of peak patriotism—Maus disappeared from bookstore shelves.
It’s true that Art Spiegelman’s seminal 1991 comics memoir about his father’s experiences during the Holocaust, released in Russian translation in 2013 by the prestige publisher Corpus Press, had been selling handsomely. But that’s not why copies started going missing all at once, in late April. Press reports noted that one suddenly could not find Maus at branches of two major Moscow bookstores, Dom Knigi (House of the Book) and Moskva. You couldn’t find the book on the latter store’s website either. No explanation given. “Why they’re removing them, no one has said. We just know they removed them,” one journalist was told when she phoned Dom Knigi. A customer, Margarita Varlamova, wrote on Facebook on April 23 that she had sought Maus in Dom Knigi, and when she couldn’t find it, she asked staff. According to her account: “The clerk, avoiding eye contact, said, ‘Come back after May 9.’” Moreover, the clerk said they had removed the book because of the swastika on the cover. Varlamova managed to convince the staff member to sell her a copy on the sly anyway (Berezina, “Komiks”).
So: Mystery solved. The cover of the Russian Maus, like other editions throughout the world, sports a swastika with a stylized Hitler cat face. The Russian parliament one year before had passed the Law Against Rehabilitation of Nazism, which punishes “the spreading of information on military and memorial commemorative dates related to Russia’s defense that is clearly disrespectful of society, and to publicly desecrate symbols of Russia’s military glory” (Kurilla, PONARS: 2). Individual store managers and salesclerks had evidently taken it upon themselves to withdraw the “inappropriate” item, at least for the duration of the Victory Day celebrations. The fact that other stores did have the book in stock and in plain view indicates that this was not a top-down, coordinated policy, but the actions of individuals leery of drawing the wrong kind of attention during the most “pro-Russia” time of year (Berezina, “Komiks”). The ad hoc nature of the phenomenon was confirmed when journalist Darya Peshchikova actually did find the book at Dom Knigi on April 26—but when she asked staff about reports it had been removed, “the salesclerk saw the swastika and pulled Maus from the shelf herself!” (Rothrock, “Gone”).
...
Only the rare politically charged instances of censorship, such as that of Denis Lopatin’s explicitly anti-government comics at the 2008 KomMissia (see Alaniz, Komiks: 218–219), could compare to what happened with Maus. But whereas those other cases never went beyond the confines of the local (a provincial city) or the elitist (the Moscow and St. Petersburg art scenes), Mausgate penetrated everywhere, involving well-known mainstream bookstore chains, eliciting media coverage throughout Russia (and worldwide).
As Russian pop culture scholar Eliot Borenstein puts it: “You can tell a lot about a community based on what it decides to censor” (Plots: 1).
And so I repeat, comics in Russia now mattered. They mattered because—in a time-honored tradition—Russians of the twenty-first century, on a wide scale, once more considered them dangerous objects that had earned the right to be banned. (Even if informally, and on hysterical grounds.)
To get to this point, where comics were newly deemed worthy of repression (as opposed to mere disdain), they had had to negotiate many twists, turns, and disasters since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Clearly Russia had changed since the early 1990s.
What a long, strange trip it had been.
Cuprins
List of Illustrations
Preface
Prologue The Maus That Roared
Chapter 1 A Time of Troubles: The First Post-Soviet Decade (1990–1999)
Chapter 2 Russian Comics under Putin (2000––?)
Chapter 3 The Publishers: Why Now? And What Comes Next?
Chapter 4 The Mighty Bubble Marching Society (and Its Discontents)
Chapter 5 Post-Soviet Graphic Narrative in the Mirror, or Komiks That Matter
Chapter 6 Post-Soviet Masculinity and the Superhero
Chapter 7 Elephants and DJs: Komiks and Disability
Conclusion The Nonfiction Turn
Bibliography
Index
Preface
Prologue The Maus That Roared
Chapter 1 A Time of Troubles: The First Post-Soviet Decade (1990–1999)
Chapter 2 Russian Comics under Putin (2000––?)
Chapter 3 The Publishers: Why Now? And What Comes Next?
Chapter 4 The Mighty Bubble Marching Society (and Its Discontents)
Chapter 5 Post-Soviet Graphic Narrative in the Mirror, or Komiks That Matter
Chapter 6 Post-Soviet Masculinity and the Superhero
Chapter 7 Elephants and DJs: Komiks and Disability
Conclusion The Nonfiction Turn
Bibliography
Index
Descriere
An exhaustive study of post–Soviet Russian comics since 1991, from the rebirth of the art form to its entry into mainstream culture.