Comics An Introduction

i
Comics
Comics: An Introduction provides a clear and detailed introduction

to the Comics form –including graphic narratives and a range of
other genres –explaining key terms, history, theories, and major
themes. The book uses a variety of examples to show the rich
history as well as the current cultural relevance and significance
of Comics.
Taking a broadly global approach, Harriet Earle discusses the
history and development of the form internationally, as well
as how to navigate comics as a new way of reading. Earle also
pushes beyond the book to lay out the ways that fans engage with
their comics of choice –and how this can impact the industry.
She also analyses how Comics can work for social change and
political comment. Discussing journalism and life writing, she
examines how the coming together of word and image gives us
new ways to discuss our world and ourselves.
A glossary and further reading section help those new to
Comics solidify their understanding and further their exploration
of this dynamic and growing field.
Harriet E.H. Earle is Lecturer in English at Sheffield Hallam

University, UK. Her first monograph –Comics, Trauma, and the
New Art of War –was published in 2017. Her research interests
include American Comics and popular culture, representations
of violence, protest narratives, and biopolitics. She has published
across the field of Comics and popular culture studies. She is also
the Editor of the series Global Perspectives in Comics Studies.
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Comics
An Introduction
Harriet E.H. Earle

iv
First published 2021

by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 Harriet E.H. Earle
The right of Harriet E.H. Earle to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or
in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without
intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Earle, Harriet E.H., author.
Title: Comics: an introduction / Harriet E.H. Earle.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2021. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020033300 | ISBN 9780367322410 (paperback) |
ISBN 9780367322427 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429317484 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Comic books, strips, etc.–History and criticism. |
Graphic novels–History and criticism.
Classification: LCC PN6710 .E27 2021 | DDC 741.5/9–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020033300
ISBN: 978-0-367-32242-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-32241-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-31748-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Newgen Publishing UK
v
For Dr Fuhs, my very own Jolly Jumper

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vii
Contents
List of figures viii

Acknowledgements x
Introduction –comics: no laughing matter 1
1 Definitions and mechanics 12
2 Histories 33
3 Going global: comics on the world stage 62
4 Cultures and commodities 93
5 Journalism 118
6 Drawing lives 140
Conclusion 167
Glossary 179
Further reading 186
Bibliography 189
Index 205
viii
Figures
I.1 Roger Sabin as Schulz’s ‘Snoopy’ by John

Miers (2019) 4
I.2 ‘Der Liebeszauber’ by a Lower Rhine Master of
the fifteenth century (c. 1470) 6
1.1 ‘Umbrella’ by Rozi Hathaway (2019) 14
1.2 ‘Mindblowing’ by Tom Gauld (2018) 18
1.3 ‘Faye Cuts to the Chase #4’ (2003) and
‘Sanitary Condition #3982’ (2019) from
Questionable Content by Jeph Jacques 22
1.4 This is what a comics page (sometimes) looks
like. By Samuel Williams (2019) 26
1.5 Imbattable Tome 1: Justice et Légumes Frais (p. 3)
by Pascal Jousselin (2017) 28
2.1 Close-up of the marble relief on Trajan’s
Column by Allison Kidd and the Institute for
the Study of the Ancient World 34
2.2 ‘Histoire de Monsieur Jabot’ by Rodolphe
Töpffer (1833) 40
2.3 Excerpt from ‘Krazy Kat’ by George
Herriman (1922) 46
3.1 Women in Battle (p. 173) by Marta Breen and
Jenny Jordahl (2018) 72
3.2 Panels from Peanuts by Charles Schulz (1950–2000) 73
3.3 Image from The Hokusai Manga by Katsushika
Hokusai (1760–1849) 82
ix
List of figures ix
4.1 Statistics on comics readership, from NPD
BookScan (2018) 98
4.2 Statistics on comics fan event attendance, from
Eventbrite (2014) 105
4.3 Florence Cestac (2016) 107
4.4 An example of cosplay, ‘Scarlet Witch’ by
Kaitlyn Gilman (2019) 109
5.1 ‘On Satire’ by Joe Sacco (2015) 125
5.2 ‘Join or Die’ by Benjamin Franklin (attrib.) (1754) 129
5.3 ‘Brexit’ by Hannah Berry (2019) 130
6.1 Cover of Psit!!! by Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro (1877) 146
6.2 From The Four Immigrants Manga: A Japanese
Experience in San Francisco, 1904–1924 by Henry
(Yoshitaka) Kiyama 147
6.3 ‘Empathic Bonds’ by Ian Williams (2011) 150
6.4 Becoming Unbecoming (p. 7) by Una (2017) 161
6.5 Billy, Me and You (n.p.) by Nicola Streeten (2011) 164
C.1 Panel from No Way by the Australian
Department for Immigration and Border
Protection (2013) 168
C.2 Statistics on film adaptations from comics as
original source 172
x
Acknowledgements
This is my favourite part of the book to write –an outpouring

of gratitude to everyone who made it happen.
Thank you to the team at Routledge who brought this book
into being: Polly Dodson, Zoe Meyer, and all those who worked
‘behind the scenes’ to bring this book to life. To Professor Chris
Hopkins and Richard Wood for preparing my index.
The beautiful diagrams in Chapter 1 are the work of Rozi
Hathaway and Sam Williams –thank you for your fantastic work!
Thank you to everyone who gave me permission to use their
images: Hannah Berry, Joe Sacco, Tom Gauld, Pascal Jousselin,
Jeph Jacques, Una, Dr Ian Williams, Dr John Miers, and Dr
Nicola Streeten. Special thanks to Kaitlyn Gilman for her cosplay
photo and to Tom Price for (patiently) showing me how to make
infographics.
Thank you to the staff at Sheffield Hallam University Library,
University of Sheffield Library, the John Rylands Library, and
Sheffield Central Library for giving me a space to work and,
often, help with finding stuff.
To Dr Laurike In T’ Veld and Dr Eszter Szép –the Glamorous
Ladies of Comics and my dear friends –for proofreading, listening,
and discussing. To Dr Sasha Garwood-Lloyd, for her friendship
and reliable stream of feminist commentary and kickassery. To Dr
Donna Cox, for her age-old wisdom. To Joanna Dobson, whose
proofreading skills are formidable and brilliant, as she is. And
Steven Burke, who gives excellent advice. And Erin Burrell, my
favourite collaborator.
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newgenprepdf
Acknowledgements xi
Uncontained gratitude to my wonderful and supportive
Comics comrades. I am indebted to all of you for your friendship,
support, suggestions, and, of course, dog pictures.
Dr Martin Lund, Dr Sarah Lightman, Dr Johannes Schmid,
Alex Fitch, Dr Lise Tannahill, Felix Kühn Ravn, Dr Fernanda
Basteris, Dr Christina Meyer, Dr Mihaela Precup, Dr Paul
Fisher Davies, Charlotte Fabricius, Barbara Chamberlin, Dr
Joachim Trinkwitz, Dr Paul Williams, Dr Simon Grennan, Dr
Judith Muskett, Harry Taylor, Kathy Davis, Joe Stanley, Hannah
Bayley, Chris Sykes, Dr Jotham Gaudoin, Isabella Earle, and
Matilda Earle.
And, thank you to Carsten, who read this book at least
four times over and still has good things to say about it. There
aren’t enough thanks in the world for your love, support, and
declensions.
xii
1
Introduction
Comics: no laughing matter
Most people have read a comic without knowing they are doing
so. Comic books are part of the reading diets of people of all
nationalities, ages, genders, and educational levels. Even for those
who have not consciously picked up a comic book, the same basic
form and ways of communication of information can be found
in a large number of documents that are common in our modern
world, from the instructions for flat pack furniture or flight safety
leaflets, to viral memes posted on social media platforms. These
are not strictly Comics, as I will show, but they are narratives
told primarily via images, positioned in sequence, and, at their
heart, this is all a comic is. The narrative of a flat pack bookcase
is an easy one to decipher –‘do this and you’ll get the finished
object’. Flight safety should be easily understandable across mul-
tiple languages and educational levels, while memes tap into com-
munal knowledge and narratives to repackage social mores and
cultural truths into easily disseminated, humorous formats.
These examples are not Comics. But they use many of the
same formal and narrative techniques as those used in Comics to
convey information, to persuade, and to entertain. But if these
things are not Comics, then what is? First, Comics is not picture
books; it is not illustrated stories, where the images are supple-
mentary to understanding the written text. Let us consider a
famous definition of Comics, from Scott McCloud’s 1994 book
Understanding Comics. He writes that ‘Comics is [sic] juxtaposed
pictorial and other images in a deliberate sequence, intended
to convey information and/ or produce an aesthetic response
2
2 Introduction
in the viewer’ (1994: 9). This definition is comprehensive, but
the necessary keywords are in the first part –‘juxtaposed […]
in deliberate sequence’. For McCloud, Comics places images in
specific sequences in order to tell a story, and his focus is on the
primacy of the image. Comics creator and editor Will Eisner
is more succinct in his definition: for him, the Comics form is
‘sequential art’ (2008a). It is imperative that we keep this idea
at the forefront of our minds, for it is central to the essence of
Comics.
In Chapter 1, I discuss in detail the term ‘Comics’, its uses,
and the many specific categories that fall under it. It is used in
two ways: both as an abstract and a concrete noun. ‘Comics’,
with a capital letter and used in the singular, is the abstract, and is
used to refer to the form itself; it is also used this way to discuss
the industry. With a lower-case letter, it is a concrete noun, to
refer to the material (or digital) ‘thing’ –a comic book or some
comics, for example. Though the distinction is slight, this allows
the form and the material object to remain distinct in discussion.
Comics demands images to be placed in sequence and, fur-
thermore, demands a readership that can negotiate these images
in order to create a coherent narrative that will engage the reader.
This is a concern that exists across the entire spectrum of Comics,
from the shortest newspaper strip (such as Garfield by Jim Davis
[1978–present] or Peanuts by Charles Schulz [1950–2000]) to
epic multi-volume series (e.g., Cerebus by Dave Sim [1977–2004]
or Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples [2012–present]).
In his 1964 book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man,
philosopher Marshall McLuhan coined the now-famous phrase,
‘the medium is the message’. The way that a piece of media (be
it a piece of text, a comic, or any other type) is produced and
represented is as important as what it says; its form can determine
meaning and reception. As this book will demonstrate, Comics
is all about the form in a way that is distinct from other narrative
media, and the reader is an active participant in the creation
of the story simply by the way they choose to read and make
connections between the images on the page. Not only does the
reader have to navigate the reading and understanding of both
text and image, but they are also expected to navigate the layout
3
Introduction 3
of the page –and the whole comic –themselves. This involves
making choices about the path to take through the images, the
speed at which to read each image and the types of connections
that can be made between image and image, as well as word
and image.
Until relatively recently, the study of Comics has been sitting
on the sidelines of the academy, despite the popularity of the
form and its ubiquity within popular culture. Comics is one of
the oldest and most dynamic narrative forms on the planet, one
that makes complex stories accessible and understandable for a
diverse, international readership. Many scholars and creators have
suggested alternative terms that overcome the misconceptions
associated with the name, as I discuss in Chapter 1, but none
has stuck. Within universities, Comics Studies is highly inter-
disciplinary; scholars from various departments such as English,
History, Psychology, Graphic Design, Art, and Media Studies
do research on it. The subject has not yet been ‘consecrated by
the academy’, to use Pierre Bourdieu’s term (1991), and so is
not technically a discipline. This raises all kinds of questions; the
mobile nature of researchers across various disciplines enriches
scholarship by interaction. Not being a discipline gives Comics
Studies the freedom of not being strictly ‘disciplined’; scholar-
ship is not bound by certain discourses and patterns of know-
ledge that others face. However, it also means that it is largely
homeless, and this comes with a lack of belonging and collective
resources that lead to questions of legitimacy and impact. In
Figure I.1, Comics scholar Roger Sabin (here drawn as Snoopy
from Schulz’ Peanuts strips) suggests two potential advantages to
Comics Studies becoming a discipline. Because Comics Studies
is an interdisciplinary field, it brings together cognate disciplines;
when they interact with each other they share and expand the
arsenal of analytical tools. This is to the benefit of the field and
allows for a rich diversity of analytical approaches, as well as offers
a nexus for disciplines to come together on common ground for
the discussion and interrogation of a particular topic or theme.
It is important to understand the context in which this field is
situated, as it has a massive bearing on how Comics is viewed
both within universities and in wider society. It also helps to see
4
4 Introduction
Figure I.1 Roger Sabin as Schulz’s ‘Snoopy’ by John Miers (2019).
where the scholarship is rooted and how it is being constructed in

relation to existing modes of knowledge and analytical methods.
This introduction will set out some key issues for Comics
and provide some short definitions, as well as signposting to later
chapters in the book.
Comics is not a genre but a form all its own

In 2018, Nick Drnaso’s Sabrina became the first comic to be
longlisted for the Booker Prize, an award open to Anglophone
fiction. Sabrina is a graphic novel (a genre of Comics that we will
discuss in more detail in Chapter 1) that follows the disappear-
ance of a young woman; the story focuses on the aftermath and its
effect on her friends, the titular Sabrina does not feature promin-
ently as a character. Though it did not reach the shortlist, Drnaso
5
Introduction 5
was lauded in the international press. The process of longlisting
raises, in this instance, a number of key issues that involve the
status of graphic novels in our culture. The Booker Prize is a
literary award; it is designed to be given to works of literature.
Sabrina is a graphic novel, coming under the umbrella of Comics.
If it can be considered for a literary award, then so can the latest
film by Quentin Tarantino or television series by Julian Fellowes.
There is much debate around the term ‘graphic novel’ in rela-
tion to Comics, with some scholars and creators using it inter-
changeably and others shunning it completely. There is a middle
ground, in which we can situate ‘graphic novels’ as a subset of
the form: all graphic novels are comics but not all comics are
graphic novels. It is a type of comic book with its own nuanced
history and execution, which exists in dialogue with other
subsets and without hierarchy. Furthermore, Comics is a sep-
arate form; just like film, literature, or television, it exists in a
cultural and publishing space that is unique and not a subset of
another form. It is often said (commonly in the mass media) that
Comics is a genre of literature, but this is simply not the case. On
the surface of it, the connections are clear to see. Literature and
Comics are both ways of telling stories that are typically read in
bound books: Comics, Film, and Television are all visual forms.
Though there is a large amount of crossover media now flooding
the market, especially given the huge popularity of the Marvel
and DC Cinematic Universes, not to mention other comics
adaptations such as The Crow (1994), 300 (2007), and Kingsman
(2015), these forms remain distinct. In Chapter 1, I discuss
a range of basic definitions in order to reveal the nuances of
different types of comics, including graphic novels, web comics,
and strips. I also look at the various parts of the form itself: what
are the constituent parts of the form called and how do they fit
together?
Comics has a ‘chequered’ history

Naming the first comic is not an easy task because there is no
clear beginning or foundational text. There are several ways to
approach this. Many Comics histories return to prehistory, when
6
6 Introduction
humans first used sequential art in the form of cave paintings and
petroglyphs. Others may prefer to refer to the use of recognisable
elements of the form as benchmarks: for example, we may look
to the first use of panels to divide and separate the art into clearly
demarked images (which is attributed to the nineteenth-century
schoolmaster Rodolphe Töpffer) or the inclusion of speech
bubbles (which can be dated back to the use of the ‘phylactery’
in medieval art –see Figure I.2). Moving forward, some con-
sider the publication location and dissemination method to be a
central factor and so consider the first comic to be the first one
sold in newsstands (the first to be sold in this way is The Glasgow
Looking-Glass [1826]). There are a number of contenders for
‘first comic’ and all have their merits based on both formal and
thematic concerns. My aim in Chapter 2 is to proceed via an
examination of the earliest examples of image-driven stories that
Figure I.2 ‘Der Liebeszauber’ by a Lower Rhine Master of the fifteenth

century (c. 1470), bpk/ Museum der bildenden Künste,
Leipzig/Michael Ehritt.
7
Introduction 7
are hidden in the depths of prehistoric caves, through several
thousand years of pictures on walls, on windows, and on paper,
to the modern era, when the comic as we now know it came
into existence. Comics developed gradually out of a range of
existing storytelling practices and techniques and its genesis was
slow and meandering.
Comics is an international form

There is not a society or culture on the planet that has not
developed its own type and style of Comics. Though in some
countries the form is more prevalent than in others, the fact
remains that comics are ubiquitous. This is true both of comics
and of ‘proto-comics’ (a distinction that we will discuss in more
detail in Chapter 2). In the case of Comics, it is not simply
that the West has disseminated the form into other parts of
the world as a sort of cultural colonialism, but that this form
truly has developed internationally; this discussion forms part
of Chapter 3. Of course, it is important to remember that the
advent of the internet and the increased internationalisation of
publishing strategies affect what gets published, how, and where,
an issue that we will develop through this chapter. It follows on
from an Anglophone history in Chapter 2, broadens the geo-
graphic scope of the form to consider in more detail the ways
in which Comics has become an international form. With spe-
cial focus on Manga (Japanese) and Bandes Dessinées (Franco-
Belgian), as well as Italian, Spanish, Indian, and Korean comics,
this chapter will seek to show the different international contexts
in which Comics developed and the current understanding of
the form in other countries. For example, the Japanese Comics
tradition (typically called ‘Manga’) can trace roots back to scrolls
from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In addition, several
key works cemented the artistic practices of Manga as central to
Japanese visual and narrative art, including Toba Ehon, a collection
of drawings from the twelfth century and the sketchbooks of
Hokusai (1760–1849), perhaps more famous as a central figure
in the style known as Ukiyo-e (Pictures of the floating world).
Manga in the modern sense has been in use since 1900, with the
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8 Introduction
launch of Jiji Manga, the Sunday comics page of the popular daily
newspaper Jiji Shimpo. Though Anglophone bookshops often
provide a small offering of international comics in translation,
this is not truly representative since what is not translated remains
inaccessible to many readers. I discuss how translation works in a
visual form, and how it does not. To what extent is comics trans-
lation dependent on readerly understanding of visual signs that
are socially, linguistically, or culturally specific? And what effect
does this have on the comic itself?
Comics is not just about the text

The community that surrounds Comics as a cultural phenom-
enon is huge, with a correspondingly large number of annual
conventions, dedicated collectors, and enthusiastic web fora. The
fan communities exist alongside the form itself; they are some-
thing that has grown up as a parallel movement, influenced by
it, and, in more recent years, exerting a reciprocal effect on it.
These communities can be venues for rich, vibrant discussion but
they can also become toxic. Chapter 4 will discuss the materi-
ality of Comics with a history that is bound up with processes
of production and publication, audience, fandom, and reader-
ship in a way that is unique to it as a form. The wider culture
beyond the material phenomenon itself is part of the develop-
ment of the comic book as ‘artefact’. ‘Nerd’ or ‘Geek culture’,
so called, does not begin and end with the comic book shop but
encapsulates conventions and online fan communities, as well as
fan production of artefacts (including artwork and fan fiction)
and engagement with the creative process itself. Chapter 4 will
outline some of the key issues in the culture of Comics as a
wider phenomenon, what it means for both creator and con-
sumer, and how these issues relate to the study of comics as cul-
tural artefacts. I will also briefly discuss ‘Comicsgate’, a sustained
campaign of online abuse and harassment against female artists,
precipitated by what some perceived as ‘forced diversity’ in main-
stream publications and what this means in terms of fan engage-
ment and perceived ‘ownership’.
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Introduction 9
Comics is for everyone

When Hannah Berry took over as the UK’s Comics Laureate
in 2019, she declared that ‘with the enormous, diverse wealth
of subjects out there, there’s a comic for everybody’ (BBC,
2018: n.p.). Comics span creators and characters from all demo-
graphic groups; small press and web publishing outlets remove
constrictions on form or theme that may disqualify certain
creators from approaching larger publishers. As with all other
forms, Comics publications are targeted at a wide range of
audiences. For example, long- running British comics The
Beano (1938–present) and The Dandy (1937–2013) are primarily
aimed at a young readership, though many continue to read
them long after they leave the ‘target age group’. Conversely,
Neil Gaiman’s multi-award-winning series The Sandman (1989–
present) is aimed at an adult readership and includes many plot
elements that are unsuitable for children. That said, Gaiman is
one of a large group of comics creators who work across several
age ranges. In terms of target readership, Comics is as diverse as
any other form.
Unfortunately, despite a demonstrable diversity of reader-
ship and a large number of nuanced, technically accomplished
texts by female and non-binary creators, some areas of Comics
remain a largely male creative space. There are many long-
running debates regarding the position of female and LGBT+
characters and creators within Comics. One such issue that is
prominent in American comic books is the so-called ‘Women
in Refrigerators’ trope. Named in the title of a website, created
in 1999 by American writer Gail Simone, the term refers to
an event in DC’s Green Lantern #54 (1994). Superhero Kyle
Rayner returns home to find his girlfriend, Alex DeWitt, had
been murdered and her disarticulated body is in the refriger-
ator. The website consists of a list of female characters that have
been raped, tortured, and/or murdered; it consists of 120 names.
Simone’s list clearly demonstrates that the phenomenon of vio-
lence against women is an enduring theme in comics. The list is
prefaced with the following note:
10
10 Introduction
Not every woman in comics has been killed, raped,
depowered, crippled, turned evil, maimed, tortured,
contracted a disease or had other life- derailing tragedies
befall her, but given the following list (originally compiled
by Gail, with later additions and changes), it’s hard to think
up exceptions.
(Simone, 1999: n.p.)
The point is humorously made: women’s value in superhero

comics is found in their position as catalyst for male action, rather
than for anything to do with their own agency. The ‘Women in
Refrigerators’ trope is often dismissed as lazy writing. The death
or suffering of a female character as a catalyst for male characters
devalues both characters. Storylines become expressions of simple
anger and revenge, rather than ones tackling more complex
themes and give a voice to female survivors of violence. Despite
this criticism, the trope is rife in mainstream comics. It funda-
mentally devalues the place of women in Comics; the artistic
milieu that it creates is hostile. Though this particular example
is Amerocentric and not necessarily indicative of the state of the
industry internationally, many noted Comics scholars, including
Hillary Chute and Jane Tolmie, suggest that Comics is inher-
ently androcentric and that this focus alienates women and non-
binary artists. It is certainly true that there is a striking gender
disparity in the demographics of both creators and represented
characters in most types of comics; the exception to this is Manga
(see Chapter 3). The rise of alternative and independent comics,
and especially web comics, has created a space in which female
and LGBT+ creators are able to make and tell the stories that
speak to their experience of the world (see Chapter 2).
Comics can be world changing and life defining

Comics can –and do –change the world. This may be seen as
an exaggeration, but there are two clear examples of comics that
have proved to be tools for change, though we may argue that
neither is positive. In 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten
sparked an international controversy by publishing a series of
11
Introduction 11
images of the Muslim prophet Muhammad and, in January 2015,
the office of the French weekly comic Charlie Hebdo was targeted
by gunmen, provoked by the publisher’s irreverent representa-
tion of Muhammad. Despite these negative examples, it is clear
that Comics can mobilise people in ways that other forms have
failed to do. The history of Comics as a journalistic device is
long and derives from political cartooning. Chapter 5 will discuss
Comics as an established form for socio-political comment, and
for longer journalistic narratives, as well as a conduit for con-
troversy. Focussing on the works of Joe Sacco, Sarah Glidden,
and Guy Delisle, as well as the significant amount of editorial
and political comics that appear daily in print news media and
publications such as The Nib, I discuss the inherent issues with
making socio-political comments in a visual format. I also discuss
Comics as a form for social change that is both very successful
and that has a rich history.
It would be short-sighted to think that Comics speaks truths
only about the world around us; it can do the same for the intricate
worlds within us too. A large number of comics autobiographies
have been published over the past few decades, many of which deal
with trauma, complex life experiences, and medical diagnoses.
These (auto)biographical texts are vehicles for the representation
of intensely personal and individual stories and experiences. Of
course, with any kind of life writing, we face issues of representa-
tion, ‘autobiographical truth’, and narration, and, in some cases,
of total fabrication. In her 2002 work One! Hundred! Demons!,
Lynda Barry uses the term ‘autobiofictionalography’, a port-
manteau term that acknowledges the amalgamation of truth and
fiction that is central to life writing. The study of ‘autographics’
(as they are often rendered) is among the most dynamic of all
areas of Comics Studies. In Chapter 6, I explore this complex
area with reference to the work of Nicola Streeten (2007), Una
(2015), and Nora Krug (2018); I discuss the creation of the visual
‘author avatar’ and suggest several reasons how and why Comics
has become so successful and popular as a form of life writing.
12
1
Definitions and mechanics
What is Comics? What are Comics?

