I recently got ahold of a copy of Comics and Language: Reimagining Critical Discourse on the Form and was genuinely excited to read it. I do a lot of study on the medium thanks to a project I have been working on for several years and consider myself well versed on the subject. I am always looking for new ways to examine the art form, although to be fair I am not a long time comic reader as it has only been the last few years that I revisited comics since I was a child. That being said this book was marked that it would “appeal to the general comics reader” and that I most certainly am. This book seemed like a great way to start a new direction in conversations on comics.

Unfortunately neither the marketing nor the book lived up to even my least expectation. This book reads like someone published their English doctoral thesis, in fact I have a strong feeling that is exactly what this book is. The way this book is presented only someone who loves to study the structure of English and the syntax of language would enjoy it. This is a book for scholars, and that is it. The “general comics reader” would not make it through the first 5 pages. The language is purely academic and dry. Getting through this book was a study in determination for me and I don’t image anyone would read this book for fun. Hannah Miodrag is an excellent writer in a technical sense but in no way a writer in the entertainment sense.

If you like studies of the English language then this is a book for you, otherwise skip this unless you need a sleep aid.