M. Thomas Inge, a pioneering figure in the world of comics scholarship, has passed away at the age of 85.

Growing up, Inge wanted to be a cartoonist but instead, his love of literature and teaching led to a career as a Humanities professor. Inge received his B.A. degree in English and Spanish from Randolph-Macon College in 1959. He then received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in English and American literature from Vanderbilt University in 1960 and 1964. He taught a little at Vanderbilt before moving to Michigan State University where he was part of the Department of American Thought and Language from 1964 to 1969. In 1968, he offered the first accredited course on American humor, with comics being featured as part of the curriculum.

He moved to Virginia Commonwealth University where he chaired the English department and further developed his studies on the impact of comics and popular culture. He was at VCU when he wrote the award-winning Handbook of American Popular Culture. He was one of the founders of both the Popular Culture Association and the American Humor Studies Association. He used both organizations to further the study of comics.

Inge was a renowned scholar in other fields, as well, including being one of the foremost experts on the work of William Faulkner. As a Fulbright Lecturer, Inge taught around the world, including the University of Salamanca in Spain, multiple universities in Buenos Aires in Argentina, Moscow State University in the former Soviet Union and at Charles University in Prague in the Czech Republic.

His studies of comics, graphic novels and comic books led to the groundbreaking scholarly examination about comics, 1990's Comics as Culture.

You could likely count on one hand how many critical studies from respected university professors had been written about comics before 1990. Inge was at the forefront of a whole new area of study in the United States. In recent years, he had been the general editor of the "Great Comic Artists" and "Conversations with Comic Artists" series published by the University Press of Mississippi. Inge ran a series of conversations with the late Charles Shultz about the Peanuts' artist's career.

During the 1990s, Inge wrote the acclaimed essay, "Was Krazy Kat Black? The Racial Identity of George Herriman" for Drawing the Line: Comics Studies and Inks, which has completely transformed the study of George Harriman's work in the years since. His 1995 book, Anything Can Happen in a Comic Strip: Centennial Reflections on an American Art Form, was also a seminal work in comics study.

All together, Inge wrote (or edited) over fifty books. He donated his papers to The M. Thomas Inge Papers (in the Comic Arts Collection at Virginia Commonwealth University), containing his massive collection of fanzine and journals, as well as correspondence with some of the most famous comic creators of all-time.