One common problem with a relatively new field of study and
critical inquiry is that it is important to consider critically the
terms used to define it. Issues of form are not yet stable, and it is,
therefore, important to define the terms that are used throughout
this book. The question of definitions and terminologies is one
of the most hotly contested issues in what has come to be called
Comics Studies. What do we call the form? This prompts two
important and related questions: why have certain terms been
used to describe this field of study? And what is the difference
between, for example, comics and graphic novels? The shorthand
answer is that Comics is primarily a visual form that encompasses
a very broad range of genres and styles, for audiences of all ages;
originally short in length, the form has expanded to include
long-form narratives and to appeal to a far wider audience. What
this chapter aims to do is to give a clear overview of the various
terms in common use, their meaning, history, and nuance.
The term ‘Comics’ comes with much cultural and intel-
lectual baggage. ‘Cultural baggage’ is the set of subconscious
assumptions and behaviours that one may hold about a certain
issue or topic, often without being aware; this baggage can affect
the way we view a particular type of media. For Comics, the
assumption that it is a form strictly for children or of ‘low value’
is an example of such baggage. Not only do these beliefs often
necessitate a disclaimer at the outset of discussions, especially
13
Definitions and mechanics 13

academic ones, to show that they are not representative of the
form as a whole, but they are also often used as a way of derailing
debates or discrediting the form. Comics has been an important
part of cultural and literary studies debates since the 1980s and is
now firmly established within contemporary scholarship.
The term comes with a grammatical quirk that requires
explanation. When ‘Comics’ is used in relation to the form itself,
it is a singular noun, as with terms such as ‘Politics’ or ‘Ethics’; in
such cases it is also usually capitalised. We can also use ‘Comics’
in this way when discussing the industry, retail networks, and
associated institutions; it is an abstract noun as we will see in
Chapter 4. Alternatively, when discussing individual texts, we
use ‘comics’ as a plural noun, with a lower-case ‘c’, as in, for
example, ‘a comic’ or ‘some comics’. Here it is a concrete noun,
referring to the ‘actual thing’ that exists materially in the case of
printed comics, or digitally in the case of web comics. To this
extent the very term itself addresses important shifts in the chan-
ging technologies of production.
Key terms
There are a large number of different terms used for the various
types of Comics, and though it may appear that they are syn-
onymous, this is not the case. The term ‘Comics’ is, as I have
explained earlier, an umbrella term for the form as a whole
(see Figure 1.1). We can use it to describe any of the texts that
come under the umbrella of the form itself. Of course, this is
not without issues. Marc Singer suggests that the word is ‘a relic
of the days when the most popular and prominent comics were
humorous newspaper strips’, adding that ‘it may seem particularly
ill suited for the earnest memoirs, hard-hitting reportage, and
deadly serious superhero narratives that most interest academics
today’ (2019: 20). The suggestion that Comics has a homonymic
relationship to ‘comedy’ is an uncomfortable one, even though
it may be linguistically sensible; indeed, the word has not yet
lost the connotations that result from this homonymic relation-
ship. Many scholars have suggested other terms in order to break
away from these connections. For example, in their special issue
14
14 Definitions and mechanics
Figure 1.1
‘Umbrella’ by Rozi Hathaway (2019).
of Modern Fiction Studies, Hillary Chute and Marianne DeKoven

chose to use the term ‘graphic narrative’, although they use it
interchangeably with Comics (2006: 767). Some have suggested
‘graphica’ or ‘graphia’ to highlight the visual element of the form,
while seeking to avoid negative connotations of the term (see
Kuskin, 2008 and Weida, 2011). Many artists working in self-
published Comics in the 1960s and 1970s favour ‘Comix’, with
the ‘x’ as a nod to the adult ‘x-rated’ content of the works them-
selves. In his afterword to a special issue of Critical Inquiry, W.J.T.
Mitchell promotes Art Spiegelman’s ‘co-mix’, which, he claims
‘is an attractive alternative to comics’ (2014: 260). He continues:
[Co-mix] is a hybrid term for the mixture of media and

genre named by comics. And if one looks at the word from
the perspective of comics, one can imagine all the co’s that
15

might go into the mix: coordination, cooptation, coinci-
dence, collision, cooperation, comingling of words and
images, sound and sight. […] Co- mix foregrounds the
comics’ tendency to treat words as visual elements, the
look of letters as graphic signs, trading in an eye for an ear,
as [Marshall] McLuhan put it. It applies to both the gen-
eric and mediatic sides of the question and shows the place
where genres and media become confused, defying any
singular identity confined to their specific history in mass
print media, while simultaneously remembering that history,
keeping it alive in the homonym, the soundpun of comics/
co-mix.
(Mitchell, 2014: 260)
Mitchell’s understanding of the nuances of Comics in relation

to the ‘cos’ underscores the complexity of both the form itself
and the challenge of naming it. His penchant for ‘co-mix’, how-
ever short-lived it may be, is predicated on the word’s ability
to embrace these contradictions and convolutions, to force us
to break with our preexisting understandings of the word and
reframe it in light of the contemporary, developing form. The
unconventional spelling may be the trigger point for this frac-
ture, but the use of the more familiar term ‘Comics’ performs
a similar reframing, especially when paired with works like
Singer’s ‘serious’ texts. It is for this reason that the term retains
its popularity within Comics Studies insofar as it creates a space
that enables scholars to interrogate the ‘thing’ itself. Here, I give
brief definitions of three other key terms, with signposts to more
information in other chapters. There are some definitions that
are not given here –Bandes dessinées, Manga, and Fumetti, for
example –and these can be found in Chapter 3.
Comic strips
What we now think of as a comic strip was largely born in the
pages of large-
circulation newspapers (see Chapter 2). In an
Anglophone context, the first comic strips appeared in the late
nineteenth century, with Richard Outcault’s Hogan’s Alley being
16

credited as the first; Outcault’s most famous creation is ‘The
Yellow Kid’, who appeared in February 1895. The same period
gave birth to The Katzenjammer Kids (1897–2006), created by
Rudolph Dirks, and George Herriman’s Krazy Kat (1913–1944).
Despite their amusing content and often colourful presentation,
newspaper strips were not initially for younger readers. Jared
Gardner writes:
All of these early strips were addressed first and foremost to

adult readers […] From Mutt and Jeff through Gasoline Alley
the assumption was that daily strips were read by adults and
rarely followed regularly by younger readers.
(2015: 246)
Rather than being juvenile, many of these narratives were

‘short stories of modern life that could be rewound, slowed
down, replayed’ (Gardner, 2015: 242). These strips were often
experimental and form-defining, as will be discussed further in
Chapter 2.
A strip is a short, typically horizontal line of connected images
that tell a complete story and, usually, end with a punch line.
This punch line can be funny –in the case of long-running strips
such as Marmaduke (1954–2015) or Li’l Abner (1934–1977) – or
politically charged, as in Doonesbury (1970–present). Though it
may seem at the outset that comic strips are the short story ana-
logue of a graphic novel’s full-length novel, this is not strictly
true. A short story is typically a discrete narrative, and comic
strips can be read in a similar fashion as individual stories but
they are likely to exist as part of a wider series. The strip can
be read in isolation, but will include side references or jokes
that make sense only to those who have read the entire series.
Regular readers will know that Garfield loves lasagne and hates
Mondays (Garfield, Davis, 1967–present); they will laugh when
General Halftrack makes spelling errors in his instructions (Beetle
Bailey, Walker et al., 1950–present). These are examples of long-
running, widely read strips that have been able to build both
their jokes and readership over many years. On occasion, artists
write multi-episode short narratives for the purposes of topical or
17

political satire. One such example is Steve Bell, whose strip If…
has been published in The Guardian since 1981. As I am writing
this, the strip is following the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and
the Conservative government’s action in managing the situation.
In late March 2020, news outlets reported that mountain goats
were roaming freely around the north Wales town of Llandudno.
Bell has framed this ‘goat infestation’ as a caprine takeover of the
government, now called GOAT (Government of All Talents),
with wild-eyed beasts pulling the strings in conversation with
MPs. The jokes are dependent on the reader’s understanding of
both the pandemic and the UK government’s reaction to it; the
series must be read in order, with none missing, in order to make
sense. Speaking in broad terms, the jokes in comic strips, be
they one-offs or part of a running gag, are often reliant on cul-
tural knowledge and social cues that are specific to the individual
strip’s target readership.
The construction of a strip relies heavily on its brevity. To
have a short space in which to make one’s point concentrates
the narrative considerably. However, this is not to say that the
quality of the artwork needs to be sacrificed. Many long-running
strips are skilfully drawn, and artists develop a signature style in
the same manner as those of longer works. As an example, let us
look briefly at the work of Tom Gauld, whose strips are regu-
larly featured in The Guardian, The New Yorker, and New Scientist.
Many of Gauld’s strips are explicitly literary or scientific; they are
aimed at adult readers, using wordplay and a bold, simple visual
style to deliver his punchline effectively. Figure 1.2 is an excellent
example of this coming together of the simple, the witty, and the
brief: the uncluttered frames in bold colour, recognisable visual
style, and joke that pivots on the often-misused word ‘literally’
demonstrate the facets of a strip that make it one of the most
enduring of the different types of comic.
Graphic novels
The second key term ‘graphic novels’, is, of all the terms used in
Comics, perhaps the most contentious. Typically, a graphic novel
is one longer narrative contained within one book or, as the artist
18
Figure 1.2
‘Mindblowing’ by Tom Gauld (2018).
Art Spiegelman has it, ‘long comic books that require a book-
mark’ (Spiegelman, 2011). It can be used to describe a bound
volume that brings together a previously serialised story; these
are usually referred to as trade paperbacks or ‘TPBs’. According
to most histories, the first graphic novel is Will Eisner’s 1978 A
Contract with God. Indeed, this book’s use of the term is often
given credit for its adoption in publishing. However, it was used
on three separate texts in 1976: Richard Corben’s Bloodstar,
George Metzger’s Beyond Time and Again, and Jim Steranko’s
Chandler: Red Tide. Since the late-1970s, the term has been used
to describe a range of texts of various lengths, and in the twenty-
first century, the graphic novel has come into its own as a distinct
subgenre of the Comics form.
It is crucial to note that this term is not a synonym for
Comics: all graphic novels are comics, but not all comics are
graphic novels. Of course, the term itself is tricky. In journalistic
terms ‘Graphic’ can connote a phenomenon that is ‘violent or
sexually explicit’ as much as ‘image-driven’; ‘novel’ refers to a fic-
tional narrative form that has its own complex social and literary
history. A large number of graphic novels are neither violent, nor
19

sexually explicit, and not fictional too. Furthermore, the term
has been derided by scholars and creators alike for being snobbish
and pretentious, used to bestow legitimacy and to create a line
of division between comics that are worthy of study and those
that are not. Neil Gaiman makes this point when he talks about
being told by a reviewer that he wrote graphic novels, not comic
books: ‘[he] felt like someone who’d been informed that she
wasn’t actually a hooker; that in fact she was a lady of the evening’
(Gaiman, in Bender, 1999: 32).
According to Jan Baetens and Hugo Frey’s The Graphic
Novel: An Introduction, graphic novels ‘display genuinely signifi-
cant, although rarely absolute, variation from pre-existing comics
and comix traditions’ (2015: 3); the term exists as more than
just a marketing category. Their definition foregrounds story-
telling, making it distinct from political cartooning or single-
image caricatures, while also being acutely aware of other aspects
such as content and distribution (Baetens and Frey, 2015: 7–8).
Unlike mainstream comics, which, as we will see in Chapter 4,
follow a ‘direct marketing’ distribution model, graphic novels
tend to be published within the traditional bookseller model.
The artist pitches the book to a publishing company, some-
times via an agent, and the publisher offers a deal: typically, the
artist creates the work and the publisher controls the publica-
tion and distribution process. Comics historian Christina Meyer
emphasises that many graphic novels began as serialised stories,
sold in magazine format, or as a supplement to another publi-
cation, as is the case with Posy Simmonds’ ‘updated’ adaptations
of classic novels; this is akin to the serialisation of novels that
was popular in the nineteenth century (Meyer, 2015: 273). This
different way of promoting and publishing graphic novels is likely
to have a large impact on the readership, as well as on matters of
print quality, binding, price point, and marketing of the work,
all of which affect the themes and stories they contain. While
it is clear that the term is not accepted fully, the understanding
of ‘graphic novel’ as more than just a snobbish way of saying an
‘expensive comic book,’ to paraphrase Alan Moore, is becoming
more acceptable (Moore, in Baetens and Frey, 2015: 2). As the
entire form continues to evolve and develop, so too will our
20

understanding of the graphic novel, and it is likely that the def-
inition will be further refined to provide a clearer description of
various examples and the discourses used to analyse them.
Digital and web comics

The third basic term, which addresses advances within the sphere
of information technology, is ‘digital and web comics’. With the
advent of e-readers and screen-centric engagement with popular
culture, Comics is increasingly moving off the printed page
and into new media forms. Digital comics and web comics are
not exactly the same thing. Digital comics refers to any comic
that is disseminated digitally, whether it is via eBook format, a
reading app, social media, or online. The primary focus here
is on what might be called their method of delivery and the
platforms they use. Web comics is a subcategory of this larger
division –comics that are published on websites or social media.
There are a number of advantages that come with digital comics,
including ease of distribution, the ability to make them access-
ible to disabled readers by means of adding adjustable font sizes
or working in tandem with existing accessibility software, for
example, and lower production costs. It is important to remember
that there is a distinct difference between comics that are created
to be disseminated digitally and digitised print comics: Thierry
Groensteen argues that the latter involves a shift in the way the
reader engages with the comic and that reading digital comics
‘entails the loss of a very strong, affectively charged object rela-
tion’ (2013: 65). Digital comics are not physical and therefore the
‘object relation’ (the relationship the reader has to the material
thing) is by definition going to be different. However, this does
not mean that they are not able to create any effect in the reader
(see Glossary). It is often thought that digital, especially online,
media is evanescent and thus has a reduced affect; when we
consider the very real effects of such largely digital phenomena
as online trolling and cyberbullying, which has led to victims
committing suicide, this is proven not to be the case.
Groensteen is being conservative here in his implicit prefer-
ence of print versions over digital. While this is a key issue in the
21

understanding of the material object, Kirchoff and Cook suggest
that Comics is ‘large enough for both print and digital’ (2019: 3).
Many originally digital comics are making the jump into print
form; in many cases the two different forms (print and online) co-
exist and serve different audiences to great effect. While technology
for digital comics is relatively new and rapidly advancing, there is
still a considerably strong market for print forms. They are designed
to address audiences who engage with their reading material in a
different way; the two are not in competition with each other as
much as complementary. Many comics move between print and
digital. American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang began life as a
web comic before it was published as a graphic novel in 2006; it
became the first comic to be nominated for a National Book Award.
In addition, many Comics awards now include categories for digital
comics, including the Ignatz Award’s ‘Outstanding Online Comic’
and the Eisner Award’s ‘Best Digital Comic’.
While print comics exist as material objects that are tangible
and physical, digital comics do not –their publication space
is therefore distinct from their print cousins in that it is not
constrained by paper size, printing technologies, or price. In his
2000 book Reinventing Comics, Scott McCloud proposes that the
computer monitor, or other digital screen, is not a page, but a
window onto an ‘infinite canvas’ (2000: 222–224). Rather than
constraining the comic to pages of a certain size and encouraging
a linear movement through them, the artist could give the reader
the option to zoom in and out of an infinitely large canvas, chan-
ging the way that the reader moves through the narrative. The
way that this type of Comics engages with the technology avail-
able is demonstrative of the innovation and ground-breaking
nature that is now a familiar feature of this form more generally.
Possibly the most important aspect of digital comics, and of
web comics specifically, is that the internet provides an oppor-
tunity for any individual to create and publish their work without
the mediation of an institution such as the publishing industry.
Moreover, they can reinvent and develop their style, using the
flexibility of the platform to experience, change, adapt, and,
potentially, mature. Figure 1.3 shows a comparison of two figures
from Jeph Jacques’ long-running web comic Questionable Content
22
Figure 1.3
‘Faye Cuts to the Chase #4’ (2003) and ‘Sanitary Condition
#3982’ (2019) from Questionable Content by Jeph Jacques.
from 2003 and 2019 respectively. The difference in style comes

not only from Jacques’ development as an artist, but also from
changes in technology that allow for the comic to be created
differently. To a large extent, the digital arena functions to level
the playing field because anyone with an internet connection
can reach the widest possible audience. There are digital comics
on all themes, and in many cases, they become an outlet for
minority groups that do not normally enjoy widespread media
representation. A 2015 article in the Hindustan Times claimed
that the huge surge in popularity in Indian web comics was due
to the fact that ‘most […] are anti-statusquoist and are keen to
speak against unjust social norms’ (Verma, 2015: n.p.). The art-
icle includes a quotation from an ‘avid reader’, who suggests
that ‘web comics have the kind of humour that makes its point
without offending people. It doesn’t keep the public at arms-
length’ (Verma, 2015: n.p.). This has proven to be the case inter-
nationally, and web comics use the ease of distribution that the
internet allows to mobilise the form for all manner of objectives,
from diversionary entertainment, to political activism, to product
advertising. Given the huge advances that are being made in
digital comics technologies, it may be true to say that the bound
23

book is no longer the dominant form. It is the electronic version
of an even earlier form, the scroll, that has taken back control
after a hiatus of a few thousand years.
Cartoons
If comic strips require a certain level of social and cultural
understanding in order to draw out meaning and encourage
readers to ‘get’ the joke, then cartoons probably require even
more. A cartoon, in this sense, is a satirical or humorous image
or, occasionally, a series of images. The word was originally used
for the preparatory drawings for a tapestry, stained glass, or fresco
(these are also called modello). It was first used in a more recognis-
ably modern sense in 1843 in the periodical publication Punch,
when applied to satirical drawings, especially those by John
Leech (Adler and Hill, 2008). Cartoons, specifically political
and editorial cartoons, draw on the traditions of visual political
commentary that began with the circulation of the engravings of
William Hogarth and the sketches of George Townshend. The
form developed into a powerful and popular tool in the hands
of James Gillray in the late eighteenth century. Historian Chris
Upton reminds us that no particular libel laws were in place at
this time and so ‘the prints of Gillray were scatological, brutal,
offensive and witty all in one and no-one, from the King down-
ward, was spared’ (2006: n.p.); he wryly adds that ‘It was ironic
(and only fair) that both the caricaturist and his chief quarry
went mad’. The contemporary political cartoon remains a com-
pelling mode to make a statement; the 2005 publication of twelve
cartoons depicting Muhammad by Jyllands-Posten, a Danish
newspaper, and their re-publication in the French comic maga-
zine Charlie Hebdo with catastrophic consequences for the French
cartoonists, is testament to the power of images as tools for con-
troversy and political comment; I discuss this in more detail in
Chapter 6. Cartoons condense their meaning into a single image
and caption. The artist uses multiple layers of meaning and social
codes to create the images, which are often provocative, being
created quickly, and in such a way to allow easy dissemination via
printed media such as newspapers, or the internet.
24
The mechanical and the technical

The panel and the gutter
The basic unit of the comic is the panel –an image within spe-
cific spatial parameters that conveys one unit of visual thought
or a single concept or idea. Duncan and Smith remind us that
this name stands, ‘irrespective of whether or not there are actual
panel borders’ (2009: 131). In order to produce each panel, the
creator combines the visual and the verbal to represent the spe-
cific moment, thought, or idea in a recognisable way that speaks
to other panels. This corresponds with Spiegelman’s claim that
Comics is closer to poetry than prose because it requires specific,
careful, and complex planning. He calls Comics ‘very condensed
thought structures’ (Spiegelman in Campbell, 2008: 61). The
most common word that we encounter in Comics Studies when
talking about panels is the term ‘fragment’: a panel is a single
visual part of a much larger thing. It cannot exist on its own and
still hold its true purpose. However, while the term ‘fragment’
identifies the single panel, its meaning cannot be isolated; the
true purpose of the panel is to connect with others in a sequence
that contributes to the overall meaning that the strip generates.
The panel by itself is not a comic; it is merely a building block,
just as a single paragraph or chapter is one element in the larger
narrative structure of a novel. A related term in the lexicon of
Comic Studies is ‘gutter’ –the space between the images. It is the
visual interval between panels that, while seemingly empty, is of
central importance to the creation of the essential narrative elem-
ents of the form. Thierry Groensteen writes that ‘the true magic
of comics operates between the images, the tension that binds
them’ (2007: 41). What goes on in the gutter –Scott McCloud
calls it ‘closure’ –is what drives the narrative forward: ‘comics
panels fracture both time and space […] but closure allows us to
connect these moments and mentally construct a continuous,
unified reality’ (1994: 74). Barbara Postema considers panels and
gutters as constituent parts that ‘combine on the comics page to
create a synergy that goes beyond the content of the single panel
and makes something new’; she reminds us that ‘panels need
25

to be considered not just by themselves but in relation to the
other panels’ (2013: 28). The panel is important because of the
relationships that exist within.
We can explain the function of the ‘gutter’ in the following
way: Comics as a form relies on images in sequence for the pro-
duction of meaning. Therefore, there is something that exists
outside that sequence that may be designated as the space that
links the images and brings them together as contributors to the
overall meaning of the sequence. That ‘something’ is the gutter.
The comic works only because the reader is the agent who
makes connections between panels that creates the story. For Paul
Gravett, this is a ‘leap of faith […] driv[ing] the reader onward’; he
adds that closure is ‘a hot-wired impulse in humans to forge some
sort of meaning between one image and the next’ (2013: 30).
The gutter may, as McCloud posits, be tapping into some
innate human impulse to build connections but it is also a space
of co-creation; it is the locus where creator and reader come
together. It is, therefore, much more than blank space. Creators
can mobilise the gutter as a space that exists outside of the main
narrative where alternative readings and clues about the story
can lurk. For example, in her 2012 psychological horror comic
Adamtine, Hannah Berry uses black gutters to heighten the
unease and claustrophobia of her characters’ experiences. In an
interview she described her use of gutters:
One of the rules I set myself is that anything that happens

within the panels is corporeal; anything that happens out-
side the panels is somehow supernatural in nature, because
what happens is that after a while the blackened gutters and
borders start to bleed in, start to interfere in ways with the
panels themselves.
(Fitch, 2017: 231)
The gutters begin to affect the story and it is up to the reader to

decide how much they wish to integrate them into their reading
experience. Figure 1.4 shows a typical layout of a page, with
labels to show the different components.
26
Figure 1.4
This is what a comics page (sometimes) looks like. By Samuel
Williams (2019).
The page
The normal experience of reading involves turning pages, where
the page is a unit of text. But in Comics Studies the page is prob-
lematic to the point where we might ask the question: What
is a page? What does it mean to talk about the page and how
does this work in Comics? When we think about pages, we are
confronted with two distinct categories. On the one hand, the
physical object of a book and the pieces of paper it consists of.
On the other hand, a webpage or other digital space that is view-
able on an electronic device. Let us, for the moment, focus here
on the book as a physical object. As with forms such as erg-
odic literature (see Glossary), where the layout of the page is
of specific importance to the overall work, the Comics page is
27

not simply the space in which the story plays out but is also a
constitutive medium through which the narrative is created and
advanced. Let us look at some examples of how the page can
work, and at the terms used to describe elements of this process.
The full-page layout

‘Full-page layout’ is a clumsy, if descriptive, term for the entirety
of what we can see across a single-or double- page spread.
Thierry Groensteen uses the word ‘hyperframe’ to identify the
full contents of a page, which includes its outer boundary; he
observes that, ‘the notion of the hyperframe applies itself to a
single unit, which is the page’ (2007: 30). The Comics creator is
aware of the appearance of the full spread and how the shape of
panels can contribute to the furthering of the narrative. Typically,
the story will move across the page left-to-r ight, and down the
page in a Z-shaped motion, the action of earlier panels influences
later ones. Sometimes the page becomes a ludic space for the
characters and, as a consequence, the storyline breaks out of the
panels, and the whole story is played out across the whole of the
page. This means that, rather than reading left-to-r ight and top-
to-bottom (in a Z shape), the reader will be forced to read all over
the page, usually following visual guides and arrows to show the
path to follow. A particularly amusing example of this is found
in Pascal Jousselin’s Imbattable series (translated as ‘Invincible’),
shown in Figure 1.5. The hero is a dumpy little character who
uses the form of the comic to save the day, usually by jumping
between panels and tiers in order to get ahead of criminals. He is
aware of the Comics form and can ‘break’ the traditional reading
structure. Jousselin gives us a visual path to follow –we can see
the movement of Imbattable himself from his kitchen in the top
tier to jumping onto the criminal via the movement lines that
connect the panels; similarly, we can follow the passage of the
bullets via the movement lines in the final tier to see how the
criminal is apprehended. The reader must move in atypical ways,
but this is guided by the artist. Not only is Imbattable very much
aware of the Comics form; his power is intimately bound up with
it. His logo is a Comics grid on his jumper; just as Superman
28
Figure 1.5
Imbattable Tome 1: Justice et Légumes Frais (p. 3) by Pascal
Jousselin (2017).
29

has his iconic ‘S’, Imbattable outwardly displays his ‘super power
status’. He knows how to manipulate the form itself so that he
always wins. In following the path he takes to ‘save the day’, the
reader can see different ways to read the comic itself, as well as
how the reading ‘path’ can change the story.
Page turns
The next issue to consider is ‘page turns’. Let us take the example
of a crime comic. The bottom right- hand panel of the page
shows that the crime is about to be committed: perhaps a victim
is cowering in a corner, in sight of their attacker. After turning
the page, the top left-hand panel shows a post-fight scene indi-
cating that the attack is over. The action occurs at exactly the
same moment as the reader turns the page and so they are com-
plicit in the action because they turned the page. This use of the
materiality of the comic and the fact that the reader pushes the
story along as they turn pages is highly effective, not only in crime
comics but also in all kinds of stories. It brings the reader into the
action by making us an active participant, if not fully complicit.
The page turn becomes a constitutive element of the story, not just
a mechanical necessity but a storytelling device in its own right.
Bleeds and splash pages

An eagle-eyed reader may have noticed that both Comics Studies
and the Comics industry tends to borrow terms from other
industries in order to explain physical and thematic aspects of
the form. This is nowhere truer than in the two terms. Both
are used in Graphic Design and printing to discuss the physical
object and the placement of images. In basic terms, a bleed is
an image that is printed to the very edge of the page, with no
border; this is sometimes referred to as a ‘full bleed’. Bleeds can
play various roles within stories, especially as narrative devices
that relate to the representation of time. Scott McCloud writes,
‘time is no longer contained by the familiar lines of the closed
panel, but instead haemorrhages and escapes into timeless space’
(1994: 130). I have argued elsewhere that
30

Bleeds are, by their nature, violent. The image’s domination
of the page is striking and demands the reader’s complete
attention. The absence of frames on the page edges removes
any sense of constriction or confinement –the image has
total control of the page.
(2017: 49)
An example of the mobilisation of the violence of bleeds is Frank

