An academic examination of the minutia of comics and comic production, this volume presents modern scholarship on such topics as balloonics (the quantitative analysis of speech balloon shapes), augmentations and prevalence across the works of several popular comic artists, a discussion of the work of William Hogarth, the seventeenth century English artist and his contributions to the development of comics and several essays covering the adaptation of literature to comics and comics as non-fiction. Contributors include professors and doctoral candidates in the fields of literature, communications and linguistics. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)