This collection of original, interdisciplinary essays addresses the work of Monty Python members beyond the comedy show, films, and live performances. These men are prolific creators in a variety of artistic realms beyond the confines of the comedy troupe. Their work as individuals, before and after coming together as Monty Python, demonstrates a restless curiosity about culture that embraces absurdity but seldom becomes cynical. Python members collectively and individually create unique approaches to theatre, film, video games, comic books, business training videos and more. Python Beyond Python increases our understanding of this often neglected work and the meanings of Monty Python.

Marvel Studios' approach to its Cinematic Universe-beginning with the release of Iron Man (2008)-has become the template for successful management of blockbuster film properties. Yet films featuring Marvel characters can be traced back to the 1940s, when the Captain America serial first appeared on the screen. This collection of new essays is the first to explore the historical, textual and cultural context of the larger cinematic Marvel universe, including serials, animated films, television movies, non-U.S. versions of Marvel characters, films featuring characters licensed by Marvel, and the contemporary Cinematic Universe as conceived by Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios. Films analyzed include Transformers (1986), Howard the Duck (1986), Blade (1998), Planet Hulk (2010), Iron Man: Rise of Technovore (2013), Elektra (2005), the Conan the Barbarian franchise (1982-1990), Ultimate Avengers (2006) and Ghost Rider (2007).

The Grateful Dead, one of the most meticulously documented rock bands, significantly influenced American music and popular culture. Its popularity has endured for three decades despite mixed critical reception. Jerry Garcia, thought of among many as a musical icon and spokesperson for more than one generation of fans, was often equally scorned by various critics. This collection of scholarly essays attests to the varied fields of interest the band and its followers, known as Deadheads, have affected, including psychology, law, and ethnomusicology. The contributions explore the diversity of the culture of fans, empirically analyze the music, apply literary criticism to the lyrics, and explore Dead-related philosophical and theological concepts -- in other words, they are as eclectic as the myriad Grateful Dead fans themselves.

Appealing to Grateful Dead scholars, fans, and collectors alike, these twenty-two essays are grouped by subject, and each essay includes a bibliography of resources for further research.

Along with Batman, Spider-Man, and Superman, the Joker stands out as one of the most recognizable comics characters in popular culture. While there has been a great deal of scholarly attention on superheroes, very little has been done to understand supervillains. This is the first academic work to provide a comprehensive study of this villain, illustrating why the Joker appears so relevant to audiences today. Batman's foe has cropped up in thousands of comics, numerous animated series, and three major blockbuster feature films since 1966. Actually, the Joker debuted in DC comics Batman 1 (1940) as the typical gangster, but the character evolved steadily into one of the most ominous in the history of sequential art. Batman and the Joker almost seemed to define each other as opposites, hero and nemesis, in a kind of psychological duality. Scholars from a wide array of disciplines look at the Joker through the lens of feature films, video games, comics, politics, magic and mysticism, psychology, animation, television, performance studies, and philosophy. As the first volume that examines the Joker as complex cultural and cross-media phenomenon, this collection adds to our understanding of the role comic book and cinematic villains play in the world and the ways various media affect their interpretation. Connecting the Clown Prince of Crime to bodies of thought as divergent as Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche, contributors demonstrate the frightening ways in which we get the monsters we need.

The award-winning television series Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988-1999) has been described as ""the smartest, funniest show in America,"" and forever changed the way we watch movies. The series featured a human host and a pair of robotic puppets who, while being subjected to some of the worst films ever made, provided ongoing hilarious and insightful commentary in a style popularly known as ""riffing."" These essays represent the first full-length scholarly analysis of Mystery Science Theater 3000--MST3K--which blossomed from humble beginnings as a Minnesota public-access television into a cultural phenomenon on two major cable networks. Included are interviews with series creator Joel Hodgson and cast members Kevin Murphy and Trace Beaulieu.