Miller’s comic 300 (1998), which depicts the Second Persian
invasion of Greece; the whole story is depicted in bleeds that
span double pages.
Also, while a splash page is usually a bleed, not all bleeds are
splash pages. Splash pages usually appear at the beginning of a
story and are largely decorative, used to establish a sense of loca-
tion or temporal setting. They may also be used to show off the
artistic skill of the creators. Duncan and Smith point out that ‘a
splash page seldom depicts the climax of a story’ and that they are
more often ‘a pin-up of the hero leaping into action’ (2009: 139).
The balloon and the bubble
Comics is primarily an image-driven form, but this is not to
say that words do not feature or, indeed, matter. Having said
that, the ways in which words are presented, as well as what is
presented, are important. One of the most recognisable aspects
of the comic that has almost become a visual synecdoche for
Comics as a whole is the balloon (also known as the ‘bubble’).
The bubble is typically presented as a rounded, white space on
the page, in which speech or thought is written (see Figure 1.4).
Catherine Khordoc observes that ‘the balloon is at once what
separates and what brings together text and image’, calling it an
‘effective method of creating “sound” effects in a textual medium’
(2001: 157). The balloon, whether it contains speech or thought,
gives the reader information in two ways: by its physical presence
and by the words that the balloon contains. By its presence we
already know that the characters are communicating to us some-
thing we need to know; the directional pointer of the balloon
shows us which character to look to specifically. Furthermore,
the outline can give a hint to its content. A smooth-lined balloon
31

is typical for ordered speech at a normal volume; a jagged balloon
can denote screaming or that the sound is coming from an elec-
tronic source; a broken line can denote whispers; a balloon with
curled edges followed by a series of descending small circles
indicates the ‘silent speech’ or the thought of the character to
whom the balloon is pointing. In these ways the reader is given
a solid understanding of the contents of the bubble before they
read the words it contains. Typically, we expect the contents to
be words but this is not always the case. If a character is swearing,
the balloon may include grawlixes (typographical symbols used
to replace swearing, such as ‘!!?#@&!?$!’). An ellipsis may denote
a pointed silence or a moment of confusion. Most unusually,
artists like Jason use pictures within their balloons; a character
asking for a cup of coffee may utter an image of a coffee cup, as
in Jason’s Sshhhh! (2002). Even if we do find that bubbles contain
words, an artist may choose to use different fonts or diacritics,
typographical markings such as accents that denote a change in
the pronunciation of a letter, to represent different tones, accents,
or even languages. In the Astérix series by Uderzo and Goscinny,
characters are represented with different fonts and diacritics to
show that they are speaking different languages, a technique that
is used to great comic effect: in one example, a particular joke
involves a Viking dog, which barks in Nordic (‘wøøf ’!).
Though we may think of the balloon as being ubiquitous
within the form, historically speaking this has not always been the
case. In early examples, words were confined to labels positioned
beneath the panels. For Thierry Smolderen, ‘[the label] evoked
the self-presentational written banners of the frozen tableau vivant.
It was in its nature to be embedded in static coded pictures cut [off]
from the physical world’ (qtd in Gravett, 2013: 26). Such was the
resistance to the integration of bubbles, especially in Europe, that
American imports such as The Katzenjammer Kids, Felix the Cat,
and Mickey Mouse would have ‘their speech balloons [removed]
and replaced by commentary below, sometimes in rhyme’
(Gravett, 2013: 26). However, this is no longer the case, and the
balloon is internationally used, recognised, and understood.
In his guide to writing and drawing comics, Will Eisner calls
the balloon a ‘desperation device [which] attempts to capture
32

and make visible an ethereal element: sound’ (2008a: 24). This
statement may make more sense to those familiar with Eisner’s
work since in many of his comics, speech is an integral part of
the image, artistically woven into the fabric of the panel and not
placed within a balloon. Regardless of Eisner’s view, the balloon
performs a vital function within the comics’ narrative, clearly
defining and representing the various levels of the panel and the
image in a way that is instantly recognisable. A balloon is the
Comics version of the mousetrap: build a new one if you can but
the old one continues to be the most effective way of capturing
speech.
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2
Histories
The earliest forms of storytelling deployed visual images rather

than words. Before ‘writing’, there were pictograms and diagrams
that told bold stories in order to communicate cultural and social
truths. Arguably the oldest example of drawing can be found in
the Blombos Cave, located in South Africa, which dates from
around 73,000 BCE , though we cannot say for certain whether
these drawings were narrative in intention or purely decorative.
What we can be certain of is that they were representational
(Nelson, 2015: 8). Even so, there are clear examples of the use
of pictures to tell stories that pre-date other narrative forms,
including cave art found on all continents, tomb paintings, and
petroglyphs. The foundations of writing systems developed
alongside a rich pictorial history which can be traced back over
thousands of years to simple pictograms. These can be found in
every culture across the globe and they have developed into the
myriad systems we now use (Robinson, 1995). Without exag-
geration we can say that, as soon as humans could make marks on
surfaces, stories were being told and visually represented.
Human beings formulate their experiences through stories,
producing narratives that enable them to explain and understand
the social and historical contexts in which they live. It is a central
part of how we understand and develop both our own identities
and our relationships with others. According to Jerome Bruner,
‘that which we call the world is a product of some mind whose
symbolic procedures construct [it]’ (1985: 95). The ‘symbolic
procedures’ that form the basis of this construction are socially
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34 Histories
Figure 2.1
Close-up of the marble relief on Trajan’s Column by Allison
Kidd and the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World.
License: CC BY 2.0 (2011).
and culturally determined but the act of storytelling itself remains

constant. Similarly, telling stories with images is universal and
can be recognised across cultures. Trajan’s Column in Rome is
a good example (see Figure 2.1). Completed in 113 C E , at first
glance the 30-metre tall marble column, topped with a statue
of St Peter, may not appear to be in any way related to Comics.
However, the column features a 190-metre spiralling frieze that
tells the story of the Roman-Dacian Wars (101–102 C E and
105–106 C E ). It is an impressive monument that tells the story
of military prowess, and, as a symbol of the strength of Rome,
it is powerful. It demands no deep understanding of Latin and
the story it tells cuts across the many territories of the Roman
Empire and its trading partners (Darville, 2008: 224). To take
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Histories 35
another example, we can look at the Bayeux Tapestry, a 70-metre
long embroidered cloth that depicts the events of the Norman
Conquest, culminating in the 1066 Battle of Hastings and the
death of King Harold I. George Wingfield Digby writes that, ‘It
was designed to tell a story to a largely non-literate public; it is
like a strip cartoon, racy, emphatic, colourful, with a good deal
of blood and thunder and some ribaldry’ (1957: 37). It is most
certainly racy –there are, according to Prof George Garnett of
the University of Oxford, 93 visible penises (2018: n.p.). As with
Trajan’s Column, the tapestry is a statement of military success
and political machination, as well as a public statement designed
to glorify and celebrate the victor. The narrative pictorialises
particular episodes in a ‘history’ of significant events, choosing
what we remember, while excluding other parts of the story.
Monuments of this kind fulfil a memorial function in that they
reflect the achievements, military and otherwise, of particular
cultures. We might connect this process of representation with
something like Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem ‘Ozymandias’ that
celebrates a ‘fragment’ of a monument and uses the remains to
moralise on the futility of power. The poem takes the remains of
a monument and makes a story out of it.
A third example plays on the fondness for gore and titilla-
tion that one may associate with tabloid newspapers but can be
traced throughout the history of narrative works from Ancient
Greek theatre, through Chaucer, to Shakespeare, and beyond.
Religious murals depicting the afterlife can be seen in places of
worship, especially churches, and many of them depict terrifying
visions of hell. One particularly grisly example is Giovanni di
Pietro Falloppi’s doom painting on the wall of the Basilica di
San Petronio in Bologna. A blue Satan dominates the image,
his two mouths chewing on sinners, while others around him
are tortured and maimed by demons. This representation of
hell evokes Dante and the torments of the sinners in the frozen
river Cocytus (see Dante, Inferno, cantos 32–34). To a largely
non-literate church-going populace, who were accustomed to
the image of hellfire and eternal damnation as deterrents from
earthly sin, paintings such as this one would be powerful and
dissuasive visualisations of things to come. Though this example
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36 Histories
differs in both theme and intention from my earlier two, it is still
partisan storytelling represented in the form of visual images.
Of course, the problem with these three examples is their dis-
tinct lack of physical portability (cf. Sabin 1996). These are single
items to which the viewer must travel, and they are designed
to make statements in particular static locations. This is not to
suggest that their stasis makes these artefacts less important, but
that their use as tools of communication is limited to specific
geographic locations.
The early history of written storytelling and of Comics’ visual
predecessors are, in many respects, similar, and their concerns
overlap: the storyteller finds a way to inscribe the story on a cave
wall, stone, papyrus, vellum, or paper in ways that are under-
standable initially through image and drawing. But, as writing
systems developed, cultures gradually broke away from simple
pictorial representation. As a result, although visual images did
not become obsolete, their relationship to storytelling gradually
began to change with written verbal narratives becoming dom-
inant. The now-ubiquitous novel is generally accepted to have
begun in English with Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe in 1719
(see Watt, 2001). However, there are a number of Elizabethan
‘novels’ (including Nashe’s Pierce Penniless, His Supplication to
the Divell, published in 1592) and a long tradition of ‘chronicle
history’ that goes back to Latin models, beginning with books
such as Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (c. 731).
The point here is that narratives sometimes do not take expli-
citly the fictional form, though they may contain elements of
what we would call fiction. Print technologies were changing
the way that texts worked and were disseminated. At the same
time, adult literacy rates grew rapidly throughout the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, in the wake of the growth of interest
in education reforms for the working classes, though formal edu-
cation was sporadic, and remained so in Britain until the 1944
Education Act.
Developments in printing, literacy, and the availability
of material made this shift in literacy possible. And as these
developments happened, visual culture in all of its manifestations
proceeded alongside a developing print culture. Though image
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Histories 37
narratives do require the viewer to have a specific level of literacy,
it is not the same as written literacy and can be taught and trans-
mitted without ‘formal’ education; image narratives are there-
fore able to transcend educational and language barriers within
a society or cultural group. Often, their inclusion was aimed at
providing information and narrative decoration for the masses.
Visual images decorate the walls and windows of churches and
temples; they also represent elements of a Christian narrative
played out on the walls of tombs and palaces; indeed, our art
galleries are full of examples of large tableaux that tell particular
stories. This does not, of course, mean that they are Comics;
indeed, there are many aspects of the Comics form that are
missing from this kind of art. The following section will intro-
duce three examples of what I have called ‘proto-comics’. These
are not strictly comics in the modern sense of the term but they
reveal techniques and aspects that are clearly recognisable and
which have developed into the form we know today. The focus
in this chapter is on Anglophone works but Chapter 3 will dis-
cuss international histories.
Proto-comics
Eighteenth-century Europe was a world in flux. Populations were
becoming more diverse due to immigration and more informed
due to early attempts at educational reform, while tensions
between countries developed into geopolitical struggles. Toward
the end of the century, the French Revolution and its immediate
aftermath affected all of Europe, bringing to the fore deep-rooted
and widespread social turmoil. This was a fertile environment for
political comment; the public’s taste for politically charged prose
essays, printed in pamphlets or newspapers, extended well into
the realm of visual representation. Political cartooning blossomed
as a popular medium, with images often appearing alongside
prose narratives, and there was also a rise in the use of humorous
art to lampoon public figures (especially politicians), to make
comment, and to pass judgment on topical issues.
Probably the most important figure who produced these early
graphic narratives was William Hogarth (1697–1764). Born to a
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38 Histories
middle-class London family, he became an apprentice engraver
at a young age. He was fond of sketching the people he saw
in the streets of London and developed a keen eye for creating
bustling, metropolitan scenes with a sharp satirical edge. It has
been suggested that his father’s imprisonment for unpaid debts,
following a rather unusual business venture in which he opened
a Latin-speaking coffee house, informed the young Hogarth’s
views (Paulson, 1991: 26). Later in life, he became a successful
engraver and artist in his own right and developed a significant
following. The writer and social commentator Charles Lamb
wrote of Hogarth’s images that they were, in fact, books that
‘[teemed with] fruitful, suggestive meaning of words. Other
pictures we look at; his pictures we read’ (1811: 82). For Hogarth,
art was an effective way of transmitting moral education. He did
not aim for pictorial realism, but opted instead to use carica-
ture that involved the grotesque exaggeration of features. This
allowed him to use bawdy, often obscene, imagery to attract the
attention of his viewers while also making bold statements about
human behaviour and its social and cultural repercussions.
There were five sequences of ‘moral works’, to use their
general collective name, the first of which Hogarth completed
in 1731. ‘A Harlot’s Progress’ is a six-scene series of paintings
(published as engravings in 1732) that tells the story of the ill-
fated Moll Hackabout. When we first meet Moll, she is portrayed
talking with a brothel madam, who is seeking to lure her into
sex work. Throughout the central scenes, Moll goes from being
a kept woman and wife of a wealthy merchant to a poverty-
stricken sex worker, imprisoned in Bridewell Prison, before she
finally contracts Syphilis and dies. The narrative is unashamedly
grim in its revelation of the established moral corruption that
contributes to Moll’s ultimate downfall. Thierry Smolderen
describes the engravings as highly charged documents that reveal
large amounts of information about the mores, customs, ethics,
and politics of eighteenth-century England (2014: 3–23). The
series was a roaring success and, in 1735, a ‘sequel’, ‘A Rake’s
Progress’, appeared. In the eight scenes of this work we see
the life of Tom Rakewell, who squanders his inheritance on
luxury, gambling, and orgies, before dying alone and insane in
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Histories 39
the infamous Royal Bethlem Hospital (more famously known as
Bedlam). Neither sequence is subtle in the clear moral message it
seeks to communicate: degenerate living will lead to a tragic end.
As Inge suggests, these images are not to be casually glanced
at but ‘require full attention […] there are no narrative guides
and no spoken words, so the story is implied entirely in the
visuals’ (2017: 10). They establish a clear story told in pictures
but lack the combination of word and image that we would now
consider necessary to classify them as Comics. Nevertheless, as
Inge argues, ‘what is indisputable […] is the powerful influence
Hogarth had on all efforts to tell stories through pictures in all
visual narrative to come, including comics’ (2017: 11). Hogarth’s
contemporaries and artistic successors exerted far-reaching influ-
ence across Europe and North America. Later in this book, I will
discuss the first North American cartoon, attributed to Benjamin
Franklin, but before that we need to examine the contributions
of a number of other artists whose impact is also important; they
include James Gillray (1756–1815), Thomas Rowlandson (1756–
1827), and Thomas Nast (1840–1902), to name but three. The
most important and influential of the day’s cartoons would be
disseminated internationally as well as reproduced in political
pamphlets.
Of course, Hogarth’s work had a didactic function as well as a
political one, since much of it aimed to teach moral lessons des-
pite the fact that it was directed at a predominantly adult read-
ership. Nevertheless, his works are funny and eye-catching, with
much about them that entertains. They lay the groundwork for
those who began to develop the ‘modern comic’ but if we were
to appoint a ‘father of the comic strip’, the obvious forerunner
would be Rodolphe Töpffer (1799–1846), a Swiss schoolteacher
whose self-published short comic strips were the products of his
own imagination, though he seems to have had models among
older progenitors of the Comics form. Töpffer did not create his
strips for publication but to entertain his friends and students,
and he found an unlikely champion in the person of the German
writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Although Goethe was
well-known for his dislike of satirical caricature, he was effusive
in his praise for Töpffer’s Adventures of Doctor Festus:
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40 Histories
[Töpffer] really sparkles with talent and wit; much of it is
quite perfect; it shows just how much the artist could yet
achieve, if he dealt with modern [or less frivolous] material
and went to work with less haste, and more reflection. If
Töpffer did not have such an insignificant text [i.e., story-
line] before him, he would invent things which could sur-
pass all our expectations.
(Qtd in Soret, 1929: 489)
It was with the encouragement and enthusiastic patronage of

his unusual admirer that, in 1833, Töpffer began to publish. In
time, seven stories were published in newspapers across Europe
and North America. The first, written in 1831, is Histoire de
M. Jabot, the story of a dandy who tries to enter upper-class
society (see Figure 2.2). David Kunzle writes that ‘Jabot the
social upstart was a safe, broadly recognisable satirical target, a
familiar stereotype of Restoration satire’ and goes on to call the
figure a ‘little buffoon rising from below’ (2007: 59). In M. Jabot,
as in all Töpffer’s works, we can see the beginnings of panels and
captions, although it contains no speech and thought bubbles,
that might confirm its status as a comic and mark a shift in the
development of the form from Hogarth’s wordless scenes.
Figure 2.2
‘Histoire de Monsieur Jabot’ by Rodolphe Töpffer (1833).
41
Histories 41
Töpffer’s influence stretched far beyond his native Switzerland
with the 1842 publication of Histoire de M. Vieux Bois in the US,
under the title of The Adventures of Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck. The
publication came in the form of a supplement to the New York
newspaper Brother Jonathan and, according to Robert Beerbohm,
is the first comic book published in the US (Gabillet, 2010: 32).
Inge points out that ‘this holds true, of course, only if we con-
sider Obadiah Oldbuck indeed a comic book’ (2017: 11). This
was a popular book, and Paul Gravett recounts the story of a
copy being found among the belongings of Lewis Carroll after
his death that provides confirmation for the reference in Alice
in Wonderland to Alice’s love for comics in the form that we
recognise:
In the opening paragraph [of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland]

a listless Alice famously grumbled, ‘where is the use of a book
without pictures or conversations?’ She would probably have
loved reading comics, curiosities filled with imagery and
often abuzz with noisy speech balloons.
(2007: 621)
This reference to Obadiah Oldbuck, embedded in a work of

popular children’s literature, is a testament to the far-reaching
impact of Töpffer’s work.
There is one final early comic worthy of mention in relation
to the issue of ‘firsts’: The Glasgow Looking-Glass (11 June 1825 –
3 April 1826). The Glasgow Looking-Glass was probably the first
mass-produced magazine to tell stories using images and, as such,
may be regarded as the earliest comic. It was the brainchild of
English artist William Heath, who had fled to Glasgow to avoid
his creditors, and lithographer John Watson; Laurence Grove
makes the amusing point that the idea was probably conceived
in ‘one of the city’s drinking dens’ (2016: n.p.). After five issues,
the title was changed to The Northern Looking-Glass, to ‘reflect
a more national coverage of events in Scotland’ (University of
Glasgow Library, 2005: n.p.). The focus of these issues remained
on life in Glasgow, albeit in a satirised and distorted way. Heath
not only commented on politics and leading news events, but
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42 Histories
also poked fun at fashion, leisure pursuits, and people at all strata
of society. A common vehicle for humour (and horror!) was
medical education, with a large number of comics and cartoons
featuring medical students doing morally dubious and agonising
things to their patients. This is unsurprising, given that many of
Heath’s readers were educated people and Scotland was home to
several medical schools of renown.
The magazine ran for only nineteen issues, a tenure that was
not uncommon for such publications at the time; indeed, very
few of these publications lasted for longer than three years, with
the notable exception being the periodical magazine Punch,
which ran from 1841 until its eventual closure in 2002. But, des-
pite the brevity of its ten-month existence, The Glasgow Looking-
Glass made some ground-breaking and form-defining additions
to the contemporaneous comic. The first known strip, ‘History
of a Coat’, ran for several instalments as the coat was passed from
owner to owner in each issue. Unlike other contenders for the
title of ‘first’, The Glasgow Looking-Glass contains some recognis-
ably ‘Comics’ features: speech bubbles are used in conversations
in a way that modern readers will immediately recognise, and
some stories end with ‘To be continued’, imitating the serialised
publication of novels. It stands as one of the earliest –if not the
earliest –works of its type and a landmark text in the history of
Comics.
We can see how Comics are beginning to take the shape that
we recognise through the works we have discussed so far. The
salient elements are: stories told in panels, serialisation, the use
of captions, and the emergence of a clear narrative flow. The
following section takes us closer to the form with which we are
familiar and discusses newspaper comics and the eventual rise of
the ‘mainstream’.
The newsstand boom and the mainstream

Comics became a regular fixture in newspapers in the late nine-
teenth century. Inspired by Töpffer, emerging artists in Europe
and North America began to experiment and develop their
own versions of Töpffer’s strips. In 1865, German author and
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Histories 43
caricaturist Wilhelm Busch created Max und Moritz, about two
troublesome boys. The book consisted of seven moral tales,
similar to German children’s stories such as Heinrich Hoffmann’s
Struwwelpeter (1845). The final part of the book shows the boys
being thrown into a sack of grain, ground down in the mill, and
eaten by geese. The gruesome and extreme nature of the stories
was designed to make the moral points bolder and more memor-
able, although this may be debated by some. Busch’s stories were
an obvious influence for the types of comics that were to come,
and especially those which began to appear in newspapers in the
1890s. It is important to note that, while the works of writers
such as Busch and Hoffmann may have been aimed at younger
readers, the majority of newspaper strips that drew inspiration
from them were not (see Lefèvre, 2017: 22; Gardner, 2012: 2).
Though their protagonists were young people, the themes and
execution were not always appropriate for children.
For those living in the nascent US of the 1890s, it is likely that
newspaper choice was in some way influenced by the comics
that it printed. Printing technologies were developing quickly
to allow for more complex prints to be made faster and more
cheaply; colour printing had not previously been as widespread
and was certainly not to be wasted but its use became more and
more prevalent until a full-colour, full-page Sunday comic was
the norm. Moreover, these comics were big: they received a full
page on Sundays, and daily strips tended to fill the width of the
page. The artwork was often detailed and aesthetically pleasing,
created entirely by hand. One of the most popular newspaper
offerings of the day was Richard F. Outcault’s Hogan’s Alley,
a series set in a New York City slum, populated by eccentric
characters and urchins. The central character of the strip was
Mickey Dugan, better known as ‘The Yellow Kid’. Mickey was
depicted as a bald, barefoot, buck-toothed little boy in a hand-
me-down yellow nightshirt; his words often appeared on the
nightshirt instead of in bubbles. Outcault provided the following
context for Mickey:
The Yellow Kid was not an individual but a type. When

I used to go about the slums on newspaper assignments,
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44 Histories
I would encounter him often, wandering out of doorways
or sitting down on dirty doorsteps. I always loved the Kid.
He had a sweet character and a sunny disposition and was
generous to a fault. Malice, envy or selfishness were not traits
of his, and he never lost his temper.
(Outcault, qtd in Blackbeard, 1995: 135)
Mickey’s popularity extended beyond his slum existence and he

became a heart-warming, cute character. Indeed, Sabine Doran
notes the importance of the Yellow Kid (as the strip was renamed)
in the newspaper battles of fin de siècle New York City:
In the battle between [Joseph] Pulitzer and the upstart

[William] Hearst, the migration of The Yellow Kid to Hearst’s
daily New York Press in 1897 (seen as a real coup at the
time) gave rise to the term ‘yellow kid journalism’ which
evolved into ‘yellow journalism’ [a name for sensationalist
and often poorly-researched reporting, as found in Hearst’s
publication].
(2013: 11)
Comic strips moved between publications as artists were

headhunted, often with much more generous terms of employ-
ment; if publishers knew that a certain strip was likely to bring
in many new readers, they would pay handsomely to secure the
rights to it. It is difficult to suggest a modern comparison to this
migration but a close comparison, in terms of magnitude and
revenue, might be Disney’s acquisition of the Star Wars franchise
in 2012 (BBC, 2012: n.p.). The comparison demonstrates the
importance of comic strips to newspaper readership at the time.
The Yellow Kid was not the only popular story of this period. The
Katzenjammer Kids, created by Rudolph Dirks in 1897, ran in the
Sunday supplement of Hearst’s New York Journal and remained in
print until 2006, making it the longest-running comic strip of all
time (109 years). Dirks’ strip was, like Outcault’s, involved in the
Hearst-Pulitzer rivalry. When Dirks wanted to leave the Journal in
1912, he was officially denied a release from his contract but left
anyway, leading to a long and convoluted legal battle involving
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Histories 45
the strip’s new artist, Harold Knerr. Dirks went on to create
an almost identical strip, The Captain and the Kids, for Pulitzer.
Comic strips were developing as an integral part of newspapers at
the same time that newspapers were emerging as commercial and
competitive enterprises. Strips were often important in driving
sales and increasing readership, which in turn played into adver-
tising revenue and the financial continuation of the publication.
As such, these strips were directly aimed at adults who comprised
the newspapers’ main readership. Comics as primarily a children’s
form (in an American context) developed later, as I discuss in
due course.
All newspapers saw the financial advantage that came with
a popular strip. In 1913, the New York Evening Journal, another
Hearst publication, launched Krazy Kat. This strip used sur-
real, often bizarre, humour and featured Krazy, a simple-minded
cat who was madly in love with Ignatz, a mouse. Ignatz repays
Krazy’s adoration by flinging bricks at their head (I say ‘their’
because Krazy is never definitively male or female). The love tri-
angle is complete with the arrival of Officer Pupp, who is in love
with Krazy (Figure 2.3). The art of Krazy Kat may be simple and
the humour largely slapstick but the strip developed a dedicated
following. Despite being drawn for a more general audience,
as evinced by the slapstick humour, the off- beat stories and
quirky presentation led to a large number of ‘intellectual’ fans,
including the poet e.e. cummings and the art theorist Gilbert
Seldes. Though this strip was popular, it did not have the same
popularity as others that appeared at the same time. However, it
is regularly cited as an influence by modern cartoonists and both
the visual and verbal wit and creativity have served to establish it
as a germinal artistic production from this period.
In the UK at this time, comics served a different purpose and
readership. Chris Murray writes that ‘with a rapidly increasing
market for mass publication in the late nineteenth century, the
scene was set for a dramatic expansion of genre publishing’
(2017: 45). Satirical magazines remained popular and Ally Sloper,
one of the earliest recurring characters in comics, appeared in
Judy in 1867. Sloper was the creation of Charles Henry Ross
and his wife, the pseudonymous Marie Duval, and it has been
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46 Histories
Figure 2.3
Excerpt from ‘Krazy Kat’ by George Herriman (1922).
suggested that he was among the inspirations for Charlie Chaplin’s

