Reboot Culture

Comics, Film, Transmedia

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by William Proctor

Type

Studies

Subject

Sociology

Keywords

reboot, sequel

Publishing date

2023

Publisher

Palgrave MacMillan

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Hardcover • 289 pages
6 x 8 ½ inches (15 x 21.5 cm)

ISBN

978-3-031-40911-0

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Book Presentation:
Since the release of Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins in 2005, there has been a pronounced surge in alternative uses of the computer term ‘reboot,’ a surge that has witnessed the term deployed in new contexts and new signifying practices, involving politics, fashion, sex, nature, sport, business, and media. As a narrative concept, however, reboot terminology remains widely misused, misunderstood, and misinterpreted across popular, journalistic, and academic discourses, being recklessly and relentlessly solicited as a way to describe a broad range of narrative operations and contradictory groupings, including prequels, sequels, adaptations, revivals, re-launches, generic ‘refreshes,’ and enactments of retroactive continuity.
Adopting an inter-disciplinary approach that fuses cultural studies, media archaeology, and discursive approaches, this book challenges existing scholarship on the topic by providing new frameworks and taxonomies that illustratekey differences between reboots and other ‘strategies of regeneration,’ helping to spotlight the various ways in which the culture industries mine their intellectual properties in distinct and novel ways to present them anew. Reboot Culture: Comics, Film, Transmedia is the first academic study to critically explore and interrogate the reboot phenomenon as it emerged historically to describe superhero comics that sought to jettison existing narrative continuity in order to ‘begin again’ from scratch.of franchising in the twenty-first century.

of franchising in the twenty-first century.

About the Author:
William Proctor is Associate Professor in Popular Culture at Bournemouth University, UK.

Press Reviews:
"​William Proctor interrogates reboot culture like he’s leading a courtroom drama: marshalling evidence, challenging assumptions and exposing the careless thinking of previous work (including my own) through a series of fascinating case studies. His analysis is tough and tenacious, taking no prisoners, as he taxonomises the various categories of retcon, relaunch, revival, sequel, prequel and reboot (and deboot, and preboot, for good measure). Passionate, provocative and pedantic, this book provides an invigorating experience and a fierce, focused argument that should inspire media students and set a spark to scholarly debate."
― Will Brooker, Professor of Film and Cultural Studies, Kingston University, London

"A very enjoyable, readable ride on the history of film and comic reboots from an engaging academic perspective, including related phenomena like retconning, re-launches, spin-offs, and more. Proctor shows that these narrative strategies have deep historical roots, and have been used across the whole spectrum spanning high and low cultural forms, while overturning some commonly-held assumptions as well, essentially rebooting the conversation on rebooting itself."
―Mark J. P. Wolf, Professor in the Communication Department at Concordia University, Wisconsin

See the publisher website: Palgrave MacMillan