To begin, a few notes on terminology and references. Although they have had different titles during their existence, for consistency there are times where I refer to the publishers now known as DC and Marvel by those names even when context makes this anachronistic.

Ascribing publication dates to periodical comics is an invidious business because industry practice is to put advance dates on covers to extend an issue’s shelf-life: a comic cover-dated March 1963, for instance, was probably printed, distributed, and sold at the end of 1962. Nonetheless, unless stated otherwise, publication dates refer to the date printed on a comic, not its date of release.

Many of the following sources have no pagination. I allocated page numbers for these publications by counting the front cover as [1] and numbering the following pages accordingly. I counted recto and verso sides regardless of whether they contained printed matter. Page numbers derived from this method are presented in square brackets.

Enormous thanks to editor Michelle Houston at Edinburgh University Press and series editors Martin Halliwell and Emily West, and then Joe Street: I am grateful indeed that you encouraged me to pitch this book and sustained me with support (and, when needed, criticism) throughout. You made writing this book enjoyable and – as far as it can be – stress free. Thanks also to Edinburgh University Press’s Caitlin Murphy for her design expertise. I am very grateful to Jules Feiffer and Samuel R. Delany for permission to quote from their unpublished materials and to Tillie Walden for allowing us to reproduce such a great image from Spinning (2017) on the cover.

Many thanks to the University of Exeter for the research leave that enabled me to complete this book. At Exeter I have benefited from teaching students who are smart and passionate about comics, and I’m grateful to the participants on my comics modules for our rewarding conversations. The ideas in The US Graphic Novel have been formed out of three overlapping intellectual constituencies: American Studies, Comics Studies, and my colleagues in the Department of English and Film at the University of Exeter. My thanks to the interlocutors whose comments have strengthened my understanding of comics history and particular thanks to Maaheen Ahmed and Shiamin Kwa for their advice and suggestions.