User:Libncl/sandbox

Assignment 1

 * 1) Comic Book
 * 2) Comics
 * 3) Comic Strip
 * 4) Encyclopedia Britannica Comic Book
 * 5) Encyclopedia Britannica Graphic Novel
 * 6) Encyclopedia Britannica Comic Strip

The process I took was by starting with a very general topic and using it to search through both Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica. I chose the topic of comics, which lead to more articles similar to that like the comic book and comic strip. I chose to use Encyclopedia Britannica as my other encyclopedia source because I have heard about it in class. Both sites were very easy to use, once I found the specific location for them, all I had to do was type in what I wanted to find in the search box at the top of the page and both sites gave me recommended articles. A difference I found in using both sites was that Encyclopedia Britannica sent me to a page of related articles right away, while Wikipedia had an article matching the exact term ‘comic’ so it sent me straight to that article. The articles on Wikipedia also seemed to be longer than most Encyclopedia Britannica articles and had more images.

Assignment 2
The topic I chose is comic books. In the Wikipedia article, many kinds of comic books are described from the popular American comic books, to underground comic books, to graphic novels. Comic books began in the early 1930s but they only started the superhero comics after Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster made Superman in the 1938 Action Comics. Graphic novels began being published in 1964, which were usually longer than the average comic book. Then came the European comics, but the Japanese comics are much more widely known as manga. Manga eventually evolved, with inspiration from Walt Disney’s animated films, into films. The Encyclopedia Britannica article was much shorter, it talks about the first comic being made in 1933 and how comics were widely blamed for teen violence in the 1950s, bringing on the first comic censorship. It also mentions how comics were especially liked by college students in the 1960s. Now in the 21st century, manga is known and read worldwide. The Wikipedia article had much more information and external links than the one in Encyclopedia Britannica, but it isn’t surprising considering that the Wikipedia article is based on member contribution and comic books might not seem like the most academic of topics for those who run Encyclopedia Britannica. Wikipedia had subsections for the different types of comics in the world, and even had links to full articles for these topics such as the Franco-Belgian and British comic books. Britannica does have a link to the article on graphic novels and comic strips, but Wikipedia also has those plus so much more. When it comes to content, everything mentioned in the short Britannica article is also mentioned in the Wikipedia one. While Britannica only mentions manga comics, Wikipedia has an entire subsection devoted to only that topic. Britannica also doesn’t even mention European comics at all. Britannica offers a few links for further reading such as comic strips, graphic novels, World War II, and a few article links to works that mention comic books somewhere in the article. They provide a link to an article on graphic novels from their Year in Review collection, also two links for comic strips, one for a definition and one for a full article. There is also a link to an article comparing the comic book to the graphic novel, as well as an article about an American publisher which mentions comic books. Wikipedia not only has a list of further reading, but also has a very numerous amount of external links within the article itself, as most Wikipedia articles do. This includes links to articles written about anything mentioned within the article to expand on the topic even more. In the further reading list, there is a book about manga history which includes the ISBN, a link to an article in Journal of Popular Culture, and an article from the telegraph website on how comic books became part of the literary establishment. There are also five links in the External Links section of the Wikipedia article leading to other databases for information on comic books. In my opinion, the Wikipedia article is a very good article on this topic. With my pre-existing knowledge of comics, I was still able to learn more about them and could spend hours going through external links and getting deeper into the topic. Unfortunately, the Britannica article was very short and did not provide much information at all, which is why I chose this topic. I wanted to show what a large difference there is between the two encyclopedia’s. I’m not sure why the comic book article on Britannica is so underdeveloped, I think the topic should still be considered an academic topic because it studies a very popular type of literature, one that even those who don’t read can still enjoy.

Additional Resources

 * 1) Graphic Novel
 * 2) Comic Strip
 * 3) Digital Production Comes of Age in the Comic World
 * 4) Comic Books
 * 5) Comics
 * 6) Comic Strip
 * 7) Comics
 * 8) What's the Big Deal About Comic Books
 * 9) Comic Books Go Digital
 * 10) Ottawa comic artists jam together at monthly sessions