Illustrated Entertainment: Pictorial Graphic Culture From Early Printing to Television

3 units

This course will address the production, distribution, aesthetics, and cultural significance of illustrated entertainment in Europe and especially the United States. The course will serve as a typological survey; that is, it will address important practitioners in significant categories of a very broad field. Subject coverage will include early printing, caricature and the art of the gazette, the development of comics, 20th century American magazine illustration, early animation, the animated TV series, and, if time permits, online animation. Topics of consideration will include: the interplay of art, entertainment, and communication; the role of the individual creator versus the corporate concern; the impact of the editor and art director, the self-image of the creator, the social context of the work, and the role of technological change.