• On the whole, The Art of Comics is an excellent book, and will no doubt be the starting point for interested analytic philosophers for years to come…The book is also a real success at shedding new light on many long-standing problems in aesthetics. On top of its other achievements, Meskin and Cook’s anthology establishes beyond any doubt that comics merit philosophical study as much as they do carefree enjoyment. (Brandon Cooke, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews)

• I found this volume to be extremely rewarding (both qua philosopher and qua comic lover), the essays by the two editors and Abell’s paper on genre being particular highlights… considered as a whole, The Art of Comics is an excellent collection and one which is likely to provoke spirited debate and serve as a spur to further research within Anglo-American philosophy (and philosophy more generally) into this sadly neglected art form. I, for one, look forward to these future developments immensely. To quote one of the greats in the history of comics—excelsior! (Jon Robson, British Journal of Aesthetics)

• The Art of Comics would make a fine addition to any undergraduate reading list, introducing as it does several important notions in contemporary aesthetics. What makes it an important book, however, is that it does this through the prism of the most popular art form yet to have been so completely, and as The Art of Comics shows, unfoundedly ignored by philosophers of art. (Al Baker, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism)

And here’s an interview about The Art of Comics

 

• The Companion lives up to Bramlett, Cook and Meskin’s declaration in the ‘Introduction’ that the collection will serve as a starting point: it gives the reader many interesting points of ingress into the world(s) of comics, opening different cultural histories, genres, cultural concepts and points of intersection. A reader first exploring comics through an academic lens can find many different well-formed and well-referenced perspectives, as these chapters often act as a literature review on the specific subject, identifying key works and other studies to explore. (Christina Fawcett, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics)

• Aesthetics and the Sciences of Mind vividly renders the heated debate surrounding the status of experimental methodology within the field. In brief, this collection is not simply a summary of the most respected current interdisciplinary research into aesthetic perception designed for philosophers; it also provides a valuable insight into the debates surrounding cog-neuro approaches to the arts and aesthetics, as they appear in the discipline of philosophy. It is a reminder for those in literary studies that the questions posed by this most recent collision of the humanities and the sciences cannot simply be reduced to a case of scholars of culture battling against men and women in white coats. Philosophers are also dealing with the dilemmas created by incorporating various sciences of mind into their field. The range of opinions presented in this volume is illustrative of the breadth of this often polarised debate and makes it evident that, while empirical data can be tremendously useful, it doesn’t hold all the answers. (Kate Travers, Oxonian Review)