Traces the evolution of comic books from their beginnings in the 1930s through the mid-1990s, demonstrating how the words and pictures function together as a unique art form.

The comic strip was created by rival newspapers of the Hearst and the Pulitzer organizations as a device for increasing circulation. In the United States it quickly became an institution that soon spread worldwide as a favorite form of popular culture. What made the comic strip so enduring? This fascinating study by one of the few comics critics to develop sound critical principles by which to evaluate the comics as works of art and literature unfolds...

"Historical Dictionary of Shamanism explores the common ground of shamanic traditions and evaluates the diversity of both traditional indigenous communities and individual Western seekers through an introduction, a bibliography, a chronology, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries that explore the features of shamans, the purposes of shamanism, the functions and activities of the shaman, and the cultural contexts in which shamanism makes...