Thomas Library Blog

[caption id="attachment_1314" align="alignleft" width="114"]Click on the image for more information about fair use.[/caption] The legal concept of fair use touches our lives every day, especially those who are employed in, or are students at, educational institutions. It is one of the exemptions to copyright law and serves as an important limitation on copyright holders. Fair use is what allows you to make copies of copyrighted articles without asking the author for permission. It is what allows faculty member to show movies in their classes without securing public performance rights. Fair use as a legal doctrine came about in 1841 when Justice Joseph Story, in the case of Folsom v. Marsh, wrote the decision that led to fair use as a part of the copyright law. Fair Use Week is typically the last week in February. This year it is February 23-27, 2015.

A new display in the library's lobby features a variety of graphic novels, including works by Scott McCloud, who will be a Witt Series speaker on March 16. McCloud is best known for his groundbreaking 1993 work Understanding Comics, a comic book that analyzes and explains how the comics medium works. The library display features McCloud's work and the work of other comics artists and graphic novelists. The newest work included is McCloud's new graphic novel, The Sculptor. All of the books in the display may be checked out. Some of the works featured in the display are Eisner Award winners, the highest honor for excellence in graphic novels. The Eisner winners include:

• Fables: Legends in Exile, by Bill Willingham - faerie tale characters such as Cinderella, Baba Yaga, and the Big Bad Wolf are living in a neighborhood in New York City. What could possibly go wrong?
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, by Alan Moore - an unlikely assortment of Victorian literary heroes (Captain Nemo, Dr. Jeckyl, and others) have all sorts of adventures.
• Owly, by Andy Runton - a lighthearted, evocative pair of graphic stories. All images, no text, and fun for both adults and kids.
• Promethea, by Alan Moore - a college student in a slightly futuristic New York City emerges as a Wonder-Woman-esque superhero with a mystical, magical bent.
• Umbrella Academy, by by Gerard Way and illustrated by Gabriel B‡ - a dysfunctional family of child-superheroes with bizarre powers unite to save the world from equally bizarre threats.
• Whiteout, by Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber - an international adventure/mystery set in Antarctica.
• Y: The Last Man, by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra - when all of the male mammals (including humans) in the world suddenly die of a plague, what happens next? And why did this guy Yorick and his pet monkey survive?

If all of that sounds pretty adventuresome, it's worth noting that comics cover a lot more than just adventure stories. The display also features a selection of graphic nonfiction -- true stories or factual information represented in comics format. Some of those include:

• A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, by Josh Neufeld - four stories of people in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina: fleeing, trapped, or hunkering down.
• Palestine, by Joe Sacco - one of the first prominent works of graphic journalism, putting a human face on the tumult in the Gaza Strip
• Pedro and Me, by Judd Winick - by Judd Winick, a former MTV's The Real World, talking about his friendship with his co-star Pedro Zamora, who died of AIDS. In this genre-defying memoir/biography/eulogy, Winick tells of how their televised friendship served as a proxy for a generation of television viewers for whom Zamora became a Ògay friendÓ and a Òfriend with AIDS.Ó
• Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi - a highly-acclaimed graphic memoir about a girl growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution.