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Peter M. Coogan () is an American comics scholar. He is the co-founder and co-chair of the Comics Arts Conference, which runs during San Diego Comic-Con and WonderCon. Partial listing of Peter Coogan's works in the Comic Art Collection, Michigan State University. Accessed January 26, 2008 Brief biography at the School of Art History, Cinema, Classics & Archaeology. Accessed January 26, 2008 Since 2009 he has taught for the American Culture Studies Program at Washington University in St. Louis, and he served as the Communication Lab Coordinator at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis from 2012 to 2024.
He coined the term Wold-Newtonry in a paper titled "Wold-Newtonry: Theory and Methodology for the Literary Archeology of the Wold Newton Universe." In it, he talks about literary archaeology, a term which he says was inspired (for him) by Warren Ellis's term mystery archeologists in Ellis and John Cassaday's Planetary comics. The paper is available online at Philip José Farmer's Wold Newton pages, and as a chapter in Win Scott Eckert's (ed.) Myths for the Modern Age book, published by MonkeyBrain Books. "A heckuva family" article at ThePulp.Net. Accessed March 16, 2021.
Coogan co-edited (with Randall William Scott) the Comic Art Studies newsletter and also set up the Comics Studies Email service to "coordinate communication about comic scholarship." The newsletter's motto was Comica Amica Nobicum ("Comics Are Our Friends!") and originated from the Russel B. Nye Popular Culture Collection, to "facilitate communication about the Comic Art Collection at Michigan State University, and communication about public comics collecting and scholarship in general." "Comic Art Studies Introduction" at Negative Space. Accessed January 26, 2008
In 2005, Coogan presented a paper titled "The Definition of the Superhero" at the interdisciplinary Holy Men in Tights Superheroes Conference at the School of Art History, Cinema, Classics & Archaeology (AHCCA), University of Melbourne in Melbourne, Australia. Holy Men in Tights Conference at AHCCA. Accessed January 26, 2008 In 2012, Coogan was awarded the Inkpot Award. Inkpot Award
Comics writer and critic Peter Sanderson, in his "Comics in Context" columns dealing with Coogan's Superhero, summarizes the contention over the term "superhero" by noting that some fictional characters not "explicitly portrayed as superhuman... nonetheless perform feats that real people would be unlikely to duplicate," citing Luke Skywalker and Jack Bauer as two examples. Coogan's remit, therefore, is to clarify these issues and “provide a basis for the study of superheroes and help to make more studies possible in the future.” Sanderson also notes that Coogan - and his publisher, MonkeyBrain, who also publish Jess Nevins' annotations on Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - are not following the common trend in academic circles to largely ignore the superhero genre when comics are discussed.
Coogan seeks to define not merely the superhero as a character, but also the genre itself, thereby discussing not just individual attributes, but types of story, noting that the superhero:
Coogan's definition makes reference to DC Comics's lawsuit against Victor Fox, who published Wonder Man in 1939 (not to be confused with the Wonder Man Marvel Comics hero), in imitation of Superman. The presiding Judge Learned Hand identified three defining characteristics in his ruling (see: here), which form a key part of Coogan's argument:
Peter Sanderson, noted Marvel Comics historian and author of the Comics in Context blog at QuickStopEntertainment, while not agreeing completely with Coogan's points, nevertheless states that the book "should become a basic text for study of the superhero genre," recommending it to all fans of the genre.. Accessed January 26, 2008
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