In our culture, which depends increasingly on images of instruction and recreation, it is important to ask hwo words and images make imeaning when they are combined. Comics, one of the most widely read media oif the twentitth century, serves as an ideal for focusing on an investigation on the word-and-image question. pThis collection of essays attempts to give an answer. The first six see words and images as separate art forms that play with or against each other. David Kunzle finds that words restrict the meaning of the art of Adolphe Willette and Theophile-Alexandre Steinlen in iLe Chat Noir/i David A. Berona, examining wordless novels, argues that the ability to read pictures depends on the ability to read words. Todd Taylor draws on classical rhetoric to demonstrate that images in iThe Road Runner/i are more persuasive that words. pN. C. Christopher Couch-writing on iThe Yellow Kid/i--and Robert C. Harvey-discussing early iNew Yorker/i cartoons-are both interest