Peter Coogan

Dr. Peter M. Coogan is the writing specialist for the Kinkel Center for Academic Resources at Fontbonne University, St. Louis, Missouri, who writes about comics and is co-founder and co-chair of the the Comic Arts Conference, which runs parallel to the San Diego Comic-Con.

Biography

Peter Coogan gained a doctorate in American Studies from Michigan State University, with his dissertation on “The Emergence of the Superhero Genre in America from Daniel Boone to Batman,” (2002), and then further revised for wider publication in 2006 (see below).

He has written about Wold Newtonry in a paper titled "Wold-Newtonry: Theory and Methodology for the Literary Archeology of the Wold Newton Universe." In it, he talks about "literary archaeology," a term which he says was inspired (for him) by Warren Ellis's term "“mystery archeologists”" in Ellis and Cassaday's Planetary comics. The paper is available online at Philip José Farmer's Wold Newton pages, as as a chapter in Win Scott Eckert (ed.)'s Myths for the Modern Age book, published by MonkeyBrain Books.[1]

Coogan co-edited (with Randall William Scott) the Comic Art Studies newsletter and also set up the Comics Studies Email service to "coordinate communication about comic scholarship." The newsletter's motto was Comica Amica Nobicum ("Comics Are Our Friends!") and originated from the Russel B. Nye Popular Culture Collection, to "facilitate communication about the Comic Art Collection at Michigan State University, and communication about public comics collecting and scholarship in general."

In 2005, Coogan presented a paper entitled The Definition of the Superhero[2] at the interdisciplinary Holy Men in Tights Superheroes Conference at the School of Art History, Cinema, Classics & Archaeology (AHCCA), University of Melbourne in Melbourne, Australia.

Comic Arts Conference

Main article: Comic Arts Conference

Coogan is co-founder (with Randy Duncan), co-chair and co-organizer of the Comic Arts Conference (an academic conference dealing with comics) which is held annually at the San Diego Comic Con since 1992. In 1997, the conference took a hiatus, returning in 1998, as an official part of Comic-Con International. The purpose of the conference is stated as being designed to "bring together comics scholars, practitioners, critics, and historians who want to be involved in the dynamic process of evolving an aesthetic and a criticism of the comics art form."

In 2007, the call for academic papers was also made for a Comic Arts Conference held at WonderCon in San Francisco, as well as the 'main' San Diego Comic-Con, signalling an expansion to two Comic Arts Conferences per year.

Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre

In 2006, MonkeyBrain Books published a much-revised and expanded form of his dissertation as Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre (MonkeyBrain Press, 2006), with a forward by Batman-legend Dennis O'Neil. The books main purpose is to define the very superhero genre, and definition of the term itself. Coogan writes:

“The term superhero is often applied to all sorts of characters and people from Beowulf and Luke Skywalker to Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan. These applications come out of a metaphoric use of the term to describe characters and people who seem a step above others in their class, whether epic, science fiction, or sports.”

File:Superhero by Peter Coogan Cover.jpg

Cover to "Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre". Art by John Picacio

He draws a distinction between terms used as metaphors and terms used literally, concluding that - at least part of - the problem is a lack of scholarly definition of the superhero genre.

Comics writer and critic Peter Sanderson, in his "Comics in Context" columns dealing with Coogan's Superhero, summarises the contention over the term "superhero" by noting that some fictional characters not "explicitly portrayed as superhuman... nonetheless perform feats that real people would be unlikely to duplicate," citing Luke Skywalker and Jack Bauer as two examples. Coogan's remit, therefore, is to clarify these issues and:

“provide a basis for the study of superheroes and help to make more studies possible in the future.”

Sanderson also notes that Coogan - and his publisher, MonkeyBrain, who also publish Jess Nevins' annotations on Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - are not following the common trend in academic circles to largely ignore the superhero genre when comics are discussed. He notes that "mainstream cultural circles for comics tends to focus on alternative comics," while most "superhero comics," (with some notable exceptions, such as Watchmen) despite making up "the majority of American comic books over the last forty years, still aren’t taken seriously."