‘little tramp’ (Sabin, 1993). The character was lazy and work-
shy, with a large fan following in both the working class and the
middle class with the result that a stand-alone publication was
launched in 1884, Ally Sloper’s Half-Holiday. Although Ally Sloper
was a very popular character, the publication did not sell as well
as expected. However, what did sell in huge numbers was the
‘penny dreadful’. Cheaply printed on low-quality paper, and fea-
turing lurid stories of horror and crime, the penny dreadful has
been hailed as being among the first examples of a popular form
aimed directly at young people (Springhall, 1999). As one might
expect, these publications faced many of the same criticisms as all
media aimed at young people, and they were the root of many
outbursts of moral panic, suggesting that the violent stories they
contained would result in murder and depravity (Anglo, 1977).
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Histories 47
Their popularity was challenged in 1890, with the launch of half-
penny periodicals by Alfred Harmsworth and, more importantly,
by the birth of Comic Cuts and Illustrated Chips. Despite being con-
siderably less sensational, these publications became popular very
quickly, and according to Murray, ‘[lead] to Harmsworth setting
up Amalgamated Press in 1901’ (2017: 45). As in the case of many
American publishing houses in the 1930s and 1940s, AP had a
‘house style’; similar to the works of Töpffer, and images were
accompanied by text positioned underneath. Murray describes
this as ‘a style that defined British comics for decades’ (2017: 45).
On both sides of the Atlantic, comic strips in newspapers
remained popular, despite the increasing importance of adver-
tising revenue, which diminished the space available for comics
within the papers themselves. It was a logical progression for
publishers to move the strips from within the papers to separate
publications, which additionally offered opportunities for adver-
tising revenue of their own. In the US, this happened in 1933,
with the publication of Famous Funnies, a collection of reprinted
strips that had previously featured in newspapers. Although
comic books in the form of a bound magazine are sometimes
thought to be an American invention, this is simply not true.
By 1933, comics were being published in bound form across the
world, as we will see in Chapter 3; and although the US was not
the first country where comics appeared as separate publications,
it certainly did become one of the most influential, in part due to
the fact that printing technologies were more advanced, meaning
that comics could be produced cheaper, faster, and to a higher
quality. These new ‘comic books’ quickly outstripped the popu-
larity of their newspaper equivalents and publishers continually
required new material in order to satisfy the appetites of the
readers: Ron Goulart calls this ‘the cornerstone for one of the
most lucrative branches of magazine publishing’ (2007: 163). The
success of Famous Funnies led to the creation of more publishers
for these new stand-alone comics. Moving comics out of the
newspapers led to an increase in younger readers, who were not
typically buying daily newspapers in large numbers but did begin
to buy comic books. Rather than reading the funny pages of
their parents’ choice of newspaper, younger readers were free to
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48 Histories
choose their own reading material and pick their favourite strips
and characters.
It was at this point that the first superheroes appeared on
American newsstands, starting with Superman in Action Comics #1
in 1938. The world was on the cusp of the Second World War;
the appearance of superheroes was not a coincidence. There is
a good deal of politics and nationalism bound up in these early
comic characters. Superman has the dubious distinction of being
both a nationalist figure and an immigrant since he was both
an American and an alien from the Planet Krypton, who was
created by two first-generation Jewish immigrants to the US.
When Captain America first appeared in 1941, immediately
before the entry of the US into the Second World War, he was
punching Hitler squarely on the jaw. Captain America’s creator,
Joe Simon, asserted that the character was a ‘consciously polit-
ical creation as [Jack Kirby and I] felt war was inevitable: The
opponents to the war were all quite well organized. We wanted
to have our say too’ (Kirby, qtd in Wright, 2003: 26). The super-
hero was a very popular figure during the war years, and being
able to manipulate the events of the war in favour of a US victory
made for compelling storylines, and the mixture of patriotism
and nationalism that the characters displayed worked well as a
boost to national morale. The comics were aimed at younger
readers initially, and their readership grew with their popularity;
indeed, at their height, some comics series were selling a million
copies per issue. Such publications, often collectively referred to
as ‘the mainstream’, were produced by teams of artists, working
to strict time and creative constraints. There was very little room
for artistic freedom, and for the few publishers of this era that are
still operating (notably Marvel and DC), these constraints remain
and the publishers employ a consistent ‘house style’.
Of course, the ‘mainstream’ was not confined to superheroes
but spanned the whole spectrum of genres. Newsstands groaned
under the weight of every kind of comic book, from romance
and ‘girl’s comics’ to superheroes, to horror and crime. Fingeroth
writes, ‘by the early 1950s, the superhero comics fad was pretty
much dead [in the US]. DC Comics published Superman,
Batman and Wonder Woman, but that was all. The genre that
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Histories 49
sold in huge numbers was horror’ (2008: 14). However, some-
thing was on the horizon that would put superheroes back into
the spotlight. Although the popularity of comics, especially
with younger readers, increased, they were less popular with
those who believed that children were being corrupted by their
reading material. In many ways, the same arguments that are lev-
elled against television and video games today were in use against
Comics in the 1940s and 1950s. In 1954, psychiatrist Fredric
Wertham published Seduction of the Innocent, whose influence
is still felt in the Comics world today. According to Wertham,
comic books were one of the main causes of juvenile delin-
quency. There is no evidence that children who read comics are
at risk of any ill effect whatsoever and Wertham does not pro-
vide examples of children suffering from the effects of reading
comics. Although we would now dismiss these arguments, by
1950s standards they were persuasive, and the objections of
Wertham and his supporters led to the 1953 United States Senate
Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency; the result of the subcom-
mittee was self-regulation within the industry in the shape of
the 1954 Comic Magazine Association of America (CMAA) and
the Comics Code Authority (CCA), and newsstands were only
allowed to stock comics that bore the distinctive CCA stamp.
The regulations that the CCA championed effectively put an end
to horror publications, leading to a renaissance of superheroes. It
is important to note that the CCA was not necessarily compul-
sory but its far-reaching influence led to negative results for those
who dared to defy it. It was officially retired in 2011, by which
time only a few publishers were still following its guidelines and
the CCA itself had very little power over the publication and dis-
tribution of comics.
The UK market comprised a narrower range of themes and
target audiences, with the majority of titles aimed at young
readers. Adventure comics were popular, as were publications such
as The Dandy (launched 1937) and The Beano (launched 1938),
both published by Dundee-based DC Thomson. These comics
differed from earlier offerings, especially those by Amalgamated
Press, in their style and characters. Rather than keeping the text
separate from the image, both comics used bubbles and captions
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50 Histories
in the same way as American mainstream publications and most
modern comics. The majority of the characters were working
class, living in situations that would be recognisable to the reader-
ship; the exceptions to this are characters such as Lord Snooty and
his Pals (featured in The Beano), who typify a very British stereo-
type of the upper classes. Despite the class differences between
Lord Snooty and the working-class characters such as the Bash
Street Kids (The Beano), they are all children, attending school
and engaging in typical childhood behaviours and activities.
This stood in stark contrast to the majority of American comics,
which featured adult characters. Most superhero characters
were adults, and teenage characters did not become common
in the American mainstream until the creation of Spiderman in
1962; though some story arcs did show ‘origin’ narratives of a
character’s childhood, this was not common.
In the 1950s, American crime and horror comics were
introduced to the UK and, as had already happened in the US,
this caused a moral panic. Not only were American comics being
sold, but British publishers were also creating their own versions
of famous titles such as Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of
Horror. In November 1954, a reporter for The Times wrote: ‘The
problem which now faces society in the trade that has sprung up
of presenting sadism, crime, lust, physical monstrosity, and horror
to the young is an urgent and a grave one’ (qtd in Springhall,
1999: 142). The subsequent campaign against the sale of these
comics was headed by Geoffrey Fisher, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, and in 1955, the Parliament passed the Children and
Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act. Though nowhere
near as restrictive as the guidelines of the CCA, this act severely
limited the types of comics that could be sold. In contrast to
the changes that occurred after similar measures in the US, the
UK market did not change drastically. In the 1950s and 1960s,
the most popular children’s comics remained available and very
popular, with a large proportion of the market share going to The
Beano, The Dandy, and The Eagle (1950–1969). Despite its modest
tenure in comparison to other British comics, The Eagle was
extremely popular. It was conceived and launched by Anglican
vicar Marcus Morris who wanted to create an adventure comic
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Histories 51
that was ‘decent’ and educational, but also fun and thrilling. The
star of the stories was Dan Dare, a pilot and adventurer, though
the initial suggestion was for a priest called ‘Lex Christian’. It
is not difficult to see why this decision was changed early in
the development stages. The Eagle was successful in being a
wholesome, yet fun comic and the first issue sold 900,000 copies
(Sabin, 1993). By the time it ceased publication, in 1969, circu-
lation had dwindled but the market was still relatively buoyant.
The sister comic of The Eagle was Girl, with a modest tenure
from 1951 to 1964, also founded by the Rev Morris. Most of
the stories featured wholesome female protagonists involved
in minor scrapes but always remaining morally upright. Girls’
comics were very successful during this period. The longest
running of this type is Bunty, which ran from 1958 to 2001 and
contained similar stories to Girl, mostly set in schools and dealing
with female friendship. However, the Anglophone market on
both sides of the Atlantic was on the brink of a change that came
from below.
Rebel readers: comics go underground

Restrictions put in place by the CCA and the Children and
Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act may have fundamen-
tally changed the shape and focus of the mainstream Comics
industry in the US and UK, changing the offerings available at
newsstands, but these restrictions did not reach all of Comics. If
anything, they forced the creation of a fertile space for the growth
of a wealth of rebellious, obscene, politically charged and tech-
nically innovative comics, free from the constraints of publishers’
rules and demands. Mainstream publishing houses had, and still
have, ‘house guidelines’ governing the development of every
comic, with restrictions brought into force at every stage of cre-
ation and publication. The freedom allowed to ‘underground’
artists by these independent models has been, in part, a major
influence on the diversity of story, theme, and art that is a key fea-
ture of the modern form. As early as the late 1920s, anonymous
artists had been producing pornographic comic books featuring
popular characters, especially Betty Boop, as well as celebrities,
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52 Histories
such as Mae West or Clark Gable, produced without copyright
permission and disseminated through adult shops. These small
books became known as ‘Tijuana Bibles’, designed to give the
impression that they were manufactured and smuggled into
the US from Tijuana, Mexico, and these are often considered
the parents of the underground Comics (or ‘Comix’) scene.
Unlike many of the other comic books available at the time that
collected strips from newspapers and republished them, Tijuana
Bibles featured original material. They were printed cheaply
and quickly on poor quality paper, sold for 20 or 25 cents in
barber shops, bars, tobacconists, and similar places. Though their
popularity dwindled after the Second World War, as pornog-
raphy became more easily available, Tijuana Bibles demonstrated
how Comics could easily and successfully take advantage of a
commercial infrastructure not related to the mainstream Comics
industry for distribution and, moreover, they confirmed that
there was definitely a market for such publications. As Danny
Fingeroth writes, ‘the underground Comix were about as far
from the mainstream as it was possible to be… that was the whole
point’ (2008: 17). Edward Shannon suggests that, ‘in retrospect,
underground comix seem a natural product of drug-fuelled 1960s
rebellion, but early in the decade there would seem to have been
little appetite for such work in an America that defined comic
books in terms of Mickey Mouse and Superman’ (2012: 629).
The birth of underground Comix took time. The first under-
ground strip was The Adventures of Jesus, created by Frank Stack,
under the nom-de-plume ‘Foolbert Sturgeon’, first published in
1962. The series followed Jesus, who arrives on Earth in the
late twentieth century to a world that is beyond help, jaded, and
decrepit. It is darkly funny and witty, with much of the icono-
clasm, subversiveness, and irreverence that would become typical
of the underground. By the late 1960s, such strips became both
regular and frequent. Many of the earliest of these publications
were created for friends of the artist; others appeared in under-
ground and university newspapers. As I mentioned in Chapter 1,
the ‘x’ was meant to denote the ‘X-rated’, signalling that these
publications were not for children, and distinguishing them from
the mainstream. Roy Cook writes:
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Histories 53
In crossing boundaries and breaking taboos, the (white,
male) underground seemed all too willing to depict rape,
violence, misogyny, and racial stereotypes, often in a seem-
ingly positive, (or at least non-critical) light. Such content
was celebrated within the underground comics solely for
its transgressive nature, regardless of whether it was being
mobilised toward any larger positive message, moral, or
meaning.
(2017: 36)
Many underground artists did use their work to make statements,

especially political ones, although they are not always positive.
Denis Kitchen describes underground comix as ‘the bastard child
of a wayward generation’. He adds, ‘As someone who was there
near the very beginning, I can say with certainty that there was
no grand conspiracy, no secret cell activity and no intellectual
summit’ (Skinn, 2004: 6). They were not an isolated invention,
as much as a logical continuation of the rebellious spirit of the
1960s: ‘When the beatnik and mod eras mutated into the hippie
movement, and the new establishment became vilified through
its politics and policing of such, equally new models were needed.
Rebels, with a cause’ (2004: 10). In the light of this it seems
appropriate that Robert Crumb’s Zap Comix (accompanied by
the tagline ‘The comic that plugs you in!!’) was first published in
1967, the year of the famous Summer of Love in the US. The
counterculture movement and the anti-war crusade intensified
during this period, as a direct response to the Vietnam War. In
this political climate, underground comix found their niche as
a vehicle for stories about drug use, sexual freedom, political
unrest, social rebellion, and violence, all of which were largely
absent in the mainstream. In both the US and the UK, these
books were sold in ‘head shops’, which Roger Sabin describes
as ‘hippie shops that sold fashionable clothing, joss-sticks, drug
paraphernalia, and so on’ (1993: 45). Sabin furthers the link to
hippie and drug culture by pointing out that many of the cover
designs imitated LSD-inspired artwork to increase sales.
The influence of Robert Crumb on the underground
movement cannot be overstated. He started out as an artist for a
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54 Histories
greetings card company after leaving high school. He drew comics
on the side and, after leaving his greeting card job, became part
of a group of young artists involved in producing comics within
the San Francisco Bay Area, the epicentre of underground comix
in the late-1960s. In many ways, Crumb’s work epitomises the
Summer of Love and the counterculture movement. He took
LSD (which was still legal at the time) and his characters were
inspired by his many drug trips. His best- known characters
include Angelfood McSpade, a grotesque racist depiction of a
black African woman, with obscenely large breasts and buttocks,
who speaks in ‘jive’ (a form of African American vernacular
English that was associated with Harlem) and is sexually pro-
miscuous; Fritz the Cat, an amoral con artist, whose frequent
adventures almost always involved sex; and Mr Natural, a bald,
bearded old man who is both a guru and a hedonist. Crumb
included himself in many of his comics as a sex-obsessed, self-
hating pseudo-intellectual, basking in his ‘resolutely counter-
cultural […] jaundiced view of America, […] sexual mores, and
[…] himself ’ (Contemporary Authors Online, 2013: n.p.).
Shannon describes Crumb’s comics as ‘a flood from a burst
dam, detailing what is not right with his mind in excruciating
detail –and overtly political terms’ (2012: 629); and they are a mix-
ture of politics, autobiography, and hippie culture. For Crumb,
the attraction of comix was their freedom from censorship:
People forget that that was what it was all about. That was
why we did it. We didn’t have anybody standing over us
saying ‘No, you can’t draw this’ or ‘You can’t show that’. We
could do whatever we wanted.
(Crumb in Sabin, 1996: 95)
Crumb’s influence is undeniable, and he had a dedicated

following of young cartoonists who imitated his style but none-
theless, his work generated considerable controversy. His views
on women, especially, have been the target of criticism, since
much of his work focuses on graphic depictions of sexual vio-
lence and the abuse of women. Fellow underground comix artist,
Trina Robbins, said, ‘It’s weird to me how willing people are to
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Histories 55
overlook the hideous darkness in Crumb’s work… What the hell
is funny about rape and murder?’ (qtd in Sabin, 1996: 92).
Robbins’ point is valid; nothing is funny about either of these
topics, but their pervasiveness in the male- dominated comix
world led to an overabundance of misogynist works. The same
rebellious spirit that drove male artists also drove their female
counterparts who succeeded in attracting the political and social
backing of the women’s liberation movements during the late-
1960s and 1970s. In 1970, Robbins edited the first all-female
underground comix work, It Ain’t Me, Babe, followed in 1972 by
Wimmen’s Comix (founded by Patricia Moodian and the newly
formed Women’s Comix Collective) and Tits & Clits (edited
by Joyce Farmer and Lyn Chevely). The Women’s Comix
Collective was not without its own problems. The Collective was
very much opposed to the publications of male artists, notably
Crumb, and the presence of his partner Aline Kominsky-Crumb
in the group led to a rift in 1975. Kominsky-Crumb’s presence
in a staunchly feminist organisation while also being married
to their ‘nemesis’ raises a series of questions. For example, does
Aline’s conjugal relationship to Crumb negate her membership
of such a group? Can one be married to a man who was fre-
quently identified as a ‘sexist pig’ while proudly wearing the
‘feminist’ label? Kominsky-Crumb’s work followed many of the
same themes as her husband’s, but as a woman she maintained an
independent stance of her own. One of her first works, the semi-
autobiographical ‘Goldie’, is an ‘unflinching, and unglamorous,
depiction of sexuality’ (Chute, 2010: 21). The young Goldie
is shown masturbating and exploring her burgeoning sexu-
ality. Hillary Chute makes the following observation about the
public response to Kominsky-Crumb’s work compared to that
of her husband: ‘her underwhelming reception contrasts mark-
edly to that of her husband, cartoonist Robert Crumb, who has
been canonised exactly for writing the darker side of (his own)
tortured male sexuality’ (Chute, 2010: 31).
Despite many controversies, the underground allowed artists
a freedom not offered by big publishers in much the same
way that digital and web comics do. Many anthologies par-
odied long-established mainstream genres; for example, Young
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Lust (1970– 1993), which featured work by Bill Griffith and
Art Spiegelman, were spoofs of 1950s romance comics, and
Bizarre Sex (1972–1982) was influenced by sci-fi, featuring art
by Richard ‘Grass’ Green, one of the few African American
creators. Perhaps the most topical for today’s audience was Slow
Death (1970–1992), focussed on corporate pollution, toxic waste,
and environmentalism. As we have already seen in the autobio-
graphical works of Aline Kominsky-Crumb and her husband,
the underground gave artists the freedom to write and draw their
own lives.
A key publication in the British underground is Viz (1979–
present). Founded by Chris Donald, who initially produced the
comic in his bedroom, Viz epitomises the ethos of the under-
ground movement. The first issue was sold at punk gigs in the
North East of England and circulation grew steadily to around
5,000 in the early 1980s, peaking at over 1 million by the early
1990s. Currently, Viz retains its place in British popular culture
as an adult comic with many long-running jokes and characters,
and an average circulation of 45,000. One such character is
‘Roger Mellie –the Man on the Telly’, a parody of David Frost.
Mellie is a misogynist television presenter whose catchphrase is
‘Hello, good evening and bollocks!’ Another long-running char-
acter is Sid the Sexist, a man who is unable to talk to women and
resorts to crude, sexist humour, usually resulting in him having
objects inserted into his bottom by disgusted women. Both
Roger and Sid are clear examples of the type of humour that Viz
favours and part of the reason for its longevity.
Justin Green’s Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary (1972)
is a landmark text in both underground comix and autographics
(the collective term for autobiography and life writing in the
Comics form that I will consider in more detail in Chapter 6).
Green had previously been published in several anthologies
before beginning work on Binky Brown. The book follows
Green’s avatar, Binky, and his struggle with a form of Obsessive-
Compulsive Disorder (OCD) that is religiously focussed, against
a background of a Catholic childhood in 1950s Chicago. Binky
is raised and educated as a Catholic, forming an image of God
that exacerbates his feelings of guilt and provides the framework
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Histories 57
for his OCD symptoms. The book is unflinching and deeply
unsettling in its honesty. Chute sees the work as ‘delv[ing] into
and forcefully pictur[ing] non-normative sexuality’; she adds that
Binky Brown is a graphic novel since ‘the quality of work, its
approach, parameters, and sensibility [denote a] seriousness of
purpose’ (2010: 19, 17). The influence of Binky Brown is very
far-reaching indeed, and those who cite it as an influence include
Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Robert Crumb, Howard Cruse, and,
famously, Art Spiegelman. Spiegelman stated that ‘without Binky
Brown there would be no Maus’ (1995: 4). This positive endorse-
ment points to the start of new era of Comics history: the rise
of the graphic novel and the advent of the modern comic book.
The gates are open: comics everywhere

One of the most famous graphic novels of the modern era
began as three pages in an underground anthology in 1972. At
the request of Justin Green, Art Spiegelman drew a short comic
about his father’s experience of the Shoah; it was published
in Funny Aminals #1 and, with that, the groundwork was laid
for Maus. First serialised from 1980 to 1991 in Raw, a maga-
zine published by Spiegelman and his wife, Françoise Mouly, the
graphic novel format with which we are now familiar appeared
in 1986 in a collected volume that contained the first half of the
total comic; the second half was published in 1991. The publica-
tion of Maus caused a stir in the literary world: here was a work
that was distinctly not literature but that commanded a level of
respect not yet awarded to Comics. The New York Times curiously
wrote that ‘Art Spiegelman doesn’t draw comic books’, presum-
ably intending this as a compliment (qtd in Witek, 2004: n.p.).
The Pulitzer Prize Committee awarded Maus a Special Award
in Letters in 1992. Since then, Spiegelman’s book has remained
at the top of any list of ‘great’ Comics and is regularly included
on reading lists in universities and high schools; collections of
academic essays and conferences are dedicated to Maus, and it
is often treated with a near hagiolatrous fervour. Many artists
cite Spiegelman as a primary influence on their works, including
Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis (2000) and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home
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58 Histories
(2006), as well as the works of Chris Ware and Craig Thompson.
It is undoubtedly an important text and predecessor to many
later works of autobiography as we shall see later in Chapter 6.
However, though Maus initiated a debate in relation to the
legitimacy of Comics and is often regarded as the text respon-
sible for the rise of the graphic novel, this claim is not strictly
accurate. There are two issues to consider here. Firstly, we need
to realise that Comics did not suddenly become a legitimate form
for telling significant stories, even though Maus was an important
milestone in their recognition as a valid cultural form. We need to
recall that the genesis of the form itself ranges from Hogarth’s
moralising to Krazy Kat’s modernist surrealism to the sexual hon-
esty of the underground. In this context, Maus did not change
what Comics had achieved but it did help to change the public
perception of the form’s potential. Secondly, Maus did not exist
in a vacuum, nor was it the only text that was breaking new
ground in the mid-1980s. The year 1986 saw the publication of
two other highly influential works alongside Maus: Alan Moore
and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen, which was a dystopian science-
fiction-meets-superheroes horror story that presented an alterna-
tive narrative of the Cold War, in which America was victorious
in Vietnam and Nixon remained in power until 1985. Moore
and Gibbons used their book to deconstruct and problematise
the superhero narrative. Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns
pursued a similar trajectory, taking the superhero story and com-
plicating it. Miller’s Batman is ageing and disillusioned and the
book frames the character in a far darker way than previously
seen. These three comics were distinctly adult publications, des-
pite using genres that were typically suitable for children, and
they signalled the arrival of the modern era.
It is important to note that all three comics, now considered
graphic novels, were not originally published in their current
formats. They were all published as a weekly series initially
(Watchmen consists of twelve parts, The Dark Knight Returns four,
and Maus eleven) and were collected into bound volumes only at
a later stage. Although these books may come under the heading
of ‘trade paperbacks’, a name that is sometimes given to long-
form comic books that collect together previous series runs, it
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is important to recognise that trade paperbacks of this kind are
different from graphic novels. By twenty-first century standards,
a typical graphic novel would not be sold as issues, but only as a
single bound book. Trade paperbacks proved to be an excellent
strategy for publishers to adopt, and they sold well. Mainstream
series that had begun to sell badly moved from single issues to
trade paperbacks in order to revitalise sales, not only in spe-
cialist comics shops but also in bookshops. This strategy allowed
Comics to take its place as a form of storytelling for readers of
all ages and interests, but it was not without consequences. The
move to the high street bookshop meant that Comics could now
be considered as ‘literature’ and that those works that made it
onto bookshelves began to attract the critical attention of literary
reviewers. Maus won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992; Watchmen was
the only comic to appear on Time’s 2005 ‘All-Time 100 Greatest
Novels’ list; Fun Home was a finalist for the 2006 National Book
Critics Circle Award; and Persepolis ranked #5 on Newsweek’s list
of the ten best fiction books of the decade. It is important to note
that Persepolis is not fiction but autobiography, since in it artist
Marjane Satrapi tells the story of her childhood in Iran during
and after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. This mislabelling of key
and popular texts is a recurring issue with graphic novels that are
also non-fiction; the connotations of ‘novel’ are strong enough to
override any suggestion of the word’s non-fiction classification.
I have already discussed the non-literary identity of Comics in
Chapter 1; such praise for these comics is both well-deserved (as
they are often beautifully constructed) and problematic (because
this praise seeks to play down the fact that they are Comics and
instead compare them to something ‘more worthy’).
At the same time, the American market was in the grip of
the ‘British Invasion’, a term that refers specifically to a small
group of British writers and artists whose popularity grew in the
late 1980s while they were being employed in the production
of American titles. The most prominent included writers such
as Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Grant Morrison, as well as
artists Brian Bolland and Dave Gibbons who had all been previ-
ously employed in the production of the British anthology series
2000 AD. They then moved to the US to work for DC Comics.
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60 Histories
According to Douglas Wolk, the catalyst for the invasion was
Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing (1983):
His commercial breakthrough came in 1983, when he took

over Saga of the Swamp Thing, a terrible American comic
book; Moore took the opportunity to show off the range of
his technique, which resulted in a certain amount of purple
prose (‘Clouds like plugs of bloodied cotton wool dab inef-
fectually at the slashed wrists of the sky’) and a lot of thrilling
formal experiments that had never been tried in mainstream
comics before. His success led directly to American comics’
‘British invasion’.
(2003: n.p.)
Wolk goes on to explain that the selling point of Moore’s work

was his position as ‘arguably the first [of] mainstream writers who
seemed fully in command of his style’, and consequently, ‘other
writers, mostly British, started to follow his example of sensi-
tivity to language’ (2007: 27). Prior to this, ‘the actual text in
American comic books was generally pretty impoverished until
the ’80s [and it had] always been subordinate to the plot and
storytelling’ (Wolk: 2007: 26). The ‘invasion’ that was attributed
to Moore provided the impetus for a new imprint, Vertigo, in
1993; the aim was to target a more mature audience and provide
an outlet for more violent, adult works.
Many artists and writers had become so well-known to their
readers in the 1940s and 1950s that they could be identified by
their individual styles. By the 1990s, some artists and writers
were becoming known beyond the Comics community and their
work was recognisable to the general public. Some writers, such
as Neil Gaiman, had also become successful novelists. Others, like
Frank Miller, took their work to Hollywood and were involved
in the transfer of their comics from page to screen. In some
cases, things also worked the other way around. For example,
Michael Chabon’s novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and
Clay, which retold the history of the Golden Age of the super-
hero, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001; Chabon then went on to
61
Histories 61
write for DC and Dark Horse. Jonathan Lethem, whose novels
play with genre conventions, resurrected a long-defunct Marvel
character, Omega the Unknown, and the resulting series was
published in ten issues in 2007, before being collected together
in 2008. However, the seeming fluidity of the borders between
Literature and Comics shown in the careers of these writers
is insufficient to support the claim that Comics has become a
subset of the category of Literature. It is possible to identify
similar crossovers between Literature and Film as in the cases of
authors John Irving or William Goldman, who are also successful
screenwriters. It is this fluidity that is an important part of the
modern Comics industry, especially in relation to what we may
call ‘crossover media’ (see Chapter 4). Just as film adaptations
of novels are now common, so do comics adaptations of both
films and novels that now exist. There are comics adaptations
of every conceivable text, from the literary classics (Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Brontë or Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein) to science
fiction (Octavia Butler’s Kindred) to the Diary of Anne Frank or
the plays of Shakespeare. The modern Comics world is diverse,
inclusive, and accessible. Comics is still a popular form, as were
the proto-comics of thousands of years ago, though the journey
to public acceptance has been long, complex, and circuitous.
62
3
Going global
Comics on the world stage
Comics is an international form that exists in virtually every

society and cultural milieu across the globe. The histories and
development of each national or linguistic Comics tradition
interconnect with, and complement, each other as international
developments in printing and publication technologies began
to exert pressure on particular aspects of the production and
marketing of comics. As we saw in Chapter 2, Comics history is
distinct from that of other narrative forms and their origins. The
novel, for example, grew out of eighteenth-century northern
European realism, finding an early text in Robinson Crusoe (1719).
In his book The Rise of the Novel, Ian Watt discusses the ways in
which the novel was influenced by a change in the composition
of Defoe’s readership as a result of the rise of economic indi-
vidualism (1957: 60). At its origin, many novels were concerned
with both realist representation of quotidian reality and how this
new literary form can influence national identity construction
and nation-building (see Anderson, 1983). It is a form that is
intrinsically linked to the political and social constructions of
northern Europe. Comics does not have the same history. This
chapter will discuss the histories and concerns of comics across
the world.
While comics in North America were taking the newsstands
by storm, or generating political discussion in the UK, they were
having similar far-reaching effects in countries across the world.
Federico Zanettin writes that ‘most if not all European countries
had a tradition of printed visual art’ (2008: 2); we can add that a
63
Going global: comics on the world stage 63

large number of countries throughout the rest of the world also
developed these traditions, with those in East Asia achieving spe-
cial prominence. The focus of this chapter will be twofold: to
discuss Comics as an international form, with an emphasis on key
issues raised by internationalisation, and to consider specific non-
Anglophone Comics traditions, their histories, developments,
and current international positions. In the first section, I examine
the developments that have been brought about by changes in
publication, printing technologies, and practices of dissemin-
ation: issues such as how these changes have affected the types of
comics that are released, how they are consumed, and by whom?
I also ask: what questions are raised by translating a comic from
one language to another? And what additional problems are
raised by the translation of images? How do we translate images
and, by extension, cultures, where the representations themselves
have a specific meaning for a particular culture? The second part
of this chapter complements Chapter 2’s Anglophone-focussed
histories of Comics, shifting attention to some of the most
influential and popular non-Anglophone Comics cultures and
traditions. Attention will be given to Japanese comics (Manga,
漫画) and Franco-Belgian comics (Bandes Dessinées), and also
to Comics in Italy (Fumetti), Spain (Historietas), India, and Korea
(Manhwa, 만화 or 漫畵).
Comics and the global village

