Explores alternative comics by closely examining long-form comics, in particular the graphic novel. Charles Hatfield argues that these are fundamentally a literary form and offers an extensive critical study of them both as a literary genre and as a cultural phenomenon. In the 1980s, a sea change occurred in comics. Fueled by Art Spiegel- man and Françoise Mouly's avant-garde anthology Raw and the launch of the Love & Rockets series by Gilbert, Jaime, and Mario Hernandez, the decade saw a deluge of comics that were more autobiographical, emotionally realistic, and experimental than anything seen before. These alternative comics were not the scatological satires of the 1960s underground, nor were they brightly colored newspaper strips or superhero comic books. In Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature, Charles Hatfield establishes the parameters of alternative comics by closely examining long-form comics, in particular the graphic novel. He argues that these are fundamentally a literary form and offers an extensive critical study of them both as a literary genre and as a cultural phenomenon. Combining sharp-eyed readings and illustrations from particular texts with a larger understanding of the comics as an art form, this book discusses the development of specific genres, such as autobiography and history. Alternative Comics analyzes such seminal works as Spiegelman's Maus, Gilbert Hernandez's Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories, and Justin Green's Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary. Hatfield explores how issues outside of cartooning-the marketplace, production demands, work schedules-can affect the final work. Using Hernandez's Palomar as an example, he shows how serialization may determine the way a cartoonist structures a narrative. In a close look at Maus, Binky Brown, and Harvey Pekar's American Splendor, Hatfield teases out the complications of creating biography and autobiography in a substantially visual medium, and shows how creators approach these issues in radically different ways. Charles Hatfield, Canyon Country, California, is an assistant professor of English at California State University, Northridge. His work has been published in ImageTexT, Inks: Cartoon and Comic Art Studies, Children's Literature Association Quarterly, the Comics Journal, and other periodicals. See the author's Web site at .

This collection of Sarah Albritton’s first touring exhibition includes forty-nine paintings in full colour accompanied by Albritton's stories as transcribed by folklorist Susan Roach. While other self-trained women artists celebrate the glories of the past, there is a stark reality to Albritton's work. Growing up as an African American in north Louisiana in the 1930s and 1940s, Sarah Albritton managed to take care of herself in her own way. On her journey away from the pain of poverty, abuse, and racism she experienced, Sarah Albritton has expressed herself in a variety of artistic modes: food preparation, restaurant decor, yard art, Christmas decorations, autobiographical prose and poetry, and most recently, narrative combined with paintings. This collection of her first touring exhibition includes forty-nine paintings in full color accompanied by Albritton's stories as transcribed by folklorist Susan Roach. Her people are still plowing in the near dark of evening. Her happy children are swimming in polluted streams. There are angels and lightning in her skies. And when she tells her stories, they are direct but never maudlin--""I was born in hell,"" she says. ""I grew up in hell."" But there is a perseverance running through On My Way. The colors here, often grays, browns, and muted greens, rise and converge as do many of her images of people flying to freedom or walking trails. As John Michael Vlach says in his foreword, ""The essential point to be taken here is that Albritton's confidence and her will to survive may owe much to the examples of courage and endurance widely available in the African American community from elders who had known the days of slavery."" Susan Roach, folklorist and professor of English, writes an introduction that merges Albritton's biography with the many arts she practices. Peter Jones, artist and professor of art at Louisiana Tech University, gives us the national context of Albritton's work and traces her development as a practicing creator. Sarah Albritton is a Ruston, Louisiana, restauranteur and owner of Sarah's Kitchen. Born in Arcadia in 1936, she has devoted much of her life to the culinary arts and has conducted cooking demonstrations for the Louisiana World Exposition and the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife.

Based on the hit videogame series from Ubisoft! Assassin's Creed: The Fall follows 19th century Russian assassin Nikolai Orelov as he strives to claim an artifact of immense power from the hands of the Templars, leading to a climactic and violent showdown with the ruthless Tsar Alexander III aboard a speeding train!