Graphic Law and Drawn Justice - by Giuseppe Martinico & Gianpaolo Maria Ruotolo (Hardcover)

About the Book

The book explores how comics, manga, animated series and pop music influenced by comic books represent law, reflecting and shaping public perception. It uses a comparative international law approach, including diverse scholars, and extends beyond Anglo-American culture to enrich the legal debate. This innovative collection fills a critical gap in legal and cultural studies.

Book Synopsis

The approach of examining law through comics and other forms of popular culture has gained significant traction recently. The portrayal of phenomena in comics, TV series and movies reflects and shapes public perception, embedding these views in collective imagination. Popular culture, which mirrors and influences mainstream trends, plays a crucial role in how legal phenomena and figures - such as professors, students, lawyers, judges and police - are perceived by the public.
Comics are particularly effective in this context due to their popularity and imaginative nature. Legal reasoning itself often involves imaginative thinking, as illustrated by Justice Felix Frankfurter's advice to a young aspiring lawyer in 1954. He emphasised the importance of cultivating imagination through various forms of art, suggesting that engaging with pop culture can enrich legal understanding.
This collection seeks to utilise pop culture, specifically comics, to explain and teach complex legal concepts. This approach has been explored in fields such as law and film, and law and literature, but this book aims to be innovative by adopting a comparative and international approach.
By including scholars from diverse backgrounds and extending beyond Anglo-American perspectives, this book aims to provide a richer, more varied analysis of how law is depicted in graphic novels, manga and animated series, thereby filling an important gap in the literature.

Review Quotes

'Graphic Law and Drawn Justice is an essential collection of scholarly works exploring the intersection of comics and law. This book reveals how the law is understood and naturalised through a popular me-dia format and demonstrates how a generally maligned medium can actually be an important player in legal and cultural issues'. -- Jeffrey A. Brown, PhD, Chair and Professor, Department of Popular Culture, Bowling Green State University

'This book provides compelling evidence of the deep connections between graphic law and justice. The contributors reveal how different societies have expressed, envisioned, critiqued and debated legal, political and sociological themes through comics, cartoons and other graphic media. Martinico and Ruotolo, by taking comics seriously, demonstrate in this book why these materials are significant from both legal and educational perspectives'. -- Antoni Abat i Ninet, Distinguished Researcher (Talent San-tander), Institut d'Estudis Europeus - Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

It presents an innovative focus on themes related to international law in Afrobeat, Hip-hop, Alternative and Classic Rock, and heavy metal, complete with a playlist. It explores new ways of trial reporting that contrast and critique sensationalist journalism. Graphic Law and Drawn Justice demonstrates the extensive reach of law, touching every aspect of life. -- Liverpool Law Review

About the Author

Giuseppe Martinico is a Full Professor of Comparative Public Law at the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa.

Gianpaolo Maria Ruotolo is Full Professor of International Law in the Department of Law of the University of Foggia, Italy, where he teaches international law, EU law, international trade law, private international law and international organisations law.