About the Author

Chris Bishop, Canberra, Australia, teaches classics at the Australian National University. He has published widely on the history of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, as well as on comic book studies. In 2012 Bishop was awarded a Kluge Fellowship at the Library of Congress for his research.

Reviews

The Arthurianism of Prince Valiant, the Robin Hood origins of The Green Arrow, the response to Germanic immigration of The Mighty Thor, the underlying feminist discourse of Red Sonja, and the 'modernity transported to the Middle Ages' of Northlanders can all be understood as a search for contemporary identity, one in which the pressures of consumerism and sociopolitical realities are underlying forces. Medievalist Comics and the American Century breaks new ground in our understanding of the cultural history of western societies and does so in a way that is both enlightening and provocative.--Martin Arnold, reader in Old Northern Studies at the University of Hull and author of Thor: Myth to Marvel, a Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year, 2011

Medievalist Comics and the American Century is a crisp, evocative text that details America's unique medievalism by contextualizing the comics that form its core. Chris Bishop writes an engrossing reception history of some of America's most iconic comic book heroes, tracing their lineage across continents and mediums, ultimately producing what should be considered a seminal work on the preoccupation with medievalist imaginings that exists in the United States.--David A. Hall "Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics"