The invisible teenager: Comic book materiality and the amateur films of Don Glut

Abstract

Don Glut, between the ages of 9 and 25, made 41 short amateur films inspired by horror, science fiction, and superhero movies, serials, and comic books. The tactile qualities of comic books as affect-generating objects are instrumental to how Glut confirmed his identity during a time (adolescence) in which that identity is particularly unstable. Glut used the popular figure of the teen rebel and his role as a filmmaker in order to negotiate with hegemonic restrictions on his objects of affection, especially comic books.

Keywords

• Affect
• Amateur movies
• Comic books