Matthew J. Smith is Professor of Communication and Dean of the College of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences at Radford University in Virginia, where he also teaches courses in the popular arts, including a course on Graphic Storytelling. He holds a Ph.D. in Communication (1998) from Ohio University and has published eleven different books, including "The Secret Origins of Comics Studies" with Randy Duncan (Routledge, 2017) and "The Power of Comics: History, Form and Culture, 2nd Edition" (Continuum, 2015) with Randy Duncan and Paul Levitz.