Chapter One: “Is this a book?” DC Vertigo and the redefinition of comics in the 1990s

Not only comics publishing but also perceptions of it have changed radically during this century and the comic book has become a graphic novel; invoking notions of permanence, literariness and artistry. This chapter will examine the changes that brought about this redefinition in the 1990s, specifically with regard to the role of DC Vertigo and the rise of the trade paperback. Building on the popularity of British creators in the 1980s and the success of titles such as Hellblazer and Animal Man, DC launched their Vertigo imprint in 1993, with Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman as their flagship title. Having the somewhat paradoxical aim of uniting unique creative voices under one imprint, the majority of Vertigo titles (which feature original characters) are creator-owned and the Vertigo stable is comprised mainly of British authors, many of whom were recruited while writing for 2000AD in the 1980s. Vertigo puts out more trade paperbacks than any other imprint and their great success in marketing the trade paperback form in many senses paved the way for other publishers to repackage their material in similar form. After summarising the position of comics at the close of the 1980s (British invasion, emergent star writers, direct distribution) this chapter proceeds to discuss the emergence of the trade paperback in the 1990s and its role in redefining comics. Relevant industry factors will include: • technical advances – digitising and reproduction has led to higher production values; but also perhaps a homogeneity of style; • employment changes – everything has been brought in-house; • marketing changes (star writer) – uses romantic ideology to assign an author function; • maxi-series versus ongoing serialisation – new permanence of product; writing for a multi-issue story-arc. Outside factors will also be discussed, including: • emergent IP law – this has given more control to the creator; but freezes shared symbols and limits development; • mechanical reproduction – comic book as product; multiple forms; • fan culture – mid 1990s speculators market crash; neglect of child market; • social context/cultural expectations – celebrity culture responsible for the emergence of star writers; youth culture and resisting definition as children’s literature; • new media – trade paperbacks mirror DVD releases (including extras); • bookstore distribution – challenge to direct marketing of 1980s; brings comics closer to ‘proper’ books; reliant upon author function. These changes in comics’ production and consumption, together with the critical attention now afforded them, have brought the contemporary comic book closer to the notion of the literary text

Integer points on homogeneous varieties with two or more degrees

We give a revised version of Schmidt's treatment of forms in many variables, which allows us to prove a Hasse principle under more lenient conditions on the number of variables than what had previously been thought possible with these methods. Our results are generally comparable with recent advances in the field and supersede them in a number of cases.Comment: Withdrawn due to a crucial error on page 8. Thanks to D.R. Heath-Brown for spotting thi

Subtyping for Hierarchical, Reconfigurable Petri Nets

Hierarchical Petri nets allow a more abstract view and reconfigurable Petri nets model dynamic structural adaptation. In this contribution we present the combination of reconfigurable Petri nets and hierarchical Petri nets yielding hierarchical structure for reconfigurable Petri nets. Hierarchies are established by substituting transitions by subnets. These subnets are themselves reconfigurable, so they are supplied with their own set of rules. Moreover, global rules that can be applied in all of the net, are provided

Cultivating a Global Connection

A Hassenfeld Fellow’s transatlantic teaching experience demonstrates the impact of experiential learning through cultural exchange

Sums and differences of power-free numbers

We employ a generalised version of Heath-Brown's square sieve in order to establish an asymptotic estimate of the number of solutions $a, b \in \mathbb N$ to the equations $a+b=n$ and $a-b=n$, where $a$ is $k$-free and $b$ is $l$-free. This is the first time that this problem has been studied with distinct powers $k$ and $l$

Orbit Approach to Separation of Variables in sl(4)-Related Integrable Systems

Separation of variables by means of the orbit method is implemented to integrable systems on coadjoint orbits in an $\mathfrak{sl}(4)$ loop algebra. This is a development and a kind of explanation for Sklyanin's procedure of separation of variables. It is shown that points on a spectral curve serve as variables of separation for two integrable systems living on two generic orbits embedded into a common manifold. These orbits are endowed with different nonsingular Lie-Poisson brackets. Explicit expressions for the case of $\mathfrak{sl}(4)$ loop algebra are given.Comment: 12 pages. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1312.197