The term ‘global village’ was coined by Canadian media the-
orist Marshall McLuhan in the 1960s. At the time, it denoted
the daily creation, transmission, and consumption of media
directed at global audiences who, by virtue of television, could
be accessed electronically, but this has now emerged as ‘the dom-
inant term for expressing a global coexistence altered by trans-
national commerce, migration, and culture’ (Lee, qtd in Ryan,
2012: 160). In the twenty-first century, most people do not think
it is unusual to be exposed to a range of media from around
the world, some of it with accompanying subtitles or dubbing,
alongside local media forms. It is both typical and expected for
recipients to enjoy American, Asian, and European media often
64
64 Going global: comics on the world stage

without consciously recognising the jumps in comprehension
that are needed to move between them. A Manga fan may adapt
with ease to the right-to-left reading style of Japanese comics,
before moving back to Western left-to-r ight reading style.
This sharing of works has a long history. There had been some
international transmission of proto-comics, but the practice of
borrowing across language barriers accelerated with the advent
of fin de siècle newspaper strips. For example, Histoire de M. Vieux
Bois, Rodolphe Töpffer’s most famous work, had been published
in several languages across Europe in 1837; an English version
was published in Britain in 1841 and in America a year later.
Similarly, the American strip The Katzenjammer Kids (1897–
2006) borrowed heavily from Wilhelm Busch’s Max und Moritz
(1865), originally published in Germany (see Chapter 2). By the
1930s, imports of American mainstream comics into France and
Belgium had become commonplace, though, as Sabin observes,
this ceased ‘during the war years due to the German occupa-
tion and consequent banning of imports from America’ (Sabin,
1993: 283). Sabin adds that the ‘isolationism from American
material [caused by the ban] was not necessarily duplicated in
other parts of Europe. In Germany, for example, American
comics were common, with original material often entering
the country post-1945 via the military bases’ (1993: 283). In the
twenty-first century, the range of publication models available
for comics, discussed in more detail in Chapter 4, has meant that
more texts are available to a much wider selection of readers,
with the result that not only are texts available in their original
languages, but that there is also a greater likelihood that they will
appear translated.
The international distribution and sharing of comics has both
positive and negative consequences. It is difficult to regard the
widespread sale of, engagement with, and enjoyment of any
narrative form negatively. Indeed, the international expansion of
Comics industries means that the diversity of texts available in any
particular country or language has increased exponentially. Not
only does this mean a wider choice for ‘omnivorous’ readers who
are likely to enjoy a varied range of comics, but it also engages
those readers who may otherwise restrict their reading to a very
65

specific genre, artist type, or distinctive style. The result is, there-
fore, an advantage not only for the reader, but also for the cre-
ator. For the creator, it means a significantly increased readership
and potentially greater recognition beyond their home country
and native language. In addition to the increase of numbers of
readers, the boost in interest has helped to generate new ways of
disseminating independent creations; this is most obvious in the
rise of web comics that are shared via social media or dedicated
Comics portals (see Chapter 1). There is also, however, a down-
side to this increased readership and distribution. Some creators
will always be more popular than others, and this can lead to
certain creators receiving most of the interest, to the detriment
of others. Publishers that have a larger budget for translation
and localisation are also likely to overshadow smaller companies,
especially independent small presses. When one type or pub-
lisher of Comics becomes the ‘norm’, it can erase the linguistic
or cultural nuances characteristic of local creators, especially if
the publisher has a ‘house style’ to which all artists must adhere.
Though we may be comfortable with discussion of any art
within its specific critical and cultural environment, it is cru-
cial to remember that art is not made in isolation; it is made
within communities in which ideas, inspirations, themes, and
techniques can grow and develop. Though artists may work indi-
vidually, they exist within a wider community, and their work
is likely to draw on the culture from which it comes. Artists
working in any form will observe what their peers are doing
and, given the different elements that comprise the Comics
form, will collaborate with each other. At its extreme, and in
societies that protect intellectual property by law, this might
involve plagiarism, but in a collegial form in which different
talents can combine, but it might be a normal part of the way
through which art and narrative can grow. With the increasing
internationalisation of Comics, the easy dissemination of works
and ideas via the internet and the constant exchange of media
across linguistic and cultural borders, artists can be exposed
to a wide selection of influences. This cross-fertilisation is an
important part of the enduring health of a narrative form. The
different types of sharing and cross-fertilisation generally relate to
66

the appropriation of existing artistic styles commonly associated
with one cultural or national tradition being taken wholesale
into another in order to innovate or de-familiarise an already
familiar narrative, or simply to reinvigorate the assumptions and
‘norms’ of an existing art style. There are two related examples
worth considering in this context: the Manga Shakespeare series
by Richard Appignanesi and various artists (2005–2009) and Kei
Ishiyama’s Grimm Manga Tales (2012).
The Manga Shakespeare series was launched by Self-Made Hero,
a British publisher, in 2005. Fourteen of Shakespeare’s plays have
been adapted by Richard Appignanesi and drawn by artists from
various artistic backgrounds. The title Manga is curious here. As
I discuss later in this chapter, Manga is the name given to Japanese
language comics and translations thereof; the term is also used for
texts that use the artistic and narrative style of Japanese works.
In the case of this example, the texts are in English, and Manga
is used to describe the art style that it employs. In addition, the
books read left-to-write, which is not the norm in Manga. In her
article on the series, Yukari Yoshihara writes that the publishers
‘decided to employ Manga artists residing in the UK [to] help
cultivate local Manga talents’ (2016: 114). While many of these
artists are Japanese and originally worked as Mangaka (Manga
creators) in Japan, some had only worked in the UK. In this
case, the word is being used to suggest that it is drawn in a style
that is reminiscent of Manga, but not a strict imitation of it. This
example draws together a canonical figure such as Shakespeare
and ‘translates’ a text into the Manga style. We may see this as
an example of cultural capital. According to sociologist Pierre
Bourdieu, cultural capital is the collection of educational, intel-
lectual, and symbolic elements of an individual that are acquired
through belonging to a certain social class. People of higher social
status will have higher cultural capital, as some forms are valued
over others and can further social mobility (1986: 241–258). As
Shakespeare’s works are considered highbrow, they command a
high level of cultural capital. While in the UK, Manga does not
necessarily have a high level of cultural capital, it certainly does
in Japan. Yoshihara writes that ‘the globalized/localized cultural
capital of manga is combined with the cultural mega-capital of
67

Shakespeare, which has likewise become globally shared and
localized’ (2016: 114).
Discussion of the Manga Shakespeare is complicated by the
fact that the publisher, writer, and many of the artists are not
Japanese by nationality or artistic training. Rather than this being
a ‘true’ coming-together of two cultures, it is heavily mediated
through the lens of a target culture and the desire to appropriate
an established form. According to Joe Keener:
The motivation behind these phenomena is not just an

attempt to emulate a financially successful form of Japanese
popular culture, but to appropriate some of the soft power
that Japan has accrued through the almost worldwide success
of its manga. Soft power is the ability to get what one wants
through attraction, and Japanese manga’s infiltrating of not
just western cultural products but imaginations confer soft
power on Japan.
(2015: 43)
The Manga Shakespeare series aims to make a canonical writer of

high cultural status accessible to new and younger readers through
a popular cultural form. For Iulia Drăghici, ‘in reading Manga
Shakespeare, one can come across a lively interchange between
high and pop culture that captivates the reader, brightening up
the sometimes equivocal cultural site of meaning that we call
Shakespeare’ (2015: 117). This ‘lively interchange’ is not simply
the fusion of high and popular culture (Shakespeare wrote, after
all, for the masses) but also the amalgamation of two important
and culturally significant narrative art forms from two distinct
geographical locations. Or, to put the matter a little differently,
the texts of a writer who already has a global reputation, not-
withstanding Drăghici’s comment, are aligned with a Japanese
popular form to produce something that exceeds the national
contexts within which they were originally generated.
Japanese Mangaka Kei Ishiyama’s Grimm Manga Tales (2007)
stands in contrast to the Manga Shakespeare series. It is published
in two volumes, and consists of a range of stories from another
68

canonical writer usually associated with children’s stories, Grimm’s
Fairy Tales: ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, ‘Rapunzel’, ‘Hänsel and
Gretel’, ‘The Two Brothers’, ‘The Twelve Hunters’, ‘Snow
White’, ‘The Frog King’, ‘Puss in Boots’, and ‘The Singing,
Springing Lark’. The most obvious thing to note from this list
is that these stories are northern European in origin, and were
first made available in print through the collections of Jacob and
Wilhelm Grimm. They are a quintessential part of European folk-
lore, and their narrative elements are dependent on their envir-
onment and culture. On the surface, it may seem that Ishiyama’s
Grimm Manga Tales is a fusion of Western narratives and Eastern
artistic styles in a way that the Manga Shakespeare series is not.
Grimm Manga Tales is an ‘OEL’, an ‘Original English Language’
Manga, and published by Tokyopop, an American publisher. It
therefore straddles the Western/Eastern split, albeit in a different
way to Manga Shakespeare: Appignanesi’s series uses Western
narratives and artists, publishing in a clearly Western model, but
using Eastern artistic tradition to bring something new to the
story whereas Ishiyama’s series uses equally Western narratives,
but represented through the lens of Japanese creative strategies.
This type of cultural exchange is occurring at different levels
across different cultural and linguistic borders, creating what we
may variously refer to as a ‘globalised mediascape’ (MacWilliams,
2008: 12) or, less encouragingly, a ‘Gordian knot of transnational
cultural flows’ (Leheny, 2006: 233).
The problem of translation

With an ever- shrinking world and increasing international
demand for comics, it is necessary to consider translation, and
especially how and why specific comics or collections migrate
between languages. Translators and translation theorists regu-
larly debate the different approaches that can be taken in the
activity of translating any text. Most agree, however, that the
aim of translation is to move beyond words and into the realm
of cultural signs and understanding. Weissbort and Eysteinsson
argue that we understand other places and cultures ‘by building
linguistic bridges across the channels that divide language spheres
69

and cultural regions, whether by the rewriting of messages and
works in another tongue, or through other interventions by
individuals who possess knowledge in more than one language’
(2006: 1). They go on to suggest that
[L]‌iterary translation […] draws on experience from diverse

fields of human experience. Literature combines cultural
and aesthetic values, and this makes its translation so diffi-
cult and challenging, but also so urgent. […] Literary texts
of course also demand particular attention to language itself,
its resonances and references, its historical depth as well as its
personal relevance, and this gives an extra dimension to the
‘problem’ of the translation.
(2006: 2, 3)
If the structure, language games, and referential nature of text-

based narratives demand extra attention when it comes to trans-
lation, then Comics require a further consideration: the meaning
and status of the image. It is important to remember, as Altenberg
and Owen write, that there is ‘no single history of comics trans-
lation, but rather many national and formal and thematic his-
tories’ (2015: iv). As such we cannot create a universal holistic
history of translation so we ‘need to begin with small clusters of
individual translations’ (2015: iv).
There are two components to Comics translation: verbal
translation and image/sign translation. It is not enough to trans-
late the textual components of the comic (the speech bubbles and
captions), but the images themselves are part of a language system
that needs to be considered within its cultural, national, and rep-
resentational contexts. In some cases, the translation involves
replacing one textual component in the source language with
another in the target language where there is an exact equivalent.
It should be noted that this also includes onomatopoeia such
as ‘splash’ (falling into a French river will lead to ‘plouf ’, while
this will be rendered as ‘platsch’ in German) or animal sounds
(English dogs say ‘woof ’; Spanish dogs say ‘guau’; Korean dogs
say ‘meong’). Zanettin compares this to software localisation, the
process whereby a piece of computer software is adapted to a new
70

culture that would include language translation, measurements,
currency, and date formats. He adds:
Most ‘grammatical devices’ such as speech balloons, ono-

matopoeia and visual metaphors are used in comics produced
in many different cultures and can be seen as central to comics
as an art form, while other features are perhaps less salient.
However, there is not one single ‘language’ of comics, as each
regional tradition has developed its own set of conventions
and stylemes, as regards reading pace, drawing style, subject
matter and themes. Each of these regional varieties of comics
can thus be seen as a ‘dialect’ of the language of comics.
(Zanettin, 2008: 18)
Zanettin goes on to suggest that the ‘study of translated comics

may provide useful insights into an understanding of translation
as a complex process of intercultural communication, involving
much more than simply the replacement of written text in speech
balloons’ (2005: 98). Thinking along similar lines, Altenberg and
Owen write that ‘the linguistic translation of comics has some
distinct practical issues: spatial issues akin to those in subtitling,
to do with fitting the new language into the extant text boxes
and speech balloons’ (2015: i). However, they suggest that it is
in the translation of meaning that problems occur: ‘Undertaking
to translate that meaning can entail: rewriting text with no
redrawing, rewriting text with partial redrawing, rewriting text
with complete redrawing, or retaining the text with complete
redrawing’ (2015: i). There are many arguments that can be made
for and against image translation, and these topics form the basis
of much work being done in Comics and translation studies, by
scholars including Zanettin, Altenberg, and Klaus Kaindl. Kaindl
writes: ‘If we do not translate languages but cultures, what is
the role of the non-verbal dimension in translation: do we have
to redefine the concept of translation in order to also include
forms of transfer which do not involve language?’ (2004: 174).
It is difficult to deny that the translation of comics at the level of
the image and sign is essential to the proper cross-cultural trans-
mission and understanding of Comics. If, as Berman claims, ‘a
71

translator without historical consciousness is a crippled translator,
a prisoner of his representation of translation and of those carried
by the social discourses of the moment’, it is not an exaggeration
to say that, in Comics, a translator who does not consider the
visual element is similarly hindered in their enterprise (Berman,
qtd in Venuti, 2012: 2). We also need to remember that there is
an economic element in this equation and that the widest possible
distribution of a work is financially advantageous. There are those
who seek to distribute translated works for other reasons, which
will be discussed further in relation to Manga later in this chapter.
Cultural practices
Marta Breen and Jenny Jordahl’s 2018 comic Women in Battle was
originally published in Norwegian as Kvinner I Kamp, and it has
since been translated into twelve languages. Breen and Jordahl’s
comic consists of fourteen vignettes of key women in the history
of feminism and the women’s movement. Breen’s gentle, witty
writing and Jordahl’s simple, clear- lined accompanying visual
images work well together. This comic translates well into various
languages, largely because the images contain few culturally spe-
cific codes and the textual components are clearly demarcated
from the images making word-for-word translation comparatively
straightforward. However, this is not to say that Women in Battle
did not encounter problems generated by the demands of some
of the target languages (and markets) into which it was translated.
For example, there are two English language versions, with the
titles Women in Battle (UK) and Fearless Females (US). The chapter
about the history and development of contraception begins with
the work of Margaret Sanger and ends with the sexual revolution
of the 1960s and 1970s. The final image is a double-page bleed
of a party in full swing. In the UK version, many of the female
characters are drawn topless, with breasts exposed, as shown in
Figure 3.1. In the US version, artist Jordahl was compelled by
law to cover the topless women with t-shirts, in accordance with
various regulations forbidding the displaying of women’s nipples.
This is an example of a redrawn image that does not involve
making an alteration to the text. The US’s federal legal structures
72
Figure 3.1
Women in Battle (p. 173) by Marta Breen and Jenny Jordahl
(2018).
also demand that such laws normally fall under the jurisdiction
of the member states individually, but even so, for print or online
publication purposes, displaying women’s nipples is prohibited.
The difference between the inclusion or removal of topless
female images is indicative of a cross-cultural issue of translation
that relates directly to a larger question of cultural practice. This
points to the fact that translation can be within a language, as
well as across languages. Many argue that British and American
English are distinct dialects of an imaginary core ‘English’ along
with other Englishes spoken in Australia, large parts of post-
colonial Africa, India, and the Caribbean. These Englishes are,
on the whole, mutual intelligible, and they share a number of
common etymological roots. As Weissbort and Eysteinsson
observe: ‘There are, of course, many Englishes today, which
are similar enough not yet to require by and large the work of
translators to ensure their mutual intelligibility, even if the possi-
bilities of misunderstanding are considerable’ (2006: 5). It is easy
73

for those of us in the Anglosphere to forget that there are many
Englishes and that native speakers of English are able, on the
whole, to move between them with ease, compared to speakers
of other languages. However, the risk of misunderstanding and
the need for culturally specific changes to non-linguistic aspects
of the text remain. Though it is not necessary for translators to be
involved per se, there is still a need for cross-cultural expertise in
the movement of texts across national-cultural boundaries since,
as Weissbort and Eysteinsson observe, cross-cultural communi-
cation involves translation (Weissbort and Eysteinsson, 2006: 5).
(American) Football versus soccer

Jokes are usually culturally and linguistically specific and are
among the most difficult parts of any text to translate. However,
in Comics, many of the jokes are visual and so demand a different
kind of translation that, sometimes, is not effective. One such
example appears in the long-running and internationally famous
comic strip Peanuts (1950–2000, ending with the death of the
creator Charles Schulz). One running gag (a common feature of
comic strips) involves Charlie Brown and Lucy van Pelt. Lucy
is holding an American football and, whenever Charlie Brown
moves to kick it, she moves it out of his reach forcing him to fall
to the ground, as shown in Figure 3.2. The joke is dependent on
Figure 3.2 Panels from Peanuts by Charles Schulz (1950–2000).

74

an understanding of a culturally specific sport: American foot-
ball. Holding the ball, as Lucy does, is necessary for the player
to make the kick in American football. This makes perfect sense
to an American reader, and this knowledge is crucial for the
joke to work correctly. However, the same image translated into
German does not work, as Kaindl explains
[In] the German version, as published in the magazine Stern,

the oval American football is replaced by the round (soccer)
ball more commonly found in Europe […] In the German
version with a round ball used for soccer, whose rules do
not permit players to touch the ball, the act of holding the
ball appears unmotivated or to serve no other purpose than
pulling it away, thus rendering the gag much less effective.
(Kaindl, 2004: 184)
The comic effect of the joke is lost because it is dependent on

sporting regulations that do not translate into the codes of other
cultures.
Name puns across languages

In a large range of humour comics, many of the jokes come from
names and name puns. This is especially true of René Goscinny‎
and ‎Albert Uderzo’s long-running Astérix series (first published
in French in 1959, with English translations appearing in 1969).
The series follows life in a small Gaulish village during the time
of the Roman Empire whose occupants are holding out against
their Roman conquerors, thanks in part to a magic potion brewed
by the village druid. The villagers range from a fishmonger and
mechanic to the village bard and a spritely 90- year-old. All
Gaulish characters have names that end in ‘-ix’, which adapt the
Roman form of names originally given to Gaulish leaders such
as Vercingetorix (82 B C E –46 BC E ) and Dumnorix (first cen-
tury BC E , dates unknown). The names of all characters refer to
their roles in the village or to some aspect of their personality
through adapting aspects of the French language to appear in
mock-Romanised form. These names are linguistically specific,
75

but they combine Latin and French, and they therefore require
careful translation as the series moves between languages.
Let us take as an example the character of the Gaulish village
chief, a short, fat man with pigtails, often seen being carried on
a shield. In the original French version of the series, he is called
‘Abraracourcix’. The name is from à bras raccourcis (with shortened
arms) which comes from the phrase tomber sur quelqu’un à bras
raccourcis (to attack someone with violence). This linguistic pun
does not work in other languages such as in the British English
version where he becomes ‘Vitalstatistix’ (from ‘vital statistics’,
the basic information contained in population records) or in
American English where he is ‘Macroeconomix’, a pun on his
leadership role’s bureaucratic potential; the German translation
maintains the leadership focus but removes the bureaucratic slant,
calling him ‘Majestix’. In the Serbian translation the character
is Дрма торик с (Drmatoriks), a pun on drmator, a slang term
similar to ‘mover and shaker’, taken from the verb drmati (to
shake). The word is often associated with Serbian Communism
and carries a cultural weight that is not easily translated into a
single equivalent word in other languages. Thus, in order for the
joke to work, each name needs to be translated, not only into
the target language but also in a way that makes sense to both the
target language group and that reflects the meaning inherent in
the source text.
National-cultural comics traditions
Bandes Dessinées
It may seem curious that comics from France and Belgium are
often grouped together. This is less a question related to national
origin than to the language that unites them, and it may there-
fore be more logical to refer to Bandes Dessinées (literally ‘strip
drawings’; often rendered BDs) as Francophone comics. France
and a large proportion of Belgium, as well as Switzerland,
Luxembourg, and Monaco all share the same language, and this
helps to create a market that erodes national boundaries. Many
Bandes Dessinées are widely read outside of Europe in other
76

Francophone territories such as Québec, and parts of Africa,
the Middle East, and Asia that were previously under French
or Belgian colonial rule. It is important to note that the title
Bandes Dessinées does not carry the same stigma as Comics,
and Francophone scholarship regularly refers to the form as le
neuvième art (the ninth art), a term coined by film critic Claude
Beylie in 1964.
In contrast to the Anglophone markets in the US and UK,
BDs were available in bound books much earlier in their pub-
lication histories. Since 1945, the majority of works have been
published as ‘albums’, hardback, full- cover books that are
roughly A4 size. Each album (also called ‘tomes’ in French) usu-
ally contains a complete narrative arc, similar to the modern
graphic novel rather than to most newsstand comic books of the
1940s and 1950s.In earlier times, they consisted of stories that
had been previously serialised in magazines or supplements that
would then be collected. Since the 1980s, this has ceased to be
the case since a number of writers and stories now appear only in
album form. Each album typically has 46 or 62 pages, plus 2 end
pages, a factor that is largely due to a standard printing conven-
tion, which favours multiples of 8. Modern print technologies
are now making such standards redundant but they do remain for
some publishers (see Grove, 2010; Miller, 2007).
The history of BDs follows a similar path to Anglophone
Comics in that they also have developed out of political cartooning
and text-image stories, such as the works of Rodolphe Töpffer
(see Chapter 2), before moving into newspapers and magazine
supplements. Bécassine, a short strip by Jacqueline Rivière and
Joseph Pinchon about a Breton girl of the same name, appeared
in La Semaine de Suzette on 2 February 1905, making her one of
the first women of BDs. Another early strip, Les Pieds Nickelés
by Louis Forton, premiered on 4 June 1908 in the newspaper
L’Épatant (Lehembre, 2005). Both Bécassine and Les Pieds Nickelés
were drawn in ‘text comic’ style, with the image and text caption
separated, as was typical of BDs at the time. It was only with the
1925 launch of Alain Saint-Ogan’s Zig et Puce that the ‘text comic’
style was replaced with speech bubbles and fully integrated text, a
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feature that we now think of as the recognisable modern Comics
style. Matthew Screech suggests that Saint-Ogan’s comic is the
moment where ‘all of the requirements for a modern BD came
together for the first time’ (2005: 6).
Although there are other contenders for the position, the
first modern BD is probably Hergé’s Les Aventures de Tintin
(The Adventures of Tintin). The initial story arc, Tintin in the
Land of the Soviets, was first published in Le Petit Vingtième, a
children’s supplement to the newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle, in
1929. Tintin was an immediate success, and the stories were
published in album format immediately following their run in
the newspaper. This makes Hergé’s work the first modern BD
to be published in album form, and Tintin in the Land of the
Soviets was the first to appear as an individual book in 1930.
However, despite its enduring popularity, Tintin is not without
controversy. Some stories include racist or political stereotyping
that does not easily translate into the contemporary world. One
much-discussed example is Tintin in the Congo (1931), in which
Tintin travels to the Congo which was still a Belgian colony at
that time. Hergé depicted the Congolese as ‘good at heart but
backwards and lazy, in need of European mastery’ (McCarthy,
2006: 37). Hergé’s racist depictions are clear, but his intentions
are not, with scholars divided on the issue of whether he was
‘more patronising than malevolent’ (Thompson, 1991: 43), or
that ‘when it was fashionable to be a colonial racist, that’s what
he was’ (Grove, qtd in Smith, 2010: n.p.). Scholars are also critical
of the amount of animal cruelty in the story, with the represen-
tation of acts involving the blowing up of a rhino and poaching
(see Met, 1996).
The Adventures of Tintin is rightly considered one of the
most important BDs that inspired many later artists and writers.
Having observed how successful the Tintin stories were in Le
Petit Vingtième, other magazines followed suit. In 1938, Rob-
Vel created Spirou, a bellboy and the titular character of Spirou
magazine for Dupuis, one of the most successful BDs publishing
houses still operating. American imports were popular at the
time, but the Second World War made importing American
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comics increasingly difficult. Some Francophone artists used the
opportunity to continue stories from American superhero comics
while others, such as André Franquin, Peyo, and Albert Uderzo,
found a market for their original creations, launching them on
long and illustrious careers. This is not to say that American
comics did not find a healthy readership when their post-war
importation became possible. Nor does it deny that American
themes were not popular with French-speaking audiences. It is
no coincidence that Morris’ cowboy series Lucky Luke (launched
in 1946) has much in common with American Western comics.
But there is a distinct artistic style, brand of humour, and pub-
lication structure that governs BDs in ways that are not typical
in other countries. One of the most recognisable aspects is the
artistic style known as Ligne Claire. The term comes from Dutch
artist Joost Swarte (originally rendered Klare Lijn), first used
in 1977 (Miller, 2007: 18). The style ‘privileges smooth, con-
tinuous linework, simplified contours and bright, solid colours,
while avoiding frayed lines, exploded forms and expressionistic
rendering’ (Hatfield, 2005: 60). Ligne Claire is more than just an
artistic style: it carries tremendous iconic weight, thanks to its
associations with certain artists and publications. Bruno Lecigne
argues that ‘the ideological efficacy of the Ligne Claire lies not
in what is chosen for depiction, but in the idea that the world
is legible’ (Lecigne, qtd in Miller, 2007: 19). This manner of
representation remains in common usage in BDs, thereby con-
solidating its place as an iconic referent to BD in general.
As we saw in Chapter 2, moral panics surrounding the
reading of popular, low forms led to legislation to control youth
engagement with comics in the UK and the US in the 1950s.
Similar concerns were voiced in France and Belgium, although
Francophone artists also wanted to protect their own work by
trying to prevent American material to enter the market. As
Miller puts it, in France this led ‘the Communist Party to form
a temporary alliance with Catholic pressure groups in order to
draft a law aiming at the “protection” of young people’ (Miller,
2007: 19). The Loi du 16 Juillet 1949 sur les publications destinées
à la jeunesse (Law of 16 July 1949 on publications intended for
young people) prohibited
79

