Films Media Group is the leading source of high-quality video and multimedia for academic, vocational and life-skills content. Click on the links below to see examples of films available on graphic novels, comic books, cartoons and manga.
If not for Scott McCloud, graphic novels and webcomics might be enjoying a more modest Renaissance. The flourishing of cartooning in the ‘90s and ‘00s, particularly comic-smithing on the Web, can be traced back to his major writings on the comics form. His book Understanding Comics, a comic book about comics, has been translated into 13 languages and has made him an evangelist for comics as a valid literary form. McCloud coined the term “infinite canvas” for the new comics medium made possible with Web browsers. In this fun TEDTalk, McCloud bends the presentation format into a cartoon-like experience, where colorful diversions whiz through childhood fascinations and imagined futures. This captivating look at the magic of comics will prove to viewers why McCloud’s admiring fans include a laundry list of superstar cartoonists.
“Every time I’m about to do a strip, it’s because I can’t avoid it, either because I need the money—in the old days—or now, because I just need to think something through, make it manifest.” In this program, Pulitzer Prize-winner Art Spiegelman—humble, humorous, and completely honest—talks about his life history and his creative process using New York City as a backdrop and family photos, clips from home movies, and panels from comic creations such as Maus, Raw magazine, and In the Shadow of No Towers as props. Françoise Mouly, Spiegelman’s wife and cover editor at The New Yorker, is interviewed as well.
A valuable and colorful examination of 40 years of changing representations of black masculinity in a significant area of popular culture: comic books. This genre's reach and impact has extended into other forms of cultural production such as movies and animated TV series.
This video features a survey of American comic strip art with comments by well-known artists and scenes of them at work. Commentary by Mort Walker, comic artist ("Beetle Bailey", "Hi and Lois") and president of the Museum of Cartoon Art in Rye, New York. Scenes and interviews with Dean Young and Jim Raymond, Ralph Bakshi, Dik Browne, Ray Bradbury, George Lucas, Will Eisner, Milton Caniff, John Cullen Murphy, Sean Kelly, Johnny Romita.
For many years, graphics-driven literature was not taken seriously, but there is "nothing hotter" in the book market today. The popularity of Japanese manga (graphic novel) and the "critical mass" of serious, graphic novels in the U.S., account for the surge in interest in graphic novels.
