Find Articles - Comic Books and Graphic Novels - Guides de recherche

Tips to find research on comics and graphic novels.

The databases listed on this page may contain scholarly articles on topics related to graphic novels, including their history, criticism, and uses in various settings.

Useful keywords include: "Graphic novels," "Comic books, strips, etc.," "Narrative art," "Film adaptations," "Cartoons," "Cartoonists," and the names of specific comics and their creators.

Multidsciplinary Databases

Academic Search Complete »
Multidisciplinary database designed specifically for academic institutions, it includes full text of journals, magazines, and newspapers.
Communications & Mass Media Collection »
Focuses on all aspects of the communications field, including advertising and public relations, linguistics, and literature.
JSTOR »

Multidisciplinary database giving archival access to scholarly journals and e-Books within the following areas: arts, sciences, humanities and social sciences. Note that Jstor does not provide access to current issues.
Project Muse »
Project MUSE is a unique collaboration between libraries and publishers providing 100% full-text, affordable and user-friendly online access to over 300 high quality humanities, arts, and social sciences journals and e-Books from 60 scholarly publishers.

Comics Databases

Grand Comics Database
Non-Scholarly. Openly accessible on the web. "The Grand Comics Database™ (GCD) is an ongoing international project to build a detailed comic-book database that will be easy to use and understand, and also easy for contributors to add information to it." -Wikipedia

Arts Databases

Art Index Retrospective »
Maximum simultaneous users: 5. Art Index Retrospective includes citations to the Art Index (volumes 1-32 of the printed index published between 1929-1984). Periodical coverage includes English-language periodicals, yearbooks, and museum bulletins, as well as periodicals published in French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Dutch. In addition to articles, Art Index Retrospective provides reproductions of works of art that appear in indexed periodicals.
Art Full Text (EBSCO) »
This database features full-text articles - as well as detailed indexing and abstracts - for an array of journals, books and more. International in scope, Art Source includes periodicals published in French, Italian, German, Spanish and Dutch and is designed for use by a diverse audience, including art scholars, artists, designers, students and general researchers.
ARTbibliographies Modern »
Provides full abstracts of journal articles, books, essays, exhibition catalogues, PhD dissertations, and exhibition reviews on all forms of modern and contemporary art, with approximately 12-13,000 new entries being added each year. Entries date back as far as the late 1960s.

ABM is the premier source of information on modern and contemporary arts dating from the late 19th century onwards, and including photography since its invention. It includes abstracts of English and foreign-language and material on famous and lesser-known artists, movements, and trends.
ARTstor »
As well as hosting uOttawa's ever-growing image collections, ARTstor is a digital library of approximately one million images in the areas of art, architecture, the humanities, and social sciences with a set of tools to view, present, and manage images for research and pedagogical purposes. It includes several historical collections of comic strips.

Literature Databases

Literature Online (LION) »
LION is a cross-searchable database of literature and criticism containing over 350,000 works of poetry, prose and drama in English. LION includes: The Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL); Bibliography of American literature; major literary reference works; and the full text of over 100 specialist literature journals with links to JSTOR.

Also included are 1,793 full-text biographies and a collection of 344,000 poems (English poetry from the 8th century to the present and American, African-American, and Canadian poetry from 1603 to the present).
MLA International bibliography (EBSCO) »
Coverage is worldwide and includes references to articles from over 3,500 journals. MLA International Bibliography also covers series, monographs, dissertations, bibliographies, and conference proceedings. The database is produced by the Modern Language Association of America.

Suggested Journals

The titles that are not open access can be found with a journal title search in Advanced research or by consulting the E-journal List: