3 Projects
Comics and Popular Culture
The Comics and Popular Culture archive contains a representative sample of early North American comics, allowing students and researchers to explore how comics have evolved both in form and function. Featuring high-resolution imagery from more than 25 different early comic books, ranging from the Gumps, Krazy Kat, and Little Nemo to the Yellow Kid and Buster Brown, the archive provides access to many materials only otherwise available in libraries and rare book rooms. Students can easily explore both themes (eg. poverty, kids, accidents, funny animals, technology) and a variety of formal categories (such as size, scale, perspective, and transgressing the frame). The archive has been used in a number of MIT courses, including Introduction to Media Studies and Media in Cultural Context: Comics, Cartoons, and Graphic Storytelling.
Hyperstudio Role
Provided conceptual support and integration into the Metamedia platform. Scanned huge comic books to provide high-resolution images with full zoom capability. Searched for metadata and categorized materials. Provided links to additional resources.Collaborators
HyperStudio Team: Susannah Mandel, Belinda T. Yung
Project Lead: Henry Jenkins III, former MIT professor of literature and director of Comparative Media Studies
Funding