Libraries, musicologists, and Deadheads alike will want a copy of this comprehensive annotated bibliography that contains most of what has been written over the past 30 years about this legendary American musical institution and its fans, the Deadheads. The approximately 4,000 annotations serve as a chronolgical history, an aid to researchers, and a guide for fans and collectors. The Grateful Dead appeared on the San Francisco music scene in 1965, and over the course of their career inspired a wide array of writing. This work includes the entire spectrum. The work includes every book published about the band, every article that appeared in a major magazine or journal, chapters and entries in books, and articles from The San Francisco Chronicle and The San Francisco Examiner newspapers. Several magazines in their entirety were devoted (and remain devoted) to following the band, and this bibliography chronicles the material that appeared in those fan magazines. In addition to author, subject, and title indexes, an index to artists and photographers is included, since the Grateful Dead inspired a large body of artistic and photographic work.

This volume collects a wide-ranging sample of fresh analyses of Spider-Man. It traverses boundaries of medium, genre, epistemology, and discipline in essays both insightful and passionate that move forward the study of one of the world's most beloved characters. The editors have crafted the book for fans, creators, and academics alike. Foreword by Tom DeFalco, with poetry and an afterword by Gary Jackson (winner of the 2009 Cave Canem Poetry Prize).

Contributions by Jerold J. Abrams, Jose Alaniz, John Carey, Maurice Charney, Peter Coogan, Joe Cruz, Phillip Lamarr Cunningham, Stefan Danter, Adam Davidson-Harden, Randy Duncan, Stephen Graham Jones, Richard Hall, Richard Heldenfels, Alberto Hermida, Victor Hernandez-Santaolalla, A. G. Holdier, Tiffany Hong, Siegfried Kracauer, Naja Later, Ryan Litsey, Tara Lomax, Tony Magistrale, Matthew McEniry, Cait Mongrain, Grant Morrison, Robert Moses Peaslee, David D. Perlmutter, W. D. Phillips, Jerod Poon, Duncan Prettyman, Vladimir Propp, Noriko T. Reider, Robin S. Rosenberg, Hannah Ryan, Lennart Soberon, J. Richard Stevens, Lars Stoltzfus-Brown, John N. Thompson, Dan Vena, and Robert G. Weiner. The Supervillain Reader, featuring both reprinted and original essays, reveals why we are so fascinated with the villain. The obsession with the villain is not a new phenomenon, and, in fact, one finds villains who are "super" going as far back as ancient religious and mythological texts. This innovative collection brings together essays, book excerpts, and original content from a wide variety of scholars and writers, weaving a rich tapestry of thought regarding villains in all their manifestations, including film, literature, television, games, and, of course, comics and sequential art. While The Supervillain Reader focuses on the latter, it moves beyond comics to show how the vital concept of the supervillain is part of our larger consciousness. Editors Robert Moses Peaslee and Robert G. Weiner collect pieces that explore how the villain is a complex part of narratives regardless of the original source. The Joker, Lex Luthor, Harley Quinn, Darth Vader, and Magneto must be compelling, stimulating, and proactive, whereas the superhero (or protagonist) is most often reactive. Indeed, whether in comics, films, novels, religious tomes, or videogames, the eternal struggle between villain and hero keeps us coming back to these stories over and over again.

This collection of original, interdisciplinary essays addresses the work of Monty Python members beyond the comedy show, films, and live performances. These men are prolific creators in a variety of artistic realms beyond the confines of the comedy troupe. Their work as individuals, before and after coming together as Monty Python, demonstrates a restless curiosity about culture that embraces absurdity but seldom becomes cynical. Python members collectively and individually create unique approaches to theatre, film, video games, comic books, business training videos and more. Python Beyond Python increases our understanding of this often neglected work and the meanings of Monty Python.

