Comics Syllabus 001 – Wonder Woman Year One by Rucka and Scott

Greetings, Denizens of Multiversity! I’m Paul, and I’m inviting you to try out the first episode of The Comics Syllabus, a comics analysis podcast.

[audio: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/325109024-twoplai-001-wonder-woman-year-one-by-rucka-scott-fajardo-wynne-dc.mp3]

Our mantra is, we read widely and we dig deep.

Each week, I choose one work from a wide breadth of current and classic comics, including superhero fare, comics from independent publishers and small presses, global comics, newspaper strip archives, and various collected editions. We spend time digging deep into the work from various perspectives, sometimes in actual live conversation with others, sometimes with just me on a mic surrounded by a pile of comics studies and academic books. It’s like a comics seminar, where the only prerequisite is that you love comics.

This week’s Comics Syllabus podcast digs deep into the “Year One” story arc from “Wonder Woman” #2, 4, 6, 10, 12, and 14 by writer Greg Rucka, artist Nicola Scott, colorist Romulo Fajardo Jr., and letterer Jodi Wynne (leaving out an interlude in issue 8 with Bilquis Everly on art). I draw heavily on Carolyn Cocca’s Superwomen: Gender, Power, and Representation (Bloomsbury), recently nominated for an Eisner, to consider the heavy “representational weight” that Wonder Woman has historically carried as the iconic female superhero. I think about how the “Year One” creative team deals with (or doesn’t deal with) this history and the present in the pages and panels of their new origin story for Wonder Woman. (For a briefer primer on Wonder Woman and cultural history, check out this piece from the Nib by Lucy Bellwood and Sarah Mirk.)

Also mentioned in this episode: an editorial from the National Review quoting a commentary piece from the James G. Martin Center throwing shade on the trend of comics in college classrooms, and the venerable Comixscholars listserv where great researchers and theorists fan the flames.

SPOILER WARNING: In the beginning of the episode, we discuss Wonder Woman and comics in non-spoilery general terms. But after the first break at ( 33:00 ), we start diving into close-readings of the chosen work. So if you don’t want to be spoiled on the events and details of this work, please go and read it first, and come back to finish the episode with us and enjoy it with us. Consider it homework, but more fun.

Download the podcast here.

You can find archives for this podcast (previously named “Study Comics with Paul”) here. Or find the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or Soundcloud, or copy this RSS feed to your podcatcher. You can also follow Paul on Twitter. Thanks for listening.

IMAGES DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

Themyscira vs. “Man’s” World Redux