The Center for Comics Studies

Links

A Great General Resource for Comics Studies
http://www.comicsresearch.org/academic.html

Searchable Bibliographies

The Bonn Online Bibliography of Comics Research: An international database of scholarly literature about comics and graphic novels
https://www.bobc.uni-bonn.de/

Comics Research Bibliography: The topical bibliographies are very useful, but for a limited number of topics
https://homepages.rpi.edu/~bulloj/comxbib.html

Information about Specific Comics, Characters, or Creators

The Grand Comics Database: An open database with authorship, publication, and some content information about printed comics throughout the world
https://www.comics.org/

Comic Book Database: Similar to the database above, but better for searching for character appearances.
http://www.cbdb.com/

Lambiek Comiclopedia: An illustrated compendium of over 13,900 comic artists
https://www.lambiek.net/comiclopedia.html

Don Markstein's Toonopedia
http://www.toonopedia.com/

Archives and Special Collections

The Comic Art Special Collection at Michigan State University: The granddaddy of university comic book collections and still one of the largest and most comprehensive collection of comic books in the world
https://comics.lib.msu.edu/descrip.htm

Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at the Ohio State University
https://cartoons.osu.edu/collections/

Graphic Novels Archival Collections at Columbia University
https://guides.library.columbia.edu/c.php?g=363467&p=2455683

The Comic Arts Collection at Virginia Commonwealth University: Contains more than 175,000 items, and serves as the repository for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards
https://www.library.vcu.edu/research-teaching/special-collections-and-archives/collections/comic-arts/

Comics Book Collection at Library of Congress
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/awser2/comic_books.html

Comic Books and Graphic Novels at Bowling Green State University
https://libguides.bgsu.edu/comics

Comics Collection at University of Florida
https://ufdc.ufl.edu/punch

Gary Lee Watson Comic Book Collection at University of South Carolina
https://www.sc.edu/uofsc/posts/2019/10/comic_book_collection.php?sfns=mo#0

Manuscript and Archival Collections at San Diego State University
https://libguides.sdsu.edu/c.php?g=409672&p=2790924

Comic Art and Popular Culture at University of Missouri
https://library.missouri.edu/specialcollections/bookcol/comic/

Edwin and Terry Murray Fanzine Collection at Duke University
https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/murrayzine/

Museums

Cartoon Art Museum (San Francisco)
https://www.cartoonart.org/about

Belgian Comic Strip Center (Brussels)
https://www.comicscenter.net/en/home

Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (Columbus)
https://cartoons.osu.edu/exhibits/

The Cartoon Museum (London)
https://www.cartoonmuseum.org/

Society of Illustrators Museum (New York)
https://www.societyillustrators.org/exhibits

Galarie Lambiek (Amsterdam): The world's oldest comic shop and sequential art gallery
https://www.lambiek.net/infomenu/about-lambiek.html

Where to Read Comics For Free

Public Domain Comic Books
https://digitalcomicmuseum.com/
https://comicbookplus.com/
https://archive.org/details/comics?tab=collection

Comic Strips
https://www.gocomics.com/

Web Comics
https://www.webtoons.com/en/
https://www.loc.gov/collections/webcomics-web-archive/about-this-collection/

Professional Organizations

The Comics Studies Society: A professional society of comics scholars, promoting the critical and teaching of comics
http://comicssociety.org/

Other Centers

Scottish Centre for Comics Studies: The SCCS, based at the University of Dundee, exists to bring together researchers, teachers, students, archivists, artists and writers, and industry professionals to promote a greater understanding and appreciation of the medium and its history.
https://scottishcomicstudies.com/

Companion Sites (for books about comics)

Drawing Words & Writing Pictures
https://dw-wp.com/

The Power of Comics: History, Form and Culture
https://powerofcomics.com/

Teaching Graphic Novels
http://teachinggraphicnovels.maupinhouse.com/

Comics in Education (based on Gene Luen Yang’s master thesis)
https://www.humblecomics.com/comicsedu/index.html

Blogs

Spin Weave & Cut: The blog of comics creator and educator Nick Sousanis. A great resource for teachers.
http://spinweaveandcut.com/

Comic Book Historians: Interesting interviews and well-researched history
https://comicbookhistorians.com/

The Fabulous Fifties: Comics from the 1950s
http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/

Comics Forum: A blog to accompany the Comics Forum conferences
https://comicsforum.org/

The Comics Professor: Reviews and commentary about superhero comics
https://www.comicsprofessor.com/

Barry's Pearls of Comic Book Wisdom: Detailed history, accompanied by many images
http://forbushman.blogspot.com/

Timey Atlas Comics: The history of the company that became known as Marvel Comics
http://timely-atlas-comics.blogspot.com/

Marvel Mysteries and Comics Minutiae: Well-researched comics history
https://nick-caputo.blogspot.com/