For more than 60 years, Captain America served as an iconic figure in popular culture, and one of Marvel Comics' flagship characters. He represented everything good and positive about the classic American ideal - truth, strength, liberty, and an unflappable belief that justice would always prevail. When his alter ego, Steve Rogers, was assassinated by a sniper outside a federal courthouse, his death rocked the comic world and left fans and critics with numerous questions about his life and how it ended. Did he die a political casualty of the Global War on Terrorism, or was it just another Marvel marketing ploy? Had he become an anachronism in tights, or was he still a self-conscious, larger than life figure who tried to bear the full existential weight of what American military power had become? And how is his death in the Civil War series to be reconciled with his second death, in Morrell and Breitweiser's series ""The Chosen?"" This book brings such speculations into sharper focus, compiling critical essays by a wide range of authors, including art and literary scholars, professors and graduate students, historians, and ""Captain America"" writers. The range of topics discussed include the ways in which Nazi Germany was represented in ""Captain America Comics"" from the 1940s to his resurrection in the 1960s; the creation of ""Captain America"" in light of the Jewish American experience; the relationship between Captain America and Captain Britain, who was featured in a few rare UK Marvel comics; the groundbreaking partnership between Captain America and one of the first mainstream African American superheroes, The Falcon; and, the various successful and unsuccessful attempts that were made to kill Captain America before his 'real' death.

The most recognizable fictional spy and one of the longest running film franchises, James Bond has inspired a host of other pop culture contributions, including Doctor Who (the Jon Pertwee era), the animated television comedy series Archer, Matt Kindt's comic book series Mind MGMT, Japan's Nakano Spy School Films, the 1960s Italian Eurospy genre, and the recent 007 Legends video game. This collection of new essays analyzes Bond's phenomenal literary and filmic influence over the past 50-plus years. The 14 essays are categorized into five sections: film, television, literature, lifestyle (emphasis on fashion and home decor), and the Bond persona reinterpreted.

To say that graphic novels, comics, and other forms of sequential art have become a major part of popular culture and academia would be a vast understatement. Now an established component of library and archive collections across the globe, graphic novels are proving to be one of the last vestiges of the printed form actually gaining in popularity. Full of practical advice and innovative ideas for librarians, educators, and archivists, this book provides a wide-reaching look at how graphic novels and comics can be used to their full advantage in educational settings. Topics include: the historically tenuous relationship between comics and librarians; the aesthetic value of sequential art; the use of graphic novels in library outreach services; graphic novel collection evaluations for both American and Canadian libraries; tips and tricks for cataloging comics; and, the swiftly growing realm of webcomics.

Sequential art combines the visual and the narrative in a way that readers have to interpret the images with the writing. Comics make a good fit with education because students are using a format that provides active engagement. This collection of essays is a wide-ranging look at current practices using comics and graphic novels in educational settings, from elementary schools through college. The contributors cover history, gender, the use of specific graphic novels, practical application and educational theory.

While there are numerous books on art and exploitation cinema, very few attempt to examine both. Covering the first 100 years of cinematic transgressions, From the Arthouse to the Grindhouse is a collection of numerous essays representing key contributions to overlooked, forgotten, or under-analyzed parts of film history. From cult favorites like Arch Hall Jr. to revered but under-documented marquee names like Lon Chaney, filmmakers both major and minor are covered here. Starting with a section that pairs exploitation pioneers like Dwain Esper alongside cutting edge auteurs like Erich Von Stroheim, the volume documents the bleeding edge of the high/low cultural divide. Other essays examine the sexual melodramas of Weimer German cinema, explore the concept of Borat as a model for the new standardized cult film, and discuss the films of directors Tod Browning, Pier Pasolini, and Peter Watkins. This volume also contains a section devoted to the idea of "reality" inside and outside the documentary sphere, emphasizing audiences' desire to believe that "this is really happening," whether they're horrified or titillated. Addressing many aspects of "transgression" in cinema, these essays suggest that the distance between the venues and the audiences may not be quite as wide as viewers might imagine.

