Hatfield, Charles 1965–

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Hatfield, Charles 1965–

PERSONAL: Born 1965. Education: University of Connecticut, Ph.D., 2000.

ADDRESSES: Office—California State University, Sierra Tower 735, 18111 Nordhoff St., Northridge, CA 91330-8248. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Writer and educator. California State University, Northridge, assistant professor of English. Organizer of annual International Comic Arts Festival.

WRITINGS:

Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature, University Press of Mississippi (Jackson, MS), 2005.

Contributor to periodicals, including Comics Journal.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Coediting a collection on the underground "commix" movement.

SIDELIGHTS: Charles Hatfield's research interests include children's literature and culture, text-image relationships, animation, and comic art, the last being the subject of his Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature. In his work Hatfield follows the development of the alternative comics and graphic novels that emerged in the 1980s as the successor to the underground "commix" of the 1960s.

The book includes readings of, and comments on, many of the outstanding examples of this art form, including the Hernandez brothers' Love and Rockets and Art Spiegelman's anthology Raw and his Pulitzer Prize-winning Holocaust tragedy Maus. Hatfield also includes discussions of the autobiographical comics of Robert Crumb, Harvey Pekar, Daniel Clowes, and others.

Many critics felt that the book provides a good overview of literary comics. Gordon Flagg wrote in Booklist that "anyone interested in investigating comics as a serious literary form could find no better starting place." Jim Kingman, writing on the Silver Bullet Comic Books Web site, stated: "Through extensive critical study Hatfield establishes a much-needed understanding of 'alternative comics' at a literary level."