Graphic Justice:
Intersections of Comics and Law

Thomas Giddens (ed.)

Routledge, New York, 2015, 258 pp.

ISBN: 9781138787995

Establishing the medium of graphic fiction as a
critical resource for interdisciplinary legal studies, this collection is the
first to address the intersection of comics and law. Graphic fiction has gained
enormous cultural capital and academic interest over recent years.
Comics-inspired films fill our cinemas and superhero merchandise fills the
shelves of supermarkets. In short, our culture is suffused with a comic-book aesthetic:
as, for example, the ‘Occupy’ movement appropriates the mask of ‘V’, from the
comic work V for Vendetta; and, tragically, as James Holmes’s murderous rampage
through a Colorado movie theatre, seemingly sees him styling himself after
Batman’s arch-nemesis, the Joker. From mass entertainment and consumerism to
political activism and violence, we are surrounded by emanations of graphic
storytelling. Meanwhile, the rise of academic disciplines such as comics
studies demonstrates that the medium contains much more depth than the common
assumption of its simplicity and juvenility might suggest. Against this
background, comics offer an important resource for making sense of the
contemporary place and role of law. Whether in their representations of lawyers
and the legal system, their dystopian imaginations, their treatment of issues
of justice and social order, or in their superheroic investment in the
protection of the innocent and the punishment or capture of those who would
harm them, like other narrative forms – literature, film, theatre – graphic
fiction explores and expresses human life in all its social, moral and legal
complexity. In the context of a now well-established interest in cultural legal
studies, this book showcases the critical potential of comics and graphic
fiction as a resource for interdisciplinary legal studies and legal theory

Introduction

Thomas Giddens

1 Lex Comica: On Comics and Legal Theory

Thomas Giddens

Part 1: Introducing Comics and Law

2 Holy Blurring of Core Copyright Principles,
Batmobile!

Kimberly Barker

3 Devil’s Advocate: Representation in Heroic
Fiction, Daredevil and the Law

Graham Ferris and Cleo Lunt

4 I am the Law Teacher!: An Experiential Approach
using Judge Dredd to Teach Constitutional Law

Richard Glancey

5 Not Foresighting and Not Answering: Using
Graphic Fiction to Interrogate Social and Regulatory Issues in Biomedicine

Shawn HE Harmon

6 Law and the Machine: Fluid and Mechanical
Selfhood in The Ghost in the Shell

Thomas Giddens

Part 2: Graphic Criminology

7 When (Super)heroes Kill: Vigilantism and
Deathworthiness in Justice League, Red Team, and the Christopher
Dorner Killing Spree

Nickie D Phillips and Staci Strobl

8 Extreme Restorative Justice: The Politics of
Vigilantism in Vertigo’s 100 Bullets

Angus Nurse

9 Violent Lives, Ending Violently? Justice,
Violence and Ideology in Watchmen

James Petty

10 Stepping off the Page: ‘British Batman’ as
Legal Superhero

Nic Groombridge

Part 3: Graphic Justice
International

11 The Hero We Need, Not the One We Deserve:
Vigilantism and the State of Exception
in Batman Incorporated

Chris Comerford

12 Judge, Jury and Executioner: Judge Dredd,
Drones, Jaques Derrida

Chris Lloyd

13 Crimes against (Super)Humanity: Graphic Forms
of Justice and Governance

Chris Boge

14 Graphic Reporting: Human Rights Violations
through the Lens of Graphic Novels

Jérémie Gilbert and David Keane

Thomas Giddens is Lecturer in Law and Co-Director of the Centre for Law and
Culture at St Mary’s University. He researches in cultural legal studies,
focusing on the use of comics and graphic fiction in legal studies, as well as
criminal justice and legal philosophy.