[t]‌
he publication of material destined for young people
which presents immoral or criminal behaviour in a positive
light, or which might otherwise demoralize young people.
It also prohibits the display of violent or licentious material,
whether or not it is intended for young people, in places
where minors might be exposed to it, thereby allowing for
censorship to be exercised over adult publications.
(Miller, 2007: 19)
As with the CCA regulations in North America, which came

five years later, this law was intended for the protection of young
readers. It effectively banned American comics, while at the
same time protecting Francophone artists. However, it also had
an unintended effect of hampering creativity, despite the fact that
the influential Pilote magazine, which featured René Goscinny
and Albert Uderzo’s Astérix as the central series, had appeared
in 1959, almost a decade earlier than the public protests of May
1968, which led to fundamental changes in the social and polit-
ical structures of France.
Pilote was aimed at teenagers and students and it was very
popular: the first issue sold 300,000 copies (Miller, 2007: 21). It
retained its popularity after the events of May 1968, though the
protests were central to the counter-culture movement and the
development of new, underground publications. The American
underground comix movement was influential in Europe, but
many of the new Francophone magazines were widely and
openly available, unlike their North American counterparts. For
example, Métal Hurlant (1974–1987) was a science fiction and
fantasy magazine, a vehicle for the exquisite artwork of Mœbius
and Druillet’s ‘visionary mysticism’ (Miller, 2007: 26). As Miller
writes, ‘in the work of Druillet, science fiction was not mere
escapism but took on a metaphysical dimension, influenced by
[horror writer H.P.] Lovecraft’ (2007: 26). Métal Hurlant, like its
Anglophone cousin 2000 AD, became a key text for 1970s and
1980s nerd culture, whose influence is still recognised in both
Comics and Science Fiction.
As in the case of the Anglophone graphic novel that became
more common, eventually cementing its place in popular
80

culture, the Francophone graphic novel pursued a similar trajec-
tory. The Belgian magazine (À Suivre), first published in 1977,
popularised Roman BD (novel BD) as a term for self-contained,
often more mature, narratives. In the 1990s, the BD received a
further impetus with its expansion of publication opportunities
as a large number of independent publishers sought to cash in
on its success. The most influential is L’Association, established
in 1990 by a small group that included artists Lewis Trondheim
and David B. The growth and general acceptance of independent
publishing led to a restructuring of both the production and
marketing of BDs, providing opportunities for previously under-
represented artists and characters. The contemporary BD, like its
international cousins, has become a diverse, nuanced, and cul-
turally specific form that has developed from a rich and complex
tradition of visual storytelling. A wide selection of BDs has been
translated or adapted into other languages, and the form con-
tinues to be an important component of Francophone artistic
and narrative identity.
Manga
As with other histories of Comics, it is impossible to precisely
determine the birth of Manga. Its history is hotly debated by
historians of Japan and Japanese culture, with writers divided into
roughly two camps. On one side, scholars such as Adam Kern and
Kinko Ito suggest that Manga in the modern sense is a continu-
ation of Japanese visual-cultural traditions that date back to the
Edo (1603–1867) and Meiji (1868–1912) periods or earlier. What
we think of as Proto-Manga dates back to twelfth-century painted
scrolls, especially Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga (literally ‘animal-
person
caricatures’), many of which contain some sort of narrative,
albeit without many of the expected features of modern Manga;
their relationship is similar to that of the modern Western comic
and the works of Hogarth, for example (see Chapter 2). The
other side of the argument suggests that Manga became a recog-
nisable form in Japan only during the Allied occupation (1945–
1952) and that the cultural imports of the US during this period
were the most important influences on the growth of what has
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become the modern Manga form. Although there are compel-
ling arguments on both sides, it is difficult to dismiss the large
numbers of early Manga that date from before 1945 and that dis-
play clear evidence of the residual influence form as it developed
as far back as the Edo period. Japanese journalist Kanta Ishida
discusses the work of Isao Takahata, who is most well-known as
the founder of anime production company Studio Ghibli. Ishida
suggests that ‘there is no connection between Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga
and contemporary Manga’; he accuses scholars of not treating
the scrolls as masterpieces in their own right and says they are
‘cubby-holed as just the origin of Manga’ (Ishida, qtd in Loo,
2008: n.p).
It may be unfair to treat these historical examples simply as
part of a myth of origins, yet seeing them as part of the wider
history of Manga should not diminish their importance in the
evolution of the form. Ito observes that:
Like any other form of visual art, literature, or entertain-

ment, Manga does not exist in a vacuum. It is immersed in a
particular social environment that includes history, language,
culture, politics, economy, family, religion, sex and gender,
education, deviance and crime, and demography. Manga thus
reflects the reality of Japanese society, along with the myths,
beliefs, rituals, tradition, fantasies, and Japanese way of life.
(2005: 456)
Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga is often cited as a precursor to Toba-e, printed

image in accordion-style books following the style of Bishop Toba
(Kern, 2006: 61). Often, the stories were localised and designed
to appeal to fans of a local celebrity or Kabuki actor, but they
clearly anticipate the style of Manga and should be labelled proto-
Manga. But regardless of whether or not we accept the earliest
scrolls as being a part of that history, there are clear proto-comics
that appeared in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth cen-
turies, including links to Kamishibai, a form of street performance
(see Nash 2009), and Kibyoshi, picture books from the eighteenth
century (see Kern 2006). The term Manga was popularised with
the publication of the Hokusai Manga (published 1814–1878).
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The Hokusai Manga is not a Manga in the modern sense of the
word. Katsushika Hokusai is perhaps more famous, in the West,
at least, for his woodblock print ‘The Great Wave off Kanagawa’
(c. 1833). His Manga comprises a collection of sketches and
drawings akin to an archive of reference material. It contains
no discernible narrative, though some pages can be read as very
short narratives of movement (as in Figure 3.3, which shows a
visual guide to self-defence techniques). It is Hokusai who is
credited with coining the word Manga, though he is not the
inventor of the form itself (Koyama-Richard, 2007: 64). He is,
however, to be credited with increasing its popularity and reach.
The impetus for the entry of Manga into the mainstream in
Japan is very similar to that which took place in the West: its
appearance in newspapers. Anglophone expatriates in Japan had
imported illustrated magazines, such as Punch, and comic strip
Figure 3.3
Image from The Hokusai Manga by Katsushika Hokusai
(1760–1849) CC BY-SA 3.0.
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supplements began to appear in Japanese newspapers by the end
of the 1890s. In 1900, the Jiji Shinpō newspaper that launched the
Jiji Manga was also the newspaper that printed the first modern
Japanese comic strip, by Rakuten Kitazawa, beginning in 1902
(Gravett, 2004: 21). The popularity of Manga increased, and by
the 1930s, monthly magazines that collected comic strips for both
girls and boys were selling in large numbers (see Schodt, 1996).
The growth in both popularity and diversity of Manga available
was hampered by the Second World War and the Allied occupa-
tion of Japan. Although the occupation put in place a strict set
of censorship policies, these did not cover Manga, and the post-
war period saw a blossoming in creativity that led to the launch
of two of the most successful Manga series of all time: Sazae-san
(which literally means ‘Ms Sazae’, created in 1946 by Machiko
Hasegawa) and Mighty Atom (Astro Boy in English translation,
created in 1951 by Osamu Tezuka).
Sazae-san and Mighty Atom may appear to be very different
characters and, in many ways, they are. Sazae-san is a strong
female character, described by psychoanalyst Hayao Kawai as a
‘woman of endurance’ (1996: 125). She stands against the fem-
inine ideal which had been ingrained in many by the Japanese
imperial military regime, and the character subverted many cul-
tural taboos. Mighty Atom, in contrast, is a naïve little boy (and
super powered android) who, after being abandoned by his cre-
ator, is adopted by Professor Ochanomizu, and the pair then goes
on adventures together. Despite their differences, Sazae-san and
Mighty Atom are both narratives about family and the importance
of affiliation in mid-twentieth century Japan, and both exerted
an undeniable impact on the future of Manga. Since their first
creations in the late 1940s and 1950s, they have sold 62 million
and 100 million copies respectively. It is important to note that,
like Anglophone comics of the period, Manga in the 1950s and
1960s appealed to all ages and genders, and the two most popular
and profitable market genres of Manga are Shōjo (aimed at girls)
and Shōnen (aimed at boys).
Since 1969, with the début of the ‘Year 24 Group’, a group
of female artists who were all born around 1949, Shōjo has
been drawn primarily by women artists. The group included
84

award-winning artists such as Hagio Moto who was also known
as ‘the founding mother of modern Shōjo’, Riyoko Ikeda, and
Ryoko Yamagishi (Thorn, 2001: n.p). This new group of
creators often told stories of strong, independent women who
defied Neo-Confucianist gender roles (Yoshizumi, 1995). One
such Manga is Riyoko Ikeda’s 1971 Berusaiyu no Bara (The Rose
of Versailles), in which a cross- dressing woman leads Marie
Antoinette’s personal guard. Shōjo focuses not only on the
experiences of female characters, but also on their emotions and
feelings. In order to represent these emotional lives effectively,
this Manga employs borderless panels and complex, beautifully
designed images, referring to them as ‘picture poems’ (1986: 88).
There are many subgenres within Shōjo, including romance
(Redisu), superheroines (Redikomi) and ‘Ladies Comics’ (Josei),
and many of them overlap (Ōgi, 2004: 782).
Modern Shōjo is often concerned with love and romance,
and these themes are usually paired with narratives of personal
growth and ‘coming of age’. According to Eri Izawa, ‘the
Japanese are romantic –imaginative, sentimental, individualistic,
passionate’ and romance ‘symbolizes the emotional, the grand,
the epic: the taste of heroism, fantastic adventure, and the mel-
ancholy; passionate love, personal struggle, and eternal longing’
(2000: 138). Many of these qualities are found in Yaoi (also known
as boys’ love), a subgenre of Shōjo that features sexual relationships
between male characters (typically teenagers), written by and
for women. Yaoi developed from fan and dōjinshi cultures (see
Chapter 4). It is a portmanteau of yamanashi ochinashi iminashi (no
climax, no point, no meaning) and was first used in the 1970s.
Enthusiasts would redraw their favourite characters in sexually
explicit situations as a type of reader engagement.
Manga aimed at male readers is as diverse as that for female
readers, with variants including Shōnen (for boys) and Seinen
(for young men). Shōnen in the 1950s centred on science fiction
and adventure stories, but superheroes were not popular. While
war comics flourished in the Anglosphere, especially those that
focussed on the Second World War, this theme did not trans-
late easily into Manga because they could be seen as glorifying
Imperial Japan. That said, fantasy and historical adventure stories
85

were, and remain, very popular, as are those that feature martial
arts, quests, and the supernatural. Shōnen and Seinen account for
the majority of the most successful Manga series, as rated by sales
numbers. The most successful to date is One Piece by Eiichiro
Oda (1997–present), which has sold 462 million copies to date.
The series follows Monkey Luffy, a young man who wants to be
a pirate and so assembles his own crew of monsters and colourful
characters. A number of other popular series are tied to anime
(animated television) series: examples include Naruto (1999–
2014), Dragon Ball (1984–1995), and Attack on Titan (2009–
present). The impact of these comic magazines on Japanese
culture generally cannot be underestimated; as Kinko Ito writes:
A total of 278 comic magazines were published in 1998,

for example, and the estimated number of copies published
was 1,472,780,000 (Ito, ‘The World’). Manga is read by all
people in Japan, ubiquitous in a society that boasts one of the
highest literacy rates in the world. Manga affects behaviour
and social trends by creating booms in sports and hobbies in
Japan. Some criminals testified in court that they got their
ideas from Manga.
(2005: 473)
The use of Manga as a means for providing new models of crim-

inal enterprise may be empirically questionable, but Ito is clear
that the form itself is central both to Japanese cultural engage-
ment and to national identity, a statement that does not hold
for most Anglophone traditions. The cross-fertilisation of other
traditions with Manga has led to a number of what we may call
‘fusion’ publications, such as La Nouvelle Manga or the Franga
movement in France, Spaghetti Manga in Italy and ‘Amerimanga’
in the US (Zanettin, 2008: 5).
Manga are published in a range of formats. Typically, a series
will begin in an anthology magazine alongside other series. These
magazines are colloquially known as ‘phone books’ and contain
between 200 and 800 pages. When a series has proved successful,
it will be printed as Tankōbon, roughly equivalent to a graphic
novel. Internationally, many Manga are available as ‘scanlation’, a
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portmanteau of ‘scan’ and ‘translation’ that refers to ‘the practice
of domesticating Manga for free digital distribution without the
legal right to do so’ (Brienza, 2016: n.p.). In her study of Manga
as an international phenomenon, Casey Brienza explains that,
[D]‌ue to their particular skill set, many people now working

in the industry […] were themselves former scanlators. In
spite of that, from the publishing industry’s perspective,
scanlations are blatant digital piracy, and since the economic
downturn of 2008, views on scanlations have hardened
considerably.
(2016: n.p.)
Scanlations circulate on the internet, on image-based websites,

or are accessible as downloadable files. The history of scanlation
distribution began with the translation of Manga scripts, and
although separate from the Manga itself, the two would be read
alongside each other. Early scanlations were distributed among
enthusiasts through postal mail, and with the rise of the internet
and free websites (such as Geocities), scanlations moved online.
In the twenty- first century, most scanlations are ‘distributed
to readers through platforms such as IRC, and BitTorrent and
various sites index and aggregate large numbers of scanlated
works’ (Brienza, 2016: n.p.). This is a collaborative activity, with
large groups of individuals working on each text, often commu-
nicating with other groups or belonging to several groups sim-
ultaneously. Each group will organise its own labour structures,
and the leadership or management structures may be unique to
each group.
In ethical terms, scanlation is problematic in that, strictly
speaking, it involves copyright violation and is therefore illegal.
Even so, there are many good arguments for the original authors
for permitting it. Douglass, Huber, and Manovich claim that high
levels of interest and enthusiasm, paired with slow and drawn out
delays with official translation, is the reason for the creation and
rapid growth of scanlation groups. Many scanlators and scholars
of the form highlight the altruistic and community nature of
the groups, although Donovan has suggested that the primary
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objective of all scanlators is simply self-promotion (2010: 13). In
2010, a legal action was taken against scanlation and Calvin Reid
has observed that
Many manga publishers and retailers who used to believe

that scanlations actually attracted new readers, now blame
the sales decline on the rise of giant for-profit scanlation
sites that have allowed a new generation of fans to grow up
reading manga for free online.
(Reid, 2010: n.p.)
It is true that the practice and sharing of scanlation did allow a

wider readership of Manga to develop, especially in countries and
languages where official translations were not available, or where
communities of enthusiasts were very small. Nor, according to
Reid, did translation into other languages result in the decline
of scanlation versions of Manga as had originally been thought
(Reid, 2010). Without the kind of sharing involved in scanlation,
one might argue that international interest in Manga may not
have developed to anywhere near the extent that it has. However,
this does not obscure the fact that scanlation remains technically
illegal. Even so, while scanlation is still available freely online,
the responsibility rests with the readers to decide for themselves
whether they wish to access these sites.
Smaller national comics traditions

Manga circulate widely and are now, along with their offshoots, a
truly global form, but there also exist a number of much smaller,
national comics forms. For example, Italian-language comics called
‘Fumetti’, which literally means ‘little smoke puffs’, a reference to
speech bubbles, are a rich and thriving industry, containing both
translations and original language material. The first Italian comics
appeared on newsstands in 1908, with the launch of Il Corriere dei
Piccoli (Courier of the Little Ones), a comics magazine aimed at
children. The magazine featured a mixture of original material and
translated reprints. One original character is Bilbolbul, created by
Attilio Mussino, a little boy who was perhaps the first Italian Comics
88

character. In addition, many American strips were imported into
Italy and ‘Italianised’: for example, The Katzenjammer Kids became
Bibì e Bibò, and Felix the Cat became Mio Mao.
As with many other European countries, the Second World
War caused a marked shift in the availability of imported material
and the way that Comics was used locally. The Italian fascist
regime had already harnessed the potential of the form for propa-
ganda through the creation of ‘educational’ comics for young
people, notably Il Giornale dei Balilla (1923) and La Piccola Italiana
(1927). The prohibition of foreign comics between 1939 and
1945 resulted in some publishers simply changing the names of
characters to disguise their origins, while some developed their
own versions of a known character, as is the case of Topolino
(Mickey Mouse’s Italian double), published in Italy until 1988.
Since the late 1940s, the majority of comics in Italy have
been printed in ‘Bonelliano’ format, a term named after the
publisher that developed the style. These are bound books
containing one complete story of over 100 pages, drawn in
black-and-white artwork. In the 1970s and 1980s, the under-
ground comics movement centred in Bologna. Italian artists
were heavily influenced by the American comix movement
and, as with other countercultural comix movements, this
gave them the freedom to experiment with artistic styles and
themes. Of those Italian comics read internationally, one of the
most famous is Corto Maltese (1967–1989), created by Hugo
Pratt. Maltese is a dashing sea captain, living in the early twen-
tieth century, whose adventures cover a large geographic area
and include meetings with historical figures like the Western
outlaw Butch Cassidy and the First World War German flying
ace the Red Baron. Simone Castaldi writes that the move
from newsstand to bookshop has led to ‘a few new bestselling
authors such as Gipi, Francesca Ghermandi, and Zerocalcare,
[…] providing a chance for national revitalisation of the form’
(2017: 83).
Comics in Spain emerged in the late nineteenth century,
with popular satirical magazines, like La Flaca (1869–1876) or El
Mundo Cómico (1873). The most influential comic in the history
of Hispanic comics is TBO, a magazine published from 1917
89

to 1998. TBO published both local and imported strips, mostly
aimed at children, and many of them featured slapstick humour.
Castaldi notes that
[T]‌he magazine’s name has become so synonymous with the

form that to this day, comics are referred to in Spain as either
‘Historietas’ or ‘Tebeos’ –the latter a play on the acronym
TBO, which sounds like the Spanish ‘te veo’ or ‘I see you’.
(2017: 83)
As with the Mussolini dictatorship in pre-war Italy, censorship

during the Franco regime in Spain was very strict. Superhero
stories were prohibited, and local comics used historical fig-
ures instead. Medieval heroes were especially popular, such as
El Guerrero del Antifaz (The Masked Warrior) created by Manuel
Gago in 1944 and Capitán Trueno, created by Víctor Mora and
Miguel Ambrosio Zaragoza in 1956. Many scholars consider this
to be a high point in the history of Spanish Comics (see Porcel,
2002; Merino, 2003). A distinctive style emerged, which took
its inspiration from Franco-Belgian authors such as Franquin,
published by Editorial Bruguera. The most popular comic at
the time was Mortadelo y Filemón, created in 1958 by Francisco
Ibáñez Talavera. The main characters were stupid, mismatched
private investigators, later secret agents, who routinely fail at
every assignment in a slapstick and overtly cartoonish manner.
Censorship restrictions continued to tighten through the
1960s and the Spanish local industry has not been buoyant
since magazines began to close in the 1970s. However, there
have been some attempts to regenerate local industry to support
Hispanophone creators. Since 1989, Barcelona has hosted an
annual Comics convention and, in 2007, the Spanish Ministry of
Culture launched El Premio Nacional del Cómic (National Comic
Award) to support Spanish creators and thus reinvigorated the
local industry.
Internationally, comics industries did not always follow similar
growth trajectories, appearing first on newsstands and in satir-
ical publications as they had done according to Western his-
tories. The reasons for this are many, but they generally hinge
90

on localised attitudes towards Comics literacy rates and avail-
ability of publication outlets. This is not to say that comics were
not conspicuous outside Europe and North America; rather, the
ways in which they came into existence does not always follow
the dominant model discussed. It is true that, as we have already
seen, the history of forms like Manga followed a pattern similar
to that which prevailed in the West, but this is not necessarily
typical. Indeed, many emerging economies have developed and
are developing their own Comics industries and their own dis-
tinctive model of publication, and their histories are markedly
different from the model described earlier in Chapter 2 and else-
where in this chapter.
India provides an excellent example of just such an emer-
ging model. The local Indian market was not established until
1964, with the launch of Indrajal Comics, a magazine published
by the English-language newspaper The Times of India. Even so,
the magazine did not include original material, but reprints of
The Phantom (by Lee Falk, originally published in the US in the
1930s) and Flash Gordon with some aspects made more suitable
for a local audience. Because Indrajal Comics was published in
English, the majority of the population was not able to access it,
following the language barrier (approximately only 12% of the
population spoke English). Translations of American strips began
to appear in the late 1950s, and were very popular, especially
with younger readers.
In the 1960s, comics that were both written and produced
in India for a primarily Indian market started to be published.
The first Indian superhero, Batul the Great, began publica-
tion in 1962 in the magazine Shuktara. The character Batul was
successful, influenced both by a famous Bengali bodybuilder and
also Desperate Dan (from the Scottish publication The Dandy).
He was a muscular, all-powerful figure who could lift anything,
and he was indestructible. The most famous Indian comics of the
period was Amar Chitra Katha (ACK, literally ‘immortal picture
stories’), created by Anant Pai in 1967. A potentially apocryphal
story about the company’s founding states that Pai wanted to
help Indian children connect with their heritage after learning
91

that many students were well-versed in Greek and Roman myth-
ologies but unaware of Indian mythologies and folklore (Babb
and Wadley, 1998: 76–86). Pai’s aim was threefold: to give Indian
children a sense of their own heritage, to counter traditional
colonial teaching that privileged Greek and Roman history,
and to introduce students to the narratives of Indian history and
mythology. Since the late 1960s, ACK has become one of the
most successful publishers of comics in India, with adaptations
of Indian mythological narratives, folklore, and religious texts, all
aimed at young readers. The artwork is reminiscent of devotional
images of Hindu deities, making it instantly recognisable and
conferring a level of respectability and seriousness upon it that
will guarantee its respectability. By the 1970s, Indian publishers
began to create local versions of American superheroes, and that
market remained relatively buoyant until the late 1990s, when
it was overtaken by the rise of video games and the internet.
Jeremy Stoll writes that ‘with the arrival of liberalisation in 1991,
the Indian economy was integrated into the global one, resulting
in an overall shift to consumerism and greater international com-
petition. Simultaneously, readers and creators had greater access
to foreign media’ (2017: 92).
Since the year 2000, the Indian Comics community has
shifted from national publications to regional and small-press
publications, but a number of creators has become internation-
ally successful with their graphic novels. Amruta Patil’s Kari,
published in 2008, is a landmark text that demonstrates not only
skilful use of the form but also contains innovation of storytelling
and LGBT+ characters, previously relatively unrepresented in
Indian comics. Other texts, such as This Side, That Side (edited
by Vishwajyoti Ghosh and published in 2013), reframe complex
and traumatic periods of Indian history, such as the 1947 division
of the former British Indian Empire into the Union of India
and the Dominion of Pakistan (commonly known as ‘Partition’),
in an accessible, effective, and rejuvenated form. In addition to
being a popular market for graphic novels, India welcomed web
comics, largely due to their ease of creation and dissemination.
They are easily spread through social media, and many artists
92

use them to educate younger readers on socially and politically
charged topics such as feminism, domestic abuse, and voter rights
(see section on ‘Web comics’ in Chapter 1).
This chapter and the preceding one have both shown how the
histories of Comics are intertwined with histories of printing,
political comment, censorship, and literacy. Furthermore, the
histories and traditions of different countries intersect through
conflict, occupation, and colonialism. The final country I discuss
in this chapter offers a clear demonstration of the intersection
of all these issues: the Republic of Korea. Korean comics are
called Manhwa (만화 or 漫畵), which bears a linguistic simi-
larity to the Japanese name. Between 1910 and 1945, Korea was
occupied by Japan, and many elements of Japanese popular cul-
ture were integrated into Korean society. Political cartooning
and comics had been published during the 1900s but most of
these publications had been censored or shut down completely
by 1920 (Russell, 2012). The term Manhwa came into common
usage in the 1920s, referring specifically to children’s comics.
As with other countries, the Second World War affected
the transmission of published material both internationally and
within national borders. By 1948, the newly formed Republic
of Korea began to establish new press outlets, and this created
new opportunities for political cartooning and comics in gen-
eral; the first Korean comic was started in 1948 by Kim Yong-
Hwan but was quickly closed, because it infringed obscenity
regulations (Kim and Choe, 2014). Manhwa has struggled to be
seen as distinct from Manga, especially in Western markets, where
it is often published alongside Japanese language publications.
However, this close cultural tie between the two traditions may
have been to the benefit of Korean artists, Manhwabang, who
were not culturally isolated, as others may have been, in small
artistic communities. Instead, the cultural and artistic exchange
between Japan and Korea helped to build up the small market
and provide opportunities for Korean artists beyond the reader-
ship of their home country.
93
4
Cultures and commodities
The thing itself

