Abstract
The global popularity of comics has propelled scholarship about "graphic justice," a term Thomas Giddens coined to refer to the intersection of comics and law. While much graphic justice scholarship seeks to dignify comics by analyzing their "serious" engagement with the law, this article evaluates how revent scholarship in comics form has deployed humor for critical purposes. Through subverting genre conventions, such scholarship has democratized discourse in fields including constitutional law, criminal law, and intellectual property law. The graphic justice texts discussed use humor as a vital tool to advocate for reforms to laws, legal education and scholarship, and the profession. Law faculty in a variety of courses can foster an inclusive leaning environment and spark students' critical thinking about the discipline by incorporating humorous graphic texts into their classes. Moreover, in representing law through an ascendant popular culture form, graphic justice texts forge a "common law" that may restore public confidence in the legal system during a precarious tim for the rule of law worldwide.
Recommended Citation
Almas Khan,
Graphic Justice, Humor, and the Democratization of Legal Discourse,
57
U. Rich. L. Rev.
1
(2023).
Available at:
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/lawreview/vol57/iss5/1
