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1 - The “First” Graphic Novel in America

Revisiting He Done Her Wrong and It Rhymes with Lust

from Part I - History and Genre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2024

By
Livio Belloï
Edited by
Jan Baetens ,
Hugo Frey  and
Fabrice Leroy
Jan Baetens
Affiliation:
KU Leuven, Belgium
Hugo Frey
Affiliation:
University of Chichester
Fabrice Leroy
Affiliation:
University of Louisiana at Lafayette
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Summary

This chapter deals with two long-form narratives that can be considered forerunners of the graphic novel: Milt Gross’s He Done Her Wrong (1930) and Drake Waller, Matt Baker, and Ray Osrin’s It Rhymes with Lust (1950). It stresses the originality of these proto-graphic novels and offers a close reading of both works, while reexamining their connections with other visual forms, namely, slapstick comedy, the woodcut novel, and film noir. To propel his dynamic story forward, Gross developed new ways of experimenting with the shape of panels, their size (as defined by the frames that delimit them), and their site (their particular placement within the space of the page). The chapter also addresses issues of gender and studies the critical treatment of male and female stereotypes. Finally, it studies the representation of graphic violence, reading It Rhymes with Lust as an example of “soft noir.”

Keywords

woodcut novelslapstickfilm noirviolencemontageComics CodeMilt GrossDrake WallerMatt BakerRay Osrin
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to the American Graphic Novel , pp. 19 - 37
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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References

Baker, M., Waller, D., and Osrin, R. (1950). It Rhymes with Lust. Memphis, TN: Boardman Books.Google Scholar
Baker, M., Waller, D., and Osrin, R. (2016). It Rhymes with Lust Revisited. New York: St. John Publishing.Google Scholar
Beronä, D. A. (2008). Wordless Books: The Original Graphic Novels. New York: Abrams.Google Scholar
Groensteen, T. (1997–1998). Histoire de la bande dessinée muette [I–II]. Neuvième Art, nos. 2 and 3, 60–75 and 92–105.Google Scholar
Groensteen, T. (2011 [1999]). Système de la bande dessinée. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Gross, M. (2005 [1930]). He Done Her Wrong. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics.Google Scholar
Hulshof-Schmidt, R. (2018). How Lust Was Lost: Genre, Identity, and the Neglect of a Pioneering Comics Publication. In Aldama, Frederick Luis, ed., Comics Studies Here and Now. New York: Routledge, pp. 57–66.Google Scholar
Kelman, A. Y. (2009). Is Diss a System? A Milt Gross Comic Reader. New York: NYU Press.Google Scholar
Kunka, A. J. (2018). Crime Genre Fiction in the Graphic Novel. In Baetens, Jan, Frey, Hugo, and Tabachnick, Stephen E., eds., The Cambridge History of the Graphic Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 457–475.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menu, J.-C. (2011). La bande dessinée et son double. Paris: L’Association.Google Scholar
Postema, B. (2018). Long-Length Wordless Books: Frans Masereel, Milt Gross, Lynd Ward, and Beyond. In Baetens, Jan, Frey, Hugo, and Tabachnick, Stephen E., eds., The Cambridge History of the Graphic Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 59–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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