Cinema Inferno: Celluloid Explosions from the Cultural Margins addresses significant areas (and eras) of "transgressive" filmmaking, including many subgenres and styles that have not yet received much critical attention. This collection of essays covers both contemporary films and those produced in the last 50 years to provide a theoretical framework for looking at transgressive cinema and what that means. This volume begins with a number of essays that examine the aesthetic of "realism," tracing it through the late Italian Neo-Realism of Pasolini, the early films of Melvin Van Peebles, and Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin. Another section focuses on '70s Italian horror and thrillers, including a substantially different examination of filmmaker Dario Argento, as well as essays on critically underrepresented directors Lucio Fulci and Sergio Martino. A section on New York looks at both radical independents like Troma and Andy Milligan, as well as the social context from which a view of the metropolis-in-decay emerged. Sections also cover the experimental work of the Vienna Action Group and controversial filmmaker Michael Haneke, as well as films and genres too idiosyncratic and disturbing to fit anywhere else, including analyses of Nazi propaganda films, fundamentalist Christian "scare" movies, and postwar Japanese youth films. The final essays try to come to terms with a mainstream flirtation with "transgressive" film and Grindhouse aesthetics.

Contributions by Jerold J. Abrams, Jose Alaniz, John Carey, Maurice Charney, Peter Coogan, Joe Cruz, Phillip Lamarr Cunningham, Stefan Danter, Adam Davidson-Harden, Randy Duncan, Stephen Graham Jones, Richard Hall, Richard Heldenfels, Alberto Hermida, Victor Hernandez-Santaolalla, A. G. Holdier, Tiffany Hong, Siegfried Kracauer, Naja Later, Ryan Litsey, Tara Lomax, Tony Magistrale, Matthew McEniry, Cait Mongrain, Grant Morrison, Robert Moses Peaslee, David D. Perlmutter, W. D. Phillips, Jerod Poon, Duncan Prettyman, Vladimir Propp, Noriko T. Reider, Robin S. Rosenberg, Hannah Ryan, Lennart Soberon, J. Richard Stevens, Lars Stoltzfus-Brown, John N. Thompson, Dan Vena, and Robert G. Weiner. The Supervillain Reader, featuring both reprinted and original essays, reveals why we are so fascinated with the villain. The obsession with the villain is not a new phenomenon, and, in fact, one finds villains who are "super" going as far back as ancient religious and mythological texts. This innovative collection brings together essays, book excerpts, and original content from a wide variety of scholars and writers, weaving a rich tapestry of thought regarding villains in all their manifestations, including film, literature, television, games, and, of course, comics and sequential art. While The Supervillain Reader focuses on the latter, it moves beyond comics to show how the vital concept of the supervillain is part of our larger consciousness. Editors Robert Moses Peaslee and Robert G. Weiner collect pieces that explore how the villain is a complex part of narratives regardless of the original source. The Joker, Lex Luthor, Harley Quinn, Darth Vader, and Magneto must be compelling, stimulating, and proactive, whereas the superhero (or protagonist) is most often reactive. Indeed, whether in comics, films, novels, religious tomes, or videogames, the eternal struggle between villain and hero keeps us coming back to these stories over and over again.

Along with Batman, Spider-Man, and Superman, the Joker stands out as one of the most recognizable comics characters in popular culture. While there has been a great deal of scholarly attention on superheroes, very little has been done to understand supervillains. This is the first academic work to provide a comprehensive study of this villain, illustrating why the Joker appears so relevant to audiences today. Batman's foe has cropped up in thousands of comics, numerous animated series, and three major blockbuster feature films since 1966. Actually, the Joker debuted in DC comics Batman 1 (1940) as the typical gangster, but the character evolved steadily into one of the most ominous in the history of sequential art. Batman and the Joker almost seemed to define each other as opposites, hero and nemesis, in a kind of psychological duality. Scholars from a wide array of disciplines look at the Joker through the lens of feature films, video games, comics, politics, magic and mysticism, psychology, animation, television, performance studies, and philosophy. As the first volume that examines the Joker as complex cultural and cross-media phenomenon, this collection adds to our understanding of the role comic book and cinematic villains play in the world and the ways various media affect their interpretation. Connecting the Clown Prince of Crime to bodies of thought as divergent as Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche, contributors demonstrate the frightening ways in which we get the monsters we need.