Research Guides: Comics & Graphic Novels: Find Resources About Comics

Research Comics!

Batgirl, animated gif, https://gph.is/1fva4Fp.

If you really love a book, series, writer, artist, letterer, colorist, subject depicted in comics, etc. you can totally explore that academically. Here are some suggested starting places:

Art, Design & Architecture Collection (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
This is a great place if you're thinking of focusing on the art aspect of comics. It searches scholarly journals, magazines, and newspapers related to art.
Humanities Full Text (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
This searches mainly magazines and scholarly journals related to subjects in the humanities (like art, literature, film, philosophy, etc.), so it's a good place to go to get a broad look but I wouldn't recommend it as your only stop.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR is a great place to search (especially for art and literature) if you don't absolutely need something that was published in the last six years. This searches mostly full-text scholarly journals from their first issues (some date back to the 1800's) to between two and five years prior to the present. It covers many subjects.
MLA International Bibliography (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
This is the go-to database for literature research and comics are a type of literature. It searches in literature related journals, books, and dissertations and covers international stuff.

Primo
Primo allows you to locate the library's books, ebooks, videos, and journals. It can serve the same purpose as a traditional online catalog, but it is much more comprehensive. It includes digital art collections from the Visual Resource Center’s LUNA database and full-text articles included in many of the library's online databases. You’ll also find some materials that are not immediately available from the library but may be obtained through our interlibrary loan services.

Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
This database covers lots of subjects, but it's great for searching the types of scholarly journals that cover comics. It automatically only searches "only content I have access to," so if you're not finding something try checking "all content" instead. You might have to interlibrary loan something but first use the other box on this page to double check we don't have access to it elsewhere.

Already have a citation but not full-text?

Use this search box to see if our library has a specific journal when you know the journal title you're looking for, like if you only found a citation but no full-text.

If we don't have access to the journal and/or specific issue, go to the Interlibrary Loan tab to learn how to get it for free!