Coogan seeks to define not merely the superhero as a character, but also the genre itself, thereby discussing not just individual attributes, but types of story, noting that the Superhero:

“is generically distinct, i.e., can be distinguished from characters of related genres (fantasy, science fiction, detective, etc.) by a preponderance of genre conventions.”

Coogan's definition makes reference to DC's lawsuit against Victor Fox, who published Wonder Man in 1939 (not to be confused with the similarly-named Marvel hero), in imitation of Superman. The preciding Judge Learned Hand identified three defining characteristics in his ruling^{(see: here)}, which form a key part of Coogan's argument:

“These three elements–mission, powers, and identity, establish the core of the genre.”

Peter Sanderson, noted Marvel Comics historian and author of the Comics in Context blog at QuickStopEntertainment, while not agreeing completely with Coogan's points, nevertheless states that the book "should become a basic text for study of the superhero genre," recommending it to all fans of the genre.

(For more on Peter Sanderson's in-depth critique, commentary and analysis of Coogan's work, see Comics in Context #162, #163, #164, #165 and #166)

Partial bibliography

The Michigan State University Library's Comic Art Collection includes several items by Coogan, which are likely not duplicated in many other places. A partial bibliography includes:

• Young Adults Breakfast Club #1-5 (Kent, OH 1986-1987) 'zine
• The Batman TV Show: Color and Camp (26pp) (1989?)
• F for Fascism : the Fascist Underpinnings of the Superhero (23pp) [Draft prepared for the 1989 Midwest Popular Culture Association meeting]
• Comics Journal Index (issues #40-100) 102pp (1989)
• Comics Journal Index (issues #2-139) 14pp (1992)
• Comic Art Studies #47 - ? (newsletter) edited by Coogan and Randall William Scott (May 2, 1992 - ?)
• Classic Comics : Canon for Children (36pp) (Conference Paper, 1993)
• The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly : The Effects of Academic Attention on Popular Art Forms : The Novel, Jazz, Film, and Comics (10pp) (1993)Paper delivered at the 2nd Comic Arts Conference, 1993
• Survey of Comics Scholars : Comics Scholars Survey Results June 1994 (14pp) (1994)
• "Science Fiction Comics" in Anatomy of Wonder 4 by Neil Barron (ed.) (pp. 673-689) (New Providence, N.J. : R.R. Bowker, 1995)
• Partial Proceedings of the 7th Annual Comic Arts Conference, August 12-13, 1999, San Diego, California. (83pp) (1999)
  • "The Prehistory of the Superhero"
• "Reading Comics : Language, Culture, and the Concept of the Superhero in Comic Books" in International Journal of Comic Art, v. 3, no. 1 (pp. 278-280) (Spring 2001)
• "Wold-Newtonry: Theory and Methodology for the Literary Archeology of the Wold Newton Universe" in Myths for the Modern Age: Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe by Win Scott Eckert (ed.) (MonkeyBrain (Nov 25, 2005))
• Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre by Peter Coogan (Introduction by Denny O'Neil) (MonkeyBrain (Jul 25, 2006))

External Links

• Comic Arts Conference homepage
• Academic Paper calls from the CAC Conferences are made on the Calls for Papers list
• Some of Coogan's Comics-related writings, at Michigan State's Comic Art Collection
• Coogan's Definition of the Superhero abstract for the AHCCA
• A brief discussion of Coogan's work, alongside that of Geoff Klock and David Fiore
• Peter Coogan at ZoomInfo.com
• English-Mangani/Mangani-English Dictionary by Dr. Peter Coogan(pdf)
• Comic Art Studies newsletter #53
• Extracts from Coogan's Dissertation, as input to Diamond Comics Distributer's "Scoop" discussion of Comic Book Ages
• Coogan's "Wold-Newtonry: Theory and Methodology for the Literary Archeology of the Wold Newton Universe."