Dr. Matthew Smith, Professor of Communication, is pleased to announce the release of his second book “Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods” on Oct. 29 through Routledge Publishing.

Smith wrote this book in collaboration with Randy Duncan of Henderson State University in Arkansas. Prior to this book, Duncan and Smith co-authored “The Power of Comics” together, which Smith uses to teach Comm 222A: Graphic Storytelling.

“The inspiration for this book came from teaching Critical Approaches to Television,” said Smith. “The goal was for this book to give guidance to analyzing comics and explain critical methods with examples.”

“Critical Approaches to Comics” has been in the works for three years and was originally turned down by the first publishing company.

“I ran into a publishing friend at a conference who put me in touch with a publishing company, Routledge, then we got the green light,” said Smith. “We’re really proud of this book, Routledge is a big name in publishing.”

Smith hopes to bring respectability in the academy to comic studies through his book.

“I’m still shocked we got so many people to contribute to this. We got Henry Jenkins, he’s huge in pop culture studies. It’s very rewarding,” added Smith.

“Critical Approaches to Comics” is available on Amazon.com for $44.95.

By Shelly Gregory, 2013