This page reorders the major Panels & Prose essays into a rough historical order.

Reading the New City – 1895-1918

• A Tale of Two Comics: Gibson vs. The Comic Strip
• Charles Dana Gibson Educates Mr. Pipp
• Seeing the City: Outcault’s Urban Caricature
• Bending the City – McCay’s Urban Dreams:
• City Visions: The Hurry Up New Yorker:
• McDougall’s City Vision:
• Walt McDougall’s City – The Rube’s-Eye View
• A. Mutt Meets Jeff
• Sherlocko the Monk: The Great Mystery of the Everyday
• Stereotyping The New American City
• Giving Image to Feeling: “How You Felt” (1914)
• The Rise of Dauntless Durham

Inventing the Sitcom – 1912-1929

• The Dingbats Downstairs:
• Early Polly
• From Old Doc Yak to Jawless Gump
• The Nebbs: The Social Realism of a Mid-List Sitcom:
• “Papa Love Mama?”: The Quiet Desperation of Mr. and Mrs.
• McManus’s One Joke, Deftly Told

American Visions – 1920-1933

• The Democratic Genius of Clare Briggs
• The Zen of Walt: The Plainspoken Gasoline Alley
• Little Orphan Annie: Character Is The Real Hero
• Moon Mullins on the Margins
• The Working Class Heroes of Clare Briggs
• Gilbert Seldes, Krazy Kat and Comics as Culture
• Radical Romance: That Brinkley Girl
• Just Kids: A Bridge to Peanuts
• Rube Goldberg’s Bleak Screwball: Bobo Baxter
• Ella Cinders Deserves Her Moment
• In the Big House With Ella Cinders
• Connie and Frank Godwin’s Gentle Realism
• The Bungles Are Us

Fetish and Fantasy: Heroic Selves – 1931-1945

• Buck Rogers and the Steampunk Future
• Peak Segar: Plunder Island
• The Phantom’s Campy Fetishes
• A Bit of Prince Valiant Beefcake
• Fleshy Gordon: Alex Raymond’s Pop Erotica
• Caniff’s Art of the Recap Striptease
• The Glorious Weirdness of Chester Gould
• Can This Villain Destroy Dick Tracy?
• Red Barry: Time for Your Close-Up
• The ‘Sedimental’ Al Capp
• Al Capp vs. The Mad Scientist
• Boy Wonder: Tailspin Tommy’s Machine Romance
• Mandrake in Dimension Bonkers
• Terry and the Psychologists
• Foster’s Bestiary: A Prince Valiant Rogues Gallery
• Agent X-9: The Maturing of Alex Raymond
• Scorchy Transformed
• When Superman Was Woke

Depression Visions

• Gray Goes Dark: Survival of the Fightingest
• Popeye The Disgustipated Dictipator
• Tijuana Bibles: The Democracy of Lust 
• The Banality of Villainy: Syd Hoff Eats the Rich
• Not-So-Silly Symphonies: Disney Meets the Depression
• Mickey Mouse Diplomacy: Disney’s Ambassador of American Exceptionalism
• Royal Fetish: Screwball Monarchy in 30s Cartooning
• Napoleon: The Gentle art of Everyday-ness
• Gottfredson’s Mickey: The Art and Science of Action
• Jim Hardy: Forgotten Man
• The Timid Soul Toys With Fascism
• Prehistoric Nazis: Alley Oop Knows a Fascist When He Sees One
• Red Ryder: Fred Harman’s Scenic Route

Minority Report: America From the Edges

• The Indispensable Jackie Ormes
• Bungleton Green and the Mystic Commandos
• The Unsung Black Heroes
• Gladys Parker Is Back In Fashion
• Campbell’s Cuties: Wartime Women Had Their Moment
• Brenda Starr Comes Out Swinging

America Exceptional – 1940-1950

• They Had Faces Then: Close-Ups, 50s Photo-Realism and the Psychological Turn
• Hank Ketcham and the Art of Dennis
• The Grumbling American: Jimmy Hatlo’s Benign Hell
• Li’l Abner’s Culture Wars: Superman, Sinatra and Zoot Suits
• Rip Kirby Introduces the American 1950s
• Queer-Coding A La 1948: Buz Sawyer Flexes His Pecs
• Roy Crane: Shades of Genius
• Casey Ruggles: Beauty and Brutality, Fact and Fantasy
• Lance: Warren Tufts’ Beautiful…Strange America
• Into the Heart of Juliet Jones
• Doc Hero: Rex Morgan, M.D. Is Here to Help
• Dick Tracy Battles the JDs
• Twin Earths: Matriarchy Meets Patriarchy…In 1952
• Kurtzman Turns the Funnies Into the Sillies