Comics as a material ‘thing’ has a history that is bound up in
production, publication, audience, fandom, and readership in a
way that is unique, and paying attention to this can completely
change the way we engage with and understand the form. As
I suggested briefly in Chapter 2, the production and publica-
tion processes for Comics are different from most other types of
book. Text-based literature (what we may call ‘traditional book
publishing’ or ‘the bookseller model’) is sold primarily through
publishing houses which offer contracts to authors, buy the rights
to publish a text, and pay the author in advances and royalties. In
recent years, this traditional model has been modified since self-
publishing has gradually increased in popularity. Many comics are
self-published by individual creators and then sold at conventions
or online. The dominant model in mainstream comics is called
the ‘direct market’, which emerged in the 1970s and was largely
defined by the fact that retailers could not return unsold stock.
As outlets were buying ‘direct’ from the publishers, the comics
arrived quicker and in better condition. However, retailers also
had to judge how many copies they were likely to sell, and over-
estimation could be very costly. This label, however, is no longer
strictly accurate since there is now a single distributor, Diamond
Comics Distributors, that dominates the market, although the
model remains the same. Developments in e-book technolo-
gies and the rise of the internet have led to changes in web
94
94 Cultures and commodities

publishing and digital distribution methods for comics. One
example is ComiXology, probably the biggest digital distribu-
tion platform, which launched in 2013. Since then, this platform
claims they have logged 200 million downloads and currently
hosts more than 100,000 individual comics, and in June 2018,
they launched ComiXology Originals, which facilitated a variant
of self-publishing. All these mean that comics libraries can be
entirely digital.
The comic book is a media artefact unlike others, and what
has grown up around it is a rich and diverse network of phys-
ical and virtual spaces, practices, and communities that regularly
come together to create the wider culture of Comics. ‘Geek cul-
ture’, as it is now called, does not begin and end with the comic
book shop, but it now extends to incorporate conventions and
online communities of enthusiasts, as well as permitting produc-
tion of artefacts generated by readers themselves that include
artwork, fan fiction, and cosplay (where participants dress as
their favourite characters), extending to engagements with the
creation process itself. In addition, we need to remember that
Comics culture often intersects with other narrative forms and
fan activities, including film and television, gaming, and role-
play. This chapter will outline some of the key issues in the cul-
ture of Comics as a wider phenomenon and will consider what
all this means for both creator and consumer and how these issues
relate to the study of Comics.
Fan/geek/nerd/dork/other?
It is important to define the concept of fandom and to under-
stand the complex social structures and nuances of fan communi-
ties. What does it mean to refer to somebody as a fan? In his book
Understanding Fandom, Mark Duffett traces the use of the word
‘fan’ back to the late seventeenth century, ‘where it was a common
abbreviation for “fanatic” (a religious zealot)’ (2013: 5). He goes
on to remind us that ‘it is easy to make swift generalizations and
say that prototypical forms of fandom therefore never existed in
earlier times. That would, however, mistake the invention of the
label for the beginning of the phenomenon’ (2013: 5). There
95
Cultures and commodities 95

have been enthusiastic followers of celebrities, writers, actors,
and even religious figures, for centuries. A fan is not, however, a
person who is simply fond of something. Harrington and Bielby
claim that ‘being a fan requires not only participation in activities
but the adoption of a particular identity that is shaped through
subjective and affective experiences’ (1995: 97). The adoption
of a fan identity is one of the reasons that the modern usage
of the word is accompanied by connotations that are specific
and generally negative. In her article on fandom as pathology,
Joli Jensen writes that ‘the literature on fandom is haunted by
images of deviance’ and she describes two characterisations of
fans: the obsessed loner and the member of a hysterical crowd
(1992: 9, 13). It would be more accurate to think of these as
stereotypes because, by and large, they do not represent fandom.
Of course, there are those in all kinds of fan communities whose
interests border on obsession and there are also situations where
large groups of fans, mainly young women, who may become
‘hysterical’. However, this term is often used to describe any
crowd. I will return to the issue of gender bias in fandoms later
in this chapter. Generally speaking, fandom has been defined by
some as ‘a form of psychological compensation, an attempt to
make up for all that modern life lacks’ (Jensen, 1992: 16). Such
definitions of this kind are both insulting and patently incor-
rect. Fan communities include a range of genders who engage in
various kinds of production and consumption, who offer mutual
support to their members, and who, most importantly, seek to
enjoy themselves.
Of course, not all fandoms are created equal. We do not
talk of the ‘Opera Fandom’ or the ‘High Modernist Literature
Fandom’. It is perfectly acceptable to be enthusiastically devoted
to such things, and in possession of an encyclopaedic subject
knowledge, but these are examples of the so-called ‘high art’,
and we may be more likely to hear the term ‘aficionado’ than
‘fan’ applied to such enthusiasts. As Jensen points out, ‘the obses-
sion of a fan is deemed emotional (low class, uneducated), and
therefore dangerous, while the obsession of the aficionado is
rational (high class, educated) and therefore benign, even worthy’
(1992: 21). It is the difference here between cultural approval
96

and an activity that attracts a degree of stigmatisation. Paul Lopes
quotes Goffman’s seminal study of stigma, which argues that ‘a
stigmatized person’s social identity is discredited by the power
of a single attribute, such as being visually impaired or a drug
user’ (2006: 387). Lopes makes the point, however, that ‘not all
fandom is stigmatized […] It is the fandom of low-status popular
culture that normals [a commonly used to term to distinguish
fans and non-fans] view as problematic’ (2006: 396). Moreover,
fandom is often far more stigmatised than the artefact to which
it is attracted: ‘Trekkies are stigmatized, not the television show
Star Trek and its offshoots’ (Lopes, 2006: 396). According to
‘the Geek Hierarchy’, a sprawling, multi-directional flowchart
created by Lore Sjöberg in 2002, there is always someone lower
on the ‘geek food chain’. However, much of this classification
occurs within the community itself, and such hierarchies change
when seen through the eyes of ‘normals’.
Those who engage in ‘low art’ are classed very differently and
‘the comic book becomes a sign of the asocial and obsessive indi-
vidual, the geek or the dork’ (Lopes, 2006: 407). It is amusing
to observe the strange semantic contortions that some people go
through to justify their interest in comics. One such example
comes from a review of Marjane Satrapi’s award-winning comics
memoir Persepolis (2000) in The Nation. Here the reviewer begins
by claiming defensively that, ‘it has never been a habit of mine
to read comics books,’ but she then adds that she was surprised
she enjoyed the book, and was even further surprised to find it
to be so beautifully crafted (Wolk, 2007: 13). ‘Serious’ literary
journalists, it would appear, do not regularly read comics and
certainly not without carefully justifying themselves. Entry into
the domain of Comics requires caution both because it is gen-
erally regarded as a low cultural form, but also because the kind
of fandom it is perceived as attracting is both socially stigmatised
and associated with deficient personality traits. Representative
characterisations that appear in the parallel domain of popular
film include the figure of Elijah Price in Unbreakable (2000), a
comic book dealer and wheelchair user, who also perpetrates
hideous acts of terrorism. Another example is comic book writer
Holden McNeil in Chasing Amy (1997), whose actions are both
97

predatory and homophobic. Such examples consistently portray
comics fans negatively, and this contributes to a general percep-
tion of their common identity.
But who are these geeky, dorky, obsessive fans? What does a
comics fan look like? When we conjure up a mental image of a
‘comic book fan’, the image that comes to mind is, perhaps, the
obese, odious ‘Comic Book Guy’ from the long-running televi-
sion show The Simpsons (1989–present) or the comics-devouring
scientists of The Big Bang Theory (2007–2019). The ‘typical fan’
image may include certain clothing, levels of personal hygiene,
tattoos, or body type, and it is likely that this imaginary person
will be both white and male. Many of the fan characters we see in
popular culture exhibit all these traits, along with social awkward-
ness and ineptitude in romantic matters; in fact, comics and the
accompanying paraphernalia are often used as visual shorthand
to denote these character traits. With this as the ‘typical’ image
of a fan, both the issues of media representation and the stigma
of fandom participation are clear. There is, however, a wider
problem with this kind of representation. This image of fandom
is largely applied to mainstream comics fans, as opposed to those
who read mainly graphic novels or international publications,
including Manga. But even then, ‘typical’ does not mean ‘accurate’
because most fans do not fit this stereotype. There are many levels
of perception at play here, and the term ‘geek’ has become ‘a
common pejorative used within the subculture of comic books
as a self-identification of fans as failures in the eyes of normals’
(Lopes, 2006: 406). Clear and comprehensive statistics on comics
readership are difficult to obtain for several reasons. As we have
already seen, what constitutes a comic includes a variety of
published forms, ranging from the bound book to the disposable
magazine to digital content. Some people are regular readers,
and some are occasional readers. The statistics that are available
tend to focus on specific types or genres of comics, and they rely
on either geographical determination, or on participants’ self-
identification. Figure 4.1 shows statistics on the purchases of over
70,000 people in the US that draw on information from book
shops and comics-specific shops, in addition to internet purchases
(Alverson, 2018: n.p.). What is immediately evident is that the
98
Figure 4.1
Statistics on comics readership, from NPD BookScan (2018).
majority of comics are bought by men, although the number

is not substantial. Similarly, while most readers are white, there
is solid representation from other ethnic groups. Most readers
are young –under the age of thirty –but this statistic may be
slightly skewed by the number of items purchased by individuals.
For example, if a teenager buys five floppies (thirty-two-page,
99

single-issue comics) for every single graphic novel bought by a
forty-year-old, the statistics will be affected. When we examine
the statistics in more detail by looking at specific genres of
comics, we can notice the reader demographics change across
both gender and race. When we compare Manga and mainstream
sales, Manga is read (or at least purchased) by more women and
people of colour than mainstream comics. This is the case with all
comics, including graphic novels and international publications.
The stereotypical image of the reader is not borne out by these
statistics since readers of comics are as diverse as enthusiasts of
any other narrative form. These statistics give a general overview
of one of the largest book markets but are not complete since
the focus is Anglocentric and does not consider the international
consumer base (see Chapter 3).
Web comics pose a problem for statistics, as gathering methods
rely on either web traffic, which does not take into consider-
ation return visits, or self-identification, which some readers may
resist. In addition, some individual web comics are hosted on
several different websites, with no single ‘publisher’. We do have
statistics for one web comics portal, and this can provide a par-
tial view. WEBTOON is the largest publisher of web comics in
the world. In 2019, they reported viewing figures of 100 billion
annually and over 15 million readers daily (Estlund, 2019). The
platform hosts more than 1 million different titles from over
500,000 creators and is available both as a website and through a
free mobile app. Each individual post includes a message board
and options that allow for sharing across social media since a
built-in community is an integral part of the platform. Perhaps
most radically, in 2016 WEBTOON released a report which
stated that 50% of their daily readers identified as female and 48%
of comics uploaded featured female lead characters (MacDonald,
2016). There are several reasons for this apparent equality of
gender representation. The most obvious reason is economic in
that the access to content is free and includes the posting of new
content on the site. As we will discuss in due course, the eco-
nomic considerations of comics creation are of utmost import-
ance to publishers, though this may not be fully reflected in the
wishes or the enthusiasm of fans. As we saw in Chapter 1, web
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comics offer an opportunity for otherwise under-represented
groups to create their own stories, and the statistics certainly bear
this out. The freedom of the internet means that web comics
(and digital comics) can tell stories that are not given space in
the print realm.
Though some subforms of Comics, such as web comics, are
making good strides in diverse representation, this is not the case
in all areas. Before moving on to discuss the consumption spaces
and different types of fan creation associated with Comics, we
should pause to consider a controversy that has recently arisen
within the American mainstream that has ramifications for fan
engagement with the industry and fan interactions with each
other in online spaces that affects the diversity of both artists
and the representation of characters. The debate is known as
‘Comicsgate’ and has been described as a ‘response to comic
publishers’, creators’, and commentators’ push for more repre-
sentative titles [in which] white comics fans have harassed and
boycotted said titles in the name of some kind of dated comics
purity’ (Passmore, 2019: 12). There had been rumblings within
the mainstream fandom for some time as publishers introduced
more female and minority ethnic characters. The 2016 release of
Mockingbird by Chelsea Cain and Joëlle Jones became a focus of
contention for many fans, as Cain wrote the female superhero
in order to provide an explicit critique of many of the sexist and
outdated aspects of the depiction of the superhero and accom-
panying tropes. The series was cancelled after eight issues, but the
eighth featured a cover image of Mockingbird (Barbara ‘Bobbi’
Morse) in a t-shirt that read ‘Ask me about my feminist agenda’,
and this image became emblematic of the main focus of dissatis-
faction in Comicsgate.
However, in 2017 the debate resurfaced after a Twitter post by
Marvel editor Heather Antos who posted a photograph of herself
and other female Marvel colleagues enjoying a milkshake to cele-
brate their recently deceased colleague and long-standing Marvel
employee Flo Steinberg (2017: n.p.). In response to this innocuous
tweet, ‘the women received scores of online abuse, calling them
“fake geek girls”, “social justice warriors”, “virtue signallers”,
and they were accused of ruining the comics industry with their
101

very presence’ (Austin, 2019: 38). More worryingly, some of
the women received rape or death threats or were ‘doxxed’ (a
term used to describe the release of personal information online
without the owner’s consent). The campaign of abuse was headed
by several male fans, using online resources including Twitter and
4chan to spread their message. The central thrust of their argu-
ment was that the original mainstream comics were not political
at all and they claimed that these ‘new hires’ were making Comics
too political. A brief glance at the cover of Captain America #1,
in which Hitler is punched in the face, suggests that this claim
is risible. Comics scholar Martin Lund suggests that this claim is
indicative of ‘the profound ignorance that the movement is based
on’ (2019: n.p.), and he goes on to suggest that the debate arose
because of ‘the general aversion to change that the genre is built
upon and that is exacerbated by the demands to stick to formula
that indefinite serial publication fosters’ (n.p.).
This debate may appear to be little more than a group of
hyper-committed fans refusing to adapt to the changes within
the form as it engages with unavoidable cultural pressures. Their
fan association with an existing community has been taken to the
extreme in meeting change with hostility, demonstrating their
reactionary claims of entitlement to, and ownership of, comics
and characters (Austin, 2019). Hailey Austin describes the overt
misogyny and racism that had prevailed of the Comicsgate
debate: ‘Women and minority groups can’t be part of these com-
munities because even thinking about them as participants breaks
the image of the geek as solitary, disliked male’ (39). Rather than
positively embracing new readers for the industry, thereby pro-
moting its continuation and ongoing development, these fans
have taken an opposite view and regard the perceived failures of
the industry as ‘a direct result of hiring diverse talent and that
[these people] need to be driven out’ (Austin, 2019: 39). Their
identity is threatened by what they perceive as an impending
marginalisation, and they are reluctant to reconfigure their
common identity in the light of the interests of new fans and
new types of engagement.
The issues of Comicsgate extend beyond those who were dir-
ectly confronted by campaigners. Very few Marvel employees
102

spoke up in support of the artists and editors under attack but
despite the critical acclaim that Mockingbird had accrued, it was
cancelled in what might be regarded by some as a placation of the
conservative bullying that became characteristic of Comicsgate.
Proctor and Kies refer to such fan behaviour as ‘toxic fan practices’
(2018) which, they suggest, can take on a number of different
forms, ranging from outright harassment including threats of
violence or doxxing, to gatekeeping (blocking community entry
to those not considered ‘true fans’) and the creation of a gener-
ally unpleasant environment. Comicsgate is the visible dimension
of a deep-rooted campaign of misogyny, racism, and ableism (dis-
crimination against people with disabilities) that pervades many
fan cultures. This example is one that explicitly affects American
mainstream Comics, one that has tightly controlled production
practices and clearly defined fandoms. However, what is rele-
vant to the American mainstream is not necessarily relevant to all
areas of Comics. Still, it is one of the largest organisations within
the domain of Comics and one that is internationally influential.
Furthermore, Comicsgate is presented here as a case study of
how fandom can create toxicity and lead to serious consequences
for those involved in different aspects of industry, particularly at
the level of the creation of pictorial representations, as well as
to show how fan engagement can significantly affect industry
decisions. This is, of course, not to suggest that all fan communi-
ties and cultures have this unsavoury discursive substructure that
can exclude a large proportion of potential fans. It is, nonethe-
less, a phenomenon which can affect both the internal politics of
a group and its public reception.
Consumption spaces
In what is now effectively the hyper- capitalist marketplace,
comics are products that fans consume. Sandvoss writes, ‘Given
that fandom at its core remains a form of spectatorship, fan places
are places of consumption’ (2005: 53). Although ‘spectatorship’
is not always synonymous with ‘consumption’, in the case of
purchasers of comics, their consumption includes not only both
reading and interpreting the physical or electronic object, but
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also purchasing related media and merchandise. This activity
is especially true of fans of mainstream comics, although the
practice extends to popular sports and is a major source of
income. In this section, we will focus on the communities that
are constructed as sites of consumerism. In his book Of Comics
and Men: A Cultural History of American Comic Books, Jean-Paul
Gabilliet charts the rise (and fall) of comic book shops within
the US (Gabilliet, 2010: 152). He notes a steady rise throughout
the 1980s; less than 1,000 in 1981 growing to over 3,000 by
1985. These shops were responsible for 50% of all comics sales.
Figures for 1992 show that the early 1990s were the peak for
comics shops, with over 8,000 across the US, whereas by 2000,
the number had dropped to 2,300. According to the statistics
from Publishers Weekly in 2018, there were around 2,000 shops
in the US (O’Leary, 2018: n.p.). Unlike many other specialist
retailers, the comic book shop is not simply a place to purchase
items, but an important gathering space for the community of
fans. Matthew Pustz writes:
The comic book shop is also a clubhouse, a place for dis-

cussion and debate. It is a kind of ‘third place’, somewhere
that is neither home nor work but also somewhere one feels
welcome and comfortable. Of course, fans have to establish
their credentials to become part of the group […] Because
of this, comic book shops have had the reputation of being
exclusively for fans and not that friendly to outsiders who
weren’t able to establish their fan credentials.
(2017: 271–272)
The clubhouse mentality that is so often found in comic shops

creates a structure that reinforces a clear distinction between ‘us’
and ‘them’. Those who ‘speak the language’ of the clubhouse
and can prove their membership are accepted; those who do not,
whose interests are not in line with the rest of the community,
are made to feel alienated or uncomfortable. A long-running
exaggerated stereotype of the comic shop in popular culture is
that of a group of men standing to terrified attention like meerkats
on the Serengeti as soon a woman walks in. There is much to
104

suggest that these spaces are gendered, and according to Pustz,
‘many women [are] turned off by posters celebrating acts of vio-
lence and often featuring supernaturally well-endowed, scantily
clad female characters’ (2017: 27). Despite such exclusivity and
gatekeeping tactics, comic book shops remain a key feature of
comics fan communities, although in recent years their numbers
have dwindled because of the emergence of other comic genres
and the shifts in consumer behaviour. Mark Rogers writes:
This situation has changed somewhat in the twenty-first cen-

tury. Driven by the popularity of manga and the increasing
visibility of graphic novels in the American culture, comics
publishing has moved strongly into the book distribu-
tion market. This exposes comics to a larger, more diverse
audience and greater diversity in content has appropriately
followed.
(2012: 149)
In addition, other types of retail outlet, from bookshops to more

generalised ‘entertainment retailers’, such as Forbidden Planet, are
now large volume sellers of comics. This change in the locations
of purchase can potentially change the cultural value of comics
themselves; Gordon asks: ‘Is there a greater degree of respectability
attached to a book bought from a bookshop rather than a maga-
zine from a newsstand or a comic book from a speciality store?’
(2012: 161). There is no convincing answer to this question, but
it does highlight the point that respectability in relation to the
material object is often tied to the issue of location of purchase.
The other major site for fan consumption is the comic book
convention (or ‘con’), a place for fans to gather and interact with
creators, publishers, and other fans. In addition to being spaces
for the purchase of new comics and related fan paraphernalia,
conventions usually also include panel discussions, lectures and
workshops, debates, competitions, and information about new
and upcoming releases and events. These gatherings borrow
their format from science fiction conventions which came into
existence in the 1930s and were originally run by fan-organised
and not-for-profit organisations, though this is no longer the
105

case for the majority of these events. There are conventions for
every conceivable genre of comics, though the most famous of
them concentrate their attention on the American mainstream.
Figure 4.2 shows the breakdown of attendees at a range of fan
events, by age, gender, and purpose of attendance. These statistics
were gathered by Eventbrite, an online events management and
Figure 4.2 Statistics on comics fan event attendance, from Eventbrite

(2014).
106

ticketing website. The data suggest that the events which form
the basis of the research are smaller events, since larger gatherings
tend to have their own ticketing infrastructure or use bigger
management companies, including Ticketmaster. These statistics
are useful, because they draw attention to the size and type of
particular events. The breakdown shows a reasonably balanced
gender split and a distribution of age that highlights issues such
as age ranges, disposable income distribution, and details of the
length of reading histories, all of which contribute to the con-
struction and development of a fan identity. These statistics
provide a good overview of the typical breakdown of comics
cons, especially when we look at reasons for attendance at these
conventions. Also, though they are places to register fan com-
munity and provide venues for socialising, the primary reason
for their existence is as a marketplace for consumers. The most
well-known convention is San Diego Comic-Con International
(SDCC), held annually in San Diego since 1970. Despite the
name, SDCC is no longer solely a comics convention since it now
includes events such as discussion panels and launches for films
and other related media, most of which is tied to the Marvel and
DC cinematic industries. Despite its fame and appearance as a
pop culture venue beyond the comics world, SDCC is no longer
the largest convention of its type: that claim now is made by São
Paulo’s Comic Con Experience (founded in 2014). Even though
it has lost its status, SDCC remains the most important event for
American comics, as well as being the ‘home’ of the ‘Will Eisner
Comic Industry Awards’, which have been presented at the con-
vention since 1988. The Eisners, named after artist and writer
Will Eisner, are awarded annually for achievement in American
comic books and have thirty-one categories, including individual
awards for all aspects of the creative process such as lettering,
colouring, inking/pencilling, cover art, and writing.
Comics conventions are held all over the world and for all
kinds of audiences. The Angoulême International Comics
Festival (first held in 1974) is among the most prestigious for
creators (and consumers) of Bandes Dessinées. The centrepiece
of the festival is the announcement of award winners, with the
‘main attraction’ being the Grand Prix. With the full name of
107

the Grand Prix de la Ville d’Angoulême, this award celebrates a
lifetime achievement, but is awarded only to living creators, and
never posthumously. The winner is made President of the next
festival and hosts an exhibition of his or her own work. The
Grand Prix became the source of some considerable controversy
in 2016, when it became apparent that only one woman had
ever won (Florence Cestac in 2000) and that that year’s forty-
name shortlist contained only cis men. This generated much dis-
cussion within the community, and many artists composed their
responses in the form of short or single-panel comics. Figure 4.3
shows the response of Cestac. The female character on the left
states that despite ‘43 festivals at Angoulême, only one woman
has won the Grand Prix’; the male characters on the right affect
mild surprise. Within Europe, the largest comic book conven-
tion is Lucca Comics & Games (first held in 1965), while the
largest in Asia is Comiket (derived from Comic Market), held
Figure 4.3 Florence Cestac (2016). Courtesy of the artist.

108

twice yearly in Tokyo, boasting annual attendances of over half
a million fans. Comiket is a fascinating example of a convention
because, despite its now-massive size, it retains much of its ori-
ginal ethos as a grassroots, makeshift event focussed on the sale of
dōjinshi (non-commercial, self-published Manga). It was founded
in 1975 as a reaction to a dōjinshi creator being denied entry to
a popular science fiction convention, and the first meeting had
only 700 attendees. Although it is a not-for-profit, volunteer-
run event, there is still some corporate presence from the biggest
Manga publishers, but the majority of trading space is occupied
primarily by amateur creators. Most trading participants do not
make a profit, and as statistics from Comiket suggest, only 15%
make money while another 15% break even. Attendance and
engagement at Comiket are done very much for the love of the
form rather than for commercial purposes.
One of the most visually striking forms of fan engagement that
centre on conventions is ‘cosplay’, abbreviated from ‘costume
play’, which is a kind of performance in which individuals dress
up as characters from existing media (including comics, anima-
tion, film, and TV). Cosplayers typically make and design their
own costumes, selecting on the basis of their level of engagement
with individual characters, including their values and behaviours,
and their actual appearance. This practice allows for considerable
flexibility of representation. Joel Gn notes that
For the cosplayer, it is not only the modification of the text

that is liberating (or, in other instances, subversive), but also
the consumption of the image that becomes a pleasurable,
embodied experience. In addition, cosplay can take the form
of ‘crossplay’, in which the socially accepted gender of the
subject is at odds with that of the character.
(2011: 584)
Cosplay is a largely misunderstood fan activity, attracting deroga-

tory comments such as: ‘it’s just kids dressing up’ or ‘adults
shouldn’t be acting like this’. The level of engagement with the
fan text is much higher than with other kinds of fan activity since
it involves the long and often highly skilled design and creation of
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the costume, which must convey a sense of authenticity, and the
wearing of it as part of a performance in itself. The fact that all
this is intimately absorbed into the body of the cosplayer makes
this a deeply personal expression of fandom, hereby establishing
an intimate relationship between fan and character: ‘Through the
acts of constructing and wearing a costume, the fan constructs
his or her identity in relation to fiction and enacts it’ (Lamerichs,
2010: 7). Figure 4.4 shows a female cosplayer at San Diego Comic
Con; she is dressed as the Marvel character ‘Scarlet Witch’. Many
cosplayers have professionally shot images, such as this one, to
show off their costumes and to distribute at conventions. Cosplay
gives fans a multi-levelled expression of their fandom because
not only does it reward artistic skill and encourage community
with other cosplayers, both online and at conventions, but it
also gives fans a space to embody the characters that shape their
Figure 4.4 An example of cosplay, ‘Scarlet Witch’ by Kaitlyn Gilman

(2019).
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reading experiences. As Lamerichs puts it, ‘Cosplay is an excel-
lent example of how fans actualize fiction in daily life and iden-
tify with it, and thus it helps us understand the constitution of
fan identity’ (2010: 7).
Participation and creative engagement

