Regarding Frames

by Shiamin Kwa

Published 3 February 2020
Regarding Frames explores the ways that literary comics engage readers in the mutual construction of meaning.

Part interpretive criticism, part philosophical meditation, Regarding Frames: Thinking with Comics in the Twenty-First Century explores the ways that literary comics engage readers in the mutual construction of meaning. Kwa draws from a wide range of philosophical, critical, and theoretical texts to analyze the visual and verbal narrative strategies that artists use. She examines the work of comic artists Gabrielle Bell, Michael DeForge, Kevin Huizenga, Laura Park, and Dash Shaw who construct their particular visions of the world. These creators' experiments with form pose questions about the difference between how things appear to be and how they are. Regarding Frames makes a case for the rewards of close reading at the surface.