Law and Comics/Graphic Justice

This chapter examines the development of law, comics and graphic justice as a distinct area of scholarly activity within the context of law and humanities study. The core focus of this chapter’s discussion is the Anglo-American conception of law and comics studies, particularly that situated within the UK, North America and Australia. In these areas socio-legal studies, and law and humanities scholarship incorporating comics study has firmly established itself since the 1990s. This is not to ignore the existence of other, wider forms of comics studies which consider law and graphic justice, and, indeed, even within this chapter’s discussion it is worth noting that law and comics and particularly ‘graphic justice’ scholars examine Japanese popular culture and manga comics. However, this chapter’s focus is on the Anglo-American and Global North field of law, comics and graphic justice study rather than a specific analysis of the texts and mechanisms contained within the discipline’s academic focus and in Anglo-American and Global North comics production. This chapter argues that comics scholarship has pedagogical importance such as bringing to life ideas such as the rule of law and the separation of powers that can springboard students into deeper understandings of these important concepts as well as providing for an expansion of research approaches and methodologies that enhance and broaden legal scholarship..