A Heap of Broken Images an introduction by Sean Bishop        In the last decade, comic book art has lost some of the stigma associated with greasy-haired figurine collectors, becoming more and more respected in the larger artistic and literary communities. The conventional narrative for this shift typically begins with seminal figures of alternative and underground comics from the 1970s and ’80s—R. Crumb, Harvey Pekar, etc.—then traces the path from Art Spiegelman’s Maus (1980–’91) and Alan Moore’s Watchmen (1986–’87) through later benchmarks in the movement like Joe Sacco’s Palestine (1996), Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis (2000), and Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth (2000). These, at least, are the books most likely to turn up on syllabi at the growing handful of schools where courses on comic book history and “the graphic novel” are offered. They reflect an increasing desire among many comic book artists, writers, and readers to avoid campiness, and to strive to address more complicated themes than did previous generations.        Although these books and authors deserve their places in the emerging canon of “literary” comic books, we put unnecessary limitations on the form if we use them as our sole models. Chief among these limitations is an over-dependence on narrative; with the notable exception of some of Crumb’s work, all of the books listed above have cohesive storylines. Even the term “graphic novel”—which is increasingly (and inaccurately) used to distinguish literary comic books from their more traditional, superhero-centered brethren—implies that plot and narrative are somehow intrinsic to the comic book form. This simply isn’t the case. In a number of ways, in fact, comic books more closely resemble poems than novels: they use text sparingly; they frequently “break” lines for dramatic or tonal effects; and much like lyric poetry, comic books often juxtapose images to create meaning, without any clear narrative or syntactic relationship between the images they present. Recently the Poetry Foundation, in its “Poem as Comic Strip” series, has tried to demonstrate the capabilities of the comic strip as a poetic form. But this effort is still young, and while “graphic novel” has become a household term, “graphic poem” remains outside the popular lexicon.        When Gulf Coast began brainstorming a feature of comic book art, we decided to highlight the lesser-known lyric strengths of the form. What better way to do this, we thought, than to commission a graphic interpretation of The Waste Land? Not only is the poem famously non-narrative, but it also shares some interesting affinities with comic books. Eliot’s poem is a sort of pastiche—its method of construction is typically described by quoting the poem itself: “a heap of broken images”— and this description applies even more literally to comic book art. We also felt confident that a graphic response to / rehashing of The Waste Land would nicely complement the poem’s original project: Eliot resampled, distorted, and welded together a plethora of literary and pop-cultural sources to write his poem—Tennyson, ragtime lyrics, etc.—thereby providing new contexts for the works he cited. The next logical step, we thought, would be to resample The Waste Land itself; just as Eliot cobbled together a poem using quotations from Shakespeare’s plays, Hindu prayers, and Arthurian legend, we would use The Waste Land to make a comic book. But who was up to that task?        After a lot of searching, we found Scotland-based artist Ben Powis, whose portfolio included traditional narrative comic books as well as covers for Moby Dick, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and the Selected Poems of Wilfred Owen. We admired Powis’s gritty yet fantastic illustration style— a persistent dark whimsy in his work—and these characteristics are apparent in his interpretation of Eliot’s poem. Powis’s waste land is not the wreckage of the Great War, but an otherworldly desert populated by insects and anthropomorphic trees. His “Marie” rides a toboggan down a barren mountain, wearing a reaper-like hood. And for Powis, “the hanged man” of Madame Sosostris’s tarot reading is not suspended by his foot, as in the traditional tarot deck, but by his throat. And yet Powis tempers the added darkness of these innovations with his almost children’s-book-like illustration style.        What follows is only the first section of The Waste Land, “The Burial of the Dead.” We regret that we can’t give you more right now. It’s our hope, though, that these pages will provoke a richer discussion about the capabilities and limitations of the comic book form, and that Gulf Coast might be able to continue this project—and this conversation—in issues to come. Enjoy!