Overview of Citing Comic Books and Graphic Novels
by Gian Pagnucci (1/10/22)
As a Comics Studies scholar, I have spent a frustrating amount of time trying to learn how to cite comic books and graphic novels correctly. I do like the work done by Allen Ellis on this important topic. He has a very helpful online citation website: Comic Art in Scholarly Writing-A Citation Guide. While Ellis’ guide is good, I fear it might be a bit too complicated for the average first year composition student to use. In addition, his guide, like most online sources about citing comic books, only covers MLA format, and a lot of us need to use APA or Chicago Style. I wish the Purdue OWL covered comic books and graphic novels, but so far it does not.
Another problem one finds in reviewing the online sources about citing comic books is conflicting advice. Some sources suggest citing only the writer of a comic, some say cite only the artist who drew the comic, and others ignore the creators altogether. This is very problematic because it underrepresents highly collaborative nature of the comic book creation process. Because comic books are traditionally created at a fast pace, with typically monthly publication schedules, it takes a team of creators to produce each one. This means that not only does every comic book have a writer, but it also has an artist, an inker who finalizes the art, a colorist who adds that all important four color look, a letterer to finalize the words, and at least one editor. Sometimes people do more than one job, both drawing and inking, and sometimes two people might ink different parts of a comic book. Comic book covers also are often created by additional artists who didn’t draw the interior pages of that comic. All of this means that it does not do comic book creators justice to only cite the writer of a comic book.
While all comic book collaborators are important, it seems that over time it has become conventional for scholars to cite only the writer, artist, and inker of a comic book. Sorry, colorists, you’re just kinda out of luck here, but don’t feel too bad because there is a fabulous film about a comic book colorist called Chasing Amy. Chasing Amy was written by comic book writer and fan Kevin Smith and stars Joey Lauren Adams as Amy and Ben Affleck as said comic book colorist!
With that background information to explain my thinking, I offer below a set of sample comic book citations, both in text and in references, for the APA, Chicago, and MLA styles. These entries were all used in book chapters I published, so that lends some authority to them as samples. While I am not the definitive expert on the topic of comic book citations, I do hope this page will be helpful to other comics studies scholars and students who want to cite these important books in their scholarly work:
Good luck, fellow comic book lovers!