(Cross listed with FILMS_VS 4840/7840 and DST_VS 4840)

Comic book movies are all the rage today, but the enthusiasm is hardly brand new. There has always been a connection between cinema and illustrated texts, dating back to Flash Gordon and the Green Hornet. The interplay between films and graphic literature – including the Sunday funnies, serial comics, and Batman and Wonder Woman – is part of a long intermedial history.

How, then, do we compare the moving images we see in cinemas with our experience of reading a comic or a graphic novel? What are our expectations, and what changes for the filmmakers as they move from the illustrated panel to the storyboard, and, finally, to the screen?

In this class we will read some graphic novels and other original source material (comics), some theoretical essays, and we will watch several films. Expectations include regular writing assignments, participation in discussion boards, and one longer critical essay. Films screened as part of the course may include Snowpiercer, American Splendor, Ghost World, Old Boy, Black Panther, and Wonder Woman, among others.