Todays comics and graphic novels tackle serious themes and win Pulitzer prizes. This guide introduces their distinctive characteristics, traces their historical development, and analyzes their narrative structure. An ideal course book, the text includes material on sub-genres, such as autobiography and literary adaptation, and deploys the principles of cognitive science to explore how we respond to texts that fuse visual and linguistic storytelling techniques. Studying Comics and Graphic Novels includes study activities, assignments, and essay questions on each topic as well as an extensive glossary and list of prominent comic and graphic novel publications, making this an invaluable student resource.