For many fans, a key element of their association with a cer-
tain form, text, or creator is being able to develop their own
responses to what they are consuming. This involves going
beyond the product offered by the publisher or creator, and
allowing the consumer to engage in artistic continuations,
subversions, responses, and backstories. It can also involve
adding to the interpretive conversations by offering new and
innovative readings of existing texts. In this way, the individual
fan contributes reflexively to the formation of the product,
extending its range and appeal in a way that can allow other fans
to pick it up and develop it further. Henry Jenkins describes this
process by categorising fans as people who transform their con-
sumption ‘into some kind of cultural activity, by sharing feelings
and thoughts about the […] content with friends, by joining
a “community” of other fans who share common interests’
(2006: 41). Jenkins lays out the defining characteristics of par-
ticipatory culture in a White Paper on media and education.
Such fandom certainly blurs the boundaries between creator,
provider, and consumer. Such cultures, he argues, have relatively
low barriers to artistic expression and engagement; they demon-
strate strong support for sharing creations with the community;
they offer an informal mentorship model to pass information
and experience to novices; and they provide a general and com-
munal sense of the importance of the individual’s contribution
at the same time that they offer a sense of social connection and
reciprocal socialisation (Jenkins, 2009: xi–xii). He goes on to
add that key forms of participation include: affiliations (members
of online communities, including Facebook groups, subreddits,
and fora), expressions (creating new forms, including fan
fiction writing, zines, and film-making), collaborative problem-
solving (working together to gather existing and develop new
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knowledge, such as through Wikipedia), and circulation (shaping
the flow of media through media as podcasting, blogging). At
one level, this points to a process of democratisation, but at the
other extreme it provides an opportunity for the commercial
supplier to suck the reader into helping to construct and revi-
talise a particular text.
Jenkins perceives fans as groups that actively interact with their
object of choice against any institutional or canonical standard for
engagement:
Unimpressed by institutional authority and expertise, the

fans assert their own right to form interpretations, to offer
evaluations, and to construct cultural canons. Undaunted by
traditional conceptions of literary and intellectual property,
fans raid mass culture, claiming its material for their own use,
reworking them as the basis for their own cultural creations
and social interactions. […] Fans actively assert their mas-
tery over the mass-produced texts which provide the raw
materials for their own cultural productions and the basis for
their social interaction.
(1992: 18, 23)
Conceptualising fans in this way gives them considerable agency,

with fan-created cultural productions existing in self-governed
communities that accord them canonical status and reading them
as ciphers of both the individual’s and the community’s desires.
Participatory cultures of comics have existed for many decades,
although the different types of (and fora for) engagement and
participation have changed and developed in response to the
availability of different communication technologies. Matthew
Pustz recognises the importance of pen and paper in the pre-
internet era of comics discussions. He writes:
Letters pages and fanzines were crucial sites for fan inter-
action and expression in the era before the internet. For
decades, mainstream and even many alternative or inde-
pendent comic books featured regular columns for letters to
the editor. Fans wrote letters to comment on stories, correct
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mistakes, provide interpretations, or even respond to other
fans. The best letters pages gave correspondents –many of
whom were very well known in the fan community –a
chance to share ideas or debate various theories about their
favourite characters.
(Pustz, 2017: 269)
Letters pages did not just print prose communication received

from fans, but occasionally also printed fan-submitted artwork
and opened communication channels with receptive artists and
writers. Of course, conversations could only progress as fast as each
comics issue was published. In some cases (including my own)
dedicated readers may only have had a letter accepted for print
after many attempts. In addition, which letters were published
was entirely the decision of the publishers and constrained by
space. The rise of internet fora and discussion boards has moved
these conversations away from print, opening the scope for wider
involvement and drastically reducing response times.
Explicitly artistic engagement with comics media, making
creative things that derive directly from the aesthetics of the
form, is a popular choice for fans. This can include visual,
audio- visual, or textual arts. Prior to the development of
modern copyright regulations, plots and characters were freely
used and reused and there was no fear of recrimination simply
because these elements were nobody’s property. Copyright
legislation first appeared in the UK in 1710, in an act with
the wonderfully wordy title ‘An Act for the Encouragement
of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the
Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein
mentioned’. The passing of legislation is always a slow process,
and even in the twenty-first century, copyright law is complex.
The many layers of intellectual property permissions, public
domain issues, and fair use conditions mean that such cases,
when taken to court, are not easy to resolve and can result
in long, drawn-out legal battles that then lead to revisions to
statutes. As such, fandoms generally seek to avoid this com-
plexity. As Kristina Busse writes,
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Traditionally, media fandom has tried to stay under the
radar of the producers and actors and not to profit from any
of their fan works. Both rules were created to protect the
uncertain legal status of fan works and until recently were
not challenged. As a result, transgressing these rules upsets
large sections of that specific fan community. Selling one’s
fan fiction, for example, tends to result in immediate out-
cries and criticism as well as public mocking and shaming.
(Busse, 2013: 85)
In the vast majority of cases, this is never an issue because fan cre-
ation is not for commercial gain but remains within the commu-
nity, though some do post their work to non-community-linked
websites and social media.
Let us turn first to fan fiction which, at a basic level, is fic-
tional prose written by fans, incorporating characters, locations,
or other information from a media source. The level of com-
plication of the form depends on which elements of fandom
and fan creation are utilised in determining its classification. As
Hellekson and Busse observe:
If the term requires an actual community of fans who share

an interest, then Sherlock Holmes would easily qualify as
the first fandom, with fan-written Holmes pastiches serving
as the beginnings of fan fiction. […] If we look at it as a
(sometimes purposefully critical) rewriting of shared media,
then media fan fiction, starting in the 1960s with its base
in science fiction fandom and its consequent zine culture,
would start fan fiction proper.
(2014: 6)
As a distinct, named expression of fandom, the matter of inter-

action between an original text and what it is subsequently
used to generate has become more popular since the advent
of the internet. In the early years of the internet, group
mailing lists provided a nexus for writers of fan fiction to come
together. The form received a boost in 1998 with the launch
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of FanFiction.Net, which had no regulations regarding who
could join or what they could post, with subsections to accom-
modate all kinds of fandom. This is still the most popular site
for posting fan fiction, with approximately 150 million unique
visitors per month. The second most popular site is Wattpad.
com, with 134 million unique monthly views. Though it is dif-
ficult to know for certain, because of the inherent anonymity
involved in any website registration, fan fiction has generally
been thought of as written and consumed by women.
According to Bacon-Smith, fan fiction ‘fill[s]‌the need of a
mostly female audience for fictional narratives that expand the
boundary of the official source products offered on the televi-
sion and movie screen [or comics page]’ (2000: 112–113). The
opportunity to push the narratives of a media text into previ-
ously untouched areas, be they romantic pairings, shifting gender
or sexual identities of characters, or story arcs, gives fans of all
identities and backgrounds the opportunity to become a part of
their favourite media. Though the field has increased in diver-
sity in recent years, mainstream comics especially have not been
known for their inclusion of a fair representation of social demo-
graphics. Fan fiction gives female and LGBT+ fans opportunities
to make themselves characters. More importantly, the results are
now filtering into the canon, with more characters and story arcs
that present a nuanced and non-tokenistic representation of these
demographic groups. Rebecca Black sees FanFiction.Net and
other fora for storytelling as ‘affinity spaces [,] organised around
a common endeavour or interest rather than temporal or spatial
proximity’ (2007: 289). As such they are ‘able to span differences
in gender, race, class, age, ability, and education level’ (Black,
2007: 289). These groups do not mimic the demographic of
most participants’ immediate environments, and they can there-
fore be a hugely enriching experience. In this way, fan fiction
can be both collective and connective.
Just as FanFiction.Net publishes millions of items of fan-
composed writing and receives millions of views, DeviantArt
acts as a cognate location for visual art, with approximately
120 million unique views monthly. Users can post visual art in
any form, including photography, traditional and mixed media,
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and videography. Founded in 2000, the site allows users (‘artists’)
to upload and share their work, comment on the works of others,
and form smaller groups within the website, many of which are
dedicated to discussion of specific fan media or fan expressions.
As with all fan creativity, the issue of copyright looms in the
background, but, for the most part, those who post their work
to DeviantArt and similar sites do not seek to make a profit and
so remain unaffected. This is also the case with those who create
fan comics, who take the original characters of comics series and
re-imagine them in their own work, sometimes using similar art-
istic styles and techniques, and who sometimes purposely redraw
them in different styles in order to highlight the artist’s own skills
and imagination. Fan art is often used for comedy purposes or to
highlight issues within the specific comics story world or industry.
In the case of The Hawkeye Initiative (THI), it can also be both.
THI was set up in 2012 in response to sexualised depictions
of female characters in American mainstream (predominantly
superhero) comics, and its mission statement claims that the site
‘draw[s]‌attention to how deformed, hypersexualized, and unreal-
istically dressed women are drawn in comics’ (THI, 2012: n.p.).
It is often noted that these representations are not recognised
as being inherently anatomically ridiculous when performed by
female characters; the absurdity becomes apparent only when
men are depicted in this way. The character of Hawkeye has
become attached to this site because an image of him with Black
Widow was among the first to be created. Such fan art does not
necessarily take anything away from the individual’s enjoyment
of the work but does highlight the broader persistent issue of
sexism in Comics.
As we have already seen in the scholarship of Paul Lopes
mentioned earlier, fan engagement is generally viewed with dis-
dain, because it is associated with low art forms. The issue is,
however, often a matter of naming. Fans of all kinds of media
focus on the works they enjoy, and they rework, reinterpret,
and recreate them in new ways, in new media, and in new
contexts. By this reckoning, we might interpret John Everett
Millais’ painting ‘Ophelia’ (1852) as Shakespeare fan art or John
William Waterhouse’s ‘The Lady of Shalott’ (1888) as Tennyson
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fan art. The main difference is that both paintings are housed in
a major art gallery (Tate Britain), and they engage with canon-
ical texts. However, my points remain: it is a matter of naming,
and it is not a practice that is confined to comics. Some of this
can be illustrated with the following case study: a reading of a
fan art text that acts as homage to an original creation and that
reinvigorates our understanding and interpretation of both texts.
Elsewhere I have discussed the Comic Book Resources web-
site art challenges, which emphasised on their blog that ‘Comics
Should Be Good’ (Earle, 2017). One artist responded to the
topic ‘What if?’ with ‘What if Picasso drew the X-Men?’. The
result was a reworking of Picasso’s 1937 masterpiece ‘Guernica’
which is itself an example of non-representational art, substi-
tuting various members of the X-Men characters for Picasso’s
original figures. The artist, Cynthia Sousa, posted the work on
her DeviantArt page, and feedback was divided between praise
for her technique and criticism of her ‘appropriation’ of high
art. ‘X-Men Guernica’ retains the shape of the original but uses
eight X-Men instead of anonymous faces, while both the shape
and style, as well as the symbolism, are comparable. Stan Lee
was heavily influenced by the Civil Rights Movement when
developing the X-Men in the 1960s, and I have suggested that
‘the basic narrative that runs through all X-Men comics is of the
mutants working to coexist peacefully with humans’. Indeed,
while Picasso’s focus is the bombing of Guernica and depicts a
strategic attack on a specific group, the Basque people, Sousa’s
work translates it into an attack on the mutants of Professor X’s
academy: ‘X-Men Guernica’ shifts Picasso’s work from being
an indictment of the violence of the Spanish Civil War (Earle,
2017: 190). This kind of fan art reconfigures an internationally
famous painting that speaks directly to the violence, trauma, and
futility of war into a poignant reading of a specific comics text
and its characters.
Throughout this chapter, I have shown that fandom within
comics exists beyond the panel and page. To quote Duffett, ‘Fans
are networkers, collectors, tourists, archivists, curators, pro-
ducers and more’ (2013: 21). Stereotypes of the hulking, anti-
social male fan are passé; fans come from all walks of life and
117

demonstrate their fandom in diverse ways. They engage in con-
sumption and creation that are both connective and collective.
A large proportion of comics fans are ‘active participants in the
construction and circulation of textual meanings’, and their cre-
ative interactions with the form have demonstrable impact on its
development (Jenkins, 1992: 24).
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5
Journalism
The history of comics in relation to journalism is extensive, as

we saw in Chapter 2, and it has grown out of a rich tradition
of image- driven satire and political cartooning. This chapter
discusses comics in two ways: as a vehicle for socio-political
comment that sits alongside more traditional forms of journalism
and, conversely, as a journalistic form itself. We will also con-
sider the wider international contexts in which they appear, and
we will ask the following question: why do comics and cartoons
have the power they do to make certain statements and how is
this being mobilised?
Let us begin by discussing what comics journalism is in rela-
tion to both comics and journalism, taking a sideways glance at
comics in relation to journalism and social comment. Then I will
discuss two cases that raise a number of questions concerning
ethical questions about the freedom of the press, and the limits
that should or should not be placed upon it in order to prevent
causing offence to particular sections of the public. These cases
are the Charlie Hebdo shooting in January 2015 and the Jyllands-
Posten Muhammad cartoon controversy in 2005, in relation
to issues of free speech and offence. The ease of international
connectivity through the medium of advanced communication
technology means that a message (or comic) can be transmitted
easily anywhere in the world. It does not, however, mean that it
will translate easily into another culture or that the ideological
distortions that it carries will be understood, agreed with, and
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Journalism 119
accepted in the same way (if at all). This chapter will conclude
by giving some consideration to long-form comics journalism,
with particular focus on the works of Joe Sacco (who is generally
heralded as the creator of the genre), Sarah Glidden, and Guy
Delisle. Ultimately, this chapter aims to examine comics both as a
medium for social comment and as an agent for change, keeping
in mind that such change is not necessarily always positive or,
indeed, what we expect.
Let me begin by asking: what is ‘comics journalism’? Before
we proceed to answer this question, it will be useful to remind
ourselves of the definition of journalism. In his 1998 book The
Sociology of Journalism, Brian McNair describes it as ‘any authored
text in written, audio or visual form, which claims to be (i.e., is
presented to its audience as) a truthful statement about, or record
of, some hitherto unknown (new) feature of the actual, social
world’ (1998: 4). A prominent feature of journalism is its ephem-
erality in that it responds usually very quickly to current issues,
whether they are social, political, or cultural. Comics journalism
finds its roots in several non-Comics forms, including traditional
prose journalism and ‘New Journalism’ (see Vanderbeke, 2010).
While traditional journalism aimed for objectivity, impartiality,
and a narratorial voice that kept the journalist invisible, New
Journalism used subjective perspective that privileged ‘truth’ over
facts and often saw the journalism as a ‘character’ within the
piece. Johannes Schmid contends that longer comics journalism
that is published as bound books, such as those I will discuss
further in the last section of this chapter, ‘has much in common
with documentary film’ (2016: 23). Being visual forms, film and
comics are able to work in both realistic and symbolic registers.
Nonetheless, Comics is to be distinguished from film in a number
of ways. Weber and Rall point out that
One might argue that the conventions of comics and the

conventions of journalism are totally different. Comics con-
sist of fiction, drama, emotions, exaggerations and funny
pictures. In contrast, journalism is based on facts, news and
reality, with the associated values: accuracy in reporting,
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120 Journalism
truthfulness, credibility, public accountability, fairness,
impartiality and objectivity.
(2017: 378)
In his definition of Comics journalism, Williams discusses the

use of multiple registers and the relationship between word and
image. He describes the multiple registers as ‘code-switching’,
further suggesting that this is ‘a major strength of comics jour-
nalism’ (2005: 53). As I demonstrate in this chapter, comics
journalism spans a wide range of types of narrative and levels
of interaction between creator and subject; a large number of
comics journalists focus on human interest pieces, while others
are telling powerful, rigorously researched, complex socio-
political stories. Williams adds that:
In comics journalism, more so perhaps than in any other

medium, the reporter’s role is consistently emphasised. He is
often present, not merely as a voice or talking head, but as a
moral viewpoint and as a participant in the events described.
(2005: 55)
This is an issue that we will return to later in this chapter, in rela-

tion to Joe Sacco. It is one of the elements that comics journalism
has in common with documentary film-making (especially the
work of Michael Moore, Louis Theroux, and Morgan Spurlock)
and Gonzo journalism (which places the journalist as first-person
narrator and privileges emotion and personal experience; the
term –and style –was made famous by Hunter S. Thompson).
Comics and journalism coexist not only in the editorial
pages of newspapers or in self-contained codices, but also online
through social media including Facebook and Instagram, and in
publications such as The Nib (which is published both in hard
copy and online) and the now- discontinued Symbolia (which
was published online between 2012 and 2015); Weber and Rall
describe Symbolia as ‘the first multimedia magazine of illustrated
journalism’ (2017: 376). The Nib, founded by Matt Bors in
2013, publishes comics that are rigorously researched and make
important interventions into contemporary conversations. Topics
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Journalism 121
covered include matters such as left-leaning politics, international
relations, the American Presidency, and all manner of contem-
porary social issues, ranging from racism and the prison-industrial
complex to women’s healthcare and anti-vaccination. For the
founding of Symbolia in 2012, co-founder and artist Joyce Rice
created an initial statement to explain the reason for the decision
to use comics for journalism. Rice used the form to demonstrate
what comics journalism does that other types do not. Her argu-
ment pivots on a belief that ‘art = access’, a point that is located
at the heart of the ethos of many creators, especially those who
work on non-fictional, journalistic, and educational comics. As
we have already seen, Comics can make complex narratives and
information accessible to a wide range of readers and can reach
audiences that other forms generally do not. The visual nature
of the form can cut across language and education barriers. But,
sometimes, this level of accessibility can be an issue, especially
when the images and representations are culturally and politically
charged. Let us turn to two examples of Comics (more specific-
ally political cartooning) that caused considerable controversy and
led to international repercussions for the publications and deadly
consequences for some of the artists involved and for their killers.
Graphic controversies, political comics, and

social unrest
On 7 January 2015, at around 11am, two armed men entered
the Paris offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
They shot twenty- three people, killing twelve and seriously
injuring eleven. Among those killed were the director of publi-
cation, Charb (Stéphane Charbonnier), several cartoonists, and
two police officers, one of whom was Charb’s bodyguard. The
gunmen, brothers Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, claimed that they
belonged to the Islamist terror organisation Al-Qaeda, which
quickly claimed responsibility for the attack. On leaving the scene,
the gunmen said, ‘we have avenged the Prophet Muhammad, we
killed Charlie Hebdo’ (Sage, 2015: n.p.). Following the shooting,
the brothers escaped but were eventually killed by police after a
shoot-out on 9 January.
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122 Journalism
The international response came almost immediately. On
11 January, forty world leaders and over two million people
attended a rally to promote national solidarity in Paris. A fur-
ther four million people demonstrated solidarity across Europe.
Outpourings of support for the magazine came from across
much of the world, and the slogan Je Suis Charlie (I am Charlie)
became an all-encompassing statement that expressed support
and solidarity for the satirical comic and the victims, as well as a
popular hashtag on Twitter. In predominantly Muslim countries,
the response was divided between those groups who expressed
sympathy with the victims and those who supported the actions
of the gunmen. The magazine did not cease publication, and the
following issue print reached 7.95 million copies in six languages;
previously, a typical run had been around 60,000 and exclusively
in French. Cartoonists responded with their pens and the adage
‘the pen is mightier than the sword’ became a common theme in
editorial cartoons for several weeks after the attacks. All manner
of outlets, from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to The Simpsons,
made public statements. The closing image of The Simpsons epi-
sode broadcast that week was a sketch of baby Maggie Simpson,
styled after Eugène Delacroix’s ‘Liberty Leading the People’,
holding a Je Suis Charlie sign. Albert Uderzo, the creator of
Astérix, who had retired in 2011, came out of retirement to
create a single graphic statement, and the Empire State Building
in New York was lit up in the colours of the French Tricolore, as
was the National Gallery in London, among others.
These attacks were seen not just as a horrifying act of public
violence, but also as a challenge to the freedom of expression of
the press. The French constitution enshrines Laïcité (the separ-
ation of Church and State and removal of religion from all gov-
ernmental processes) as a core value, along with the tripartite
motto of the French Republic, Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. Andre
Oboler writes:
Charlie Hebdo was known to be a highly controversial satir-

ical publication that regularly mocked sources of power in
society, including religion. This mocking was often extreme.
The paper’s slogan, ‘dumb and nasty’ (‘bête et méchant’), came
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Journalism 123
from a letter of complaint sent in the 1960s […] Charlie
Hebdo’s often distasteful attacks on religion in general, and
on Islam in particular, are seen as continuing the tradition
of laïcité. The threats, and then attack, by those seeking to
prevent this mockery of their religion, is therefore seen by
many in France as an external attack on core French values.
(2015: n.p.)
Many opinion pieces written about the attacks centred on this

issue: that freedom of expression must necessarily include freedom
to offend. Media historian Simon Dawes went further when he
claimed that the responses to the attacks were tantamount to ‘the
fetishisation of free speech’ (2015: 2). More recently, Amnesty
International suggested that ‘the right to freedom of expression
applies to ideas of all kinds including those that may be deeply
offensive’ (2018: n.p.). This statement builds on words from the
European Court of Human Rights that the rights of free speech
‘are the demands of pluralism, tolerance and broad-mindedness
without which there is no “democratic society”’ (2006: n.p.).
The Charlie Hebdo shootings are an extreme example of
many recent events that have been triggered, or exacerbated,
by cartoons. Ten years prior to the Paris attacks, in 2005, the
Danish daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten published twelve images
of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. The decision, taken by cul-
ture editor Flemming Rose, centred on a children’s book about
the life of Muhammad by Danish author Kåre Bluitgen, who
had considerable difficulty in finding an illustrator to work with.
The images were accompanied by a short essay, written by Rose,
where he wrote:
The modern secular society is dismissed by some Muslims.

They demand special treatment when they insist on special
consideration of their religious feelings. This is incompatible
with secular democracy and freedom of speech, where one
should be ready to stand scorn, mockery and ridicule. This is
certainly not always very sympathetic or nice to look at, but
this is irrelevant in the context.
(2005: n.p.)
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124 Journalism
It is impossible to think that Rose did not anticipate the backlash
that his article might provoke; in a later article, he described it
as ‘the worst foreign policy crisis in Denmark since the Second
World War’ (2005: 17). The socio- political ramifications of
the publication had far-reaching consequences, and soon after
eleven ambassadors from Muslim-majority countries requested
a meeting with the Danish Prime Minister. At least 50 inter-
national news outlets republished some or all the cartoons, and
Muslim fundamentalists responded by issuing fatwas against the
illustrators. Danish products were boycotted, and several coun-
tries in the Middle East held demonstrations and burned the
Danish flag. The violence reached its peak in 2006 with attacks
on Danish embassies in four countries and the deaths of several
hundred people in riots and targeted attacks across the world.
In 2008, three people were arrested for planning to assassinate
Kurt Westergaard, who had drawn the infamous ‘bomb cartoon’
depicting Muhammad wearing a turban in which a bomb, with
lit fuse, is nestled and fizzing. Westergaard still remains in hiding
some twelve years after the event.
Few of the statements adopted the familiar form of multi-
panel comics, preferring either the single-image graphic cartoon
style or simply appearing as a prose response. However, on Friday,
9 January 2015, The Guardian published a short comic by Joe
Sacco, titled ‘On Satire: a response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks’.
Figure 5.1 shows the first tier of the comic, in which Sacco
explains his reaction to the news of the attacks and the sadness of
hearing of the death of ‘[his] tribe’ (2015: n.p.). Sacco goes on to
explain that ‘tweaking the noses of Muslims’ and Charlie Hebdo’s
brand of satire are, in his view, ‘vapid’. While acknowledging
that in a democracy there remains the right to offend, he asks his
readers to consider why we hold so strongly to this right, rather
than expressing a greater awareness of our place within the wider
global society and showing a more acute sensitivity to its various
pressures. In his short strip, Sacco draws a number of what we
would readily concede are stereotypical offensive images: for
example, a black man eating a banana in a tree, a Jewish man
counting money while standing in entrails, and himself being
beheaded by a hooded swordsman in a desert. He pinpoints the
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Journalism 125
Figure 5.1 ‘On Satire’ by Joe Sacco (2015).
offence these images carry, and he demonstrates his own freedom

to reiterate the process: he asks: ‘can I play this game too? Sure,
I could draw a black man falling out of a tree with a banana in
his hand… in fact, I just did’. And he uses these images to affirm
the right to, as he puts it, ‘take the piss’ (2015: n.p.). The juxta-
position of intentionally offensive images and critical, reflective
commentary demonstrates the possibilities that comics possess
to make bold statements. The images displayed without verbal
captions would offend; the words themselves add a layer of com-
mentary and explanation that shows us how these images work to
offend and why the results are deeply problematic.
Why, then, are comics and cartoons able to make statements
that have such a profound effect on large numbers of people from
diverse communities? In the cases of the two examples I have
discussed, it should be remembered that many practising Muslims
refrain from visually representing the prophet Muhammad, unlike
in the case of Christian art that reproduces and illustrates icono-
graphic representations of all kinds of the Christian narrative. For
Muslims, the refusal to represent the prophet is called Aniconism,
which is defined as the avoidance of visual representation of
sentient beings. This extends beyond Aniconism and into the
wider world of graphic images. There are three distinct issues
at play here: immediacy, transmission, and silence. Image-driven
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content provokes an immediate response and many scholars have
written about the notion of effective and affective immediacy.
For example, Nicholas Mirzoeff writes that
The very element that makes visual imagery of all kinds

distinct from texts [is] its sensual immediacy. This is not at
all the same thing as simplicity, but there is an undeniable
impact on first sight that a written text cannot replicate.
(2008: 15)
Of course, it is entirely possible to react emotionally to, say, a

written description of the bombing of Guernica in 1937, but
it will have a different effect on the reader compared to that
generated by a viewing of Picasso’s excruciating painting of the
same event: the impact that the painting has is more immediate
than the text description would suggest. A good deal of this kind
of criticism and theory on this topic has emerged from the ana-
lysis of the photographic image but this also holds true for comics,
especially short editorial and single-panel works. When we look
at a comic or image, particularly those that contain humans, we
can recognise it and form a connection with it, but this is also
the case with non-human representations. How many of us have
laughed at, or felt sympathy for, an animal in a comic strip or
editorial cartoon? We recognise some modicum of humanity
and respond to it considerably faster than when reading text.
Daniel Kahneman explains this in terms of the different pro-
cessing points within the brain. Visual information bypasses the
(slower) visual cortex and goes directly to the amygdala for (fast)
threat assessment. This saves a few hundredths of a second, which
may improve chances for survival and, thus, be an evolutionary
advantage (Kahneman, 2012: 301). Though we are no longer on
the lookout for predators who are searching for their next meal,
our brains still process this information as if we were. That punch
to the gut you feel looking at an emotive comic shares its neuro-
logical heritage with ‘fight or flight’ threat assessment.
Another important issue involves the question of transmission.
According to James Der Derian, ‘time displaces space as the most
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strategic “field”’ when it comes to the movement of visual com-
munication: those who can disseminate their visuals fastest take
the lead’ (1992: 134). The internet age allows us to contact billions
of people in seconds; social media allow us to share images at the
click of a mouse, and the result is that dissemination can be almost
instantaneous. This can in theory be said of text just as well as of
image, but the clear difference between the two, especially once
international borders are crossed, is that images can be immedi-
ately recognised by everyone even though their wider resonances
might not necessarily be ‘understood’. The Muhammad cartoons
were received with quiet protest by the Muslim community of
Denmark, and under normal circumstances there might have been
no further repercussions. The Danish legislation on freedom of
expression, was, it seems, understood and accepted, despite dis-
agreement among some. It was only when these graphic images
were transmitted internationally that the issue escalated. This
suggests that where cartoons are seen can drastically change their
meaning. Habitually, we read and interpret what we see on social
media or image-sharing sites in different ways compared with
something that is posted on a website of a major newspaper or
political commentary hub. These publication contexts are very
easy to overlook in transmission. The Muhammad cartoons were
initially published in a centre-right newspaper in a democratic
and politically open country, in stark contrast to the context of
the millions of individuals who saw them on unregulated internet
fora and social media.
Another important element that we need to consider is silence.
W.J.T. Mitchell suggests that the visual cannot speak itself, but
that its voice is provided by the viewer and that it is only in rela-
tion to a person that it gains ‘voice’:
Images are not words. It is not clear that they actually ‘say’
anything. They may show something, but the verbal message
or speech act has to be brought to them by the spectator,
who projects a voice into the image, reads a story into it, or
deciphers a verbal message. Images are dense, iconic (usu-
ally) visual symbols that convey non-discursive, non-verbal
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information that is often quite ambiguous with regard to any
statement.
(2005: 140)
Comics is primarily, but not exclusively, visual and often contains
words in the form of captions or speech-bubbles but, as I have
stated repeatedly, is ultimately driven by image. Like all other
visual representations, comics are built on frameworks of cultur-
ally coded signs. In Chapter 1, I discussed the ways in which jokes
in comic strips target those readers who have an intimate famil-
iarity with the discursive field in which the joke is positioned.
Mitchell argues that this information shared between the reader
and the representation is precisely what gives the image its
semantic vitality and that without it, the representation is mean-
ingless. Similar observations are often made about photographic
images, and they occur frequently in the analytical discourse of
photo-journalism where, according to Campbell, they are ‘made
available with an intertextual setting –where title, caption and
text surround the particular content of the photograph –[and]
they are read within an historical, political and social context’
(2004: 62–63). Perhaps, then, this is less about the silence of the
comic itself and more about the voices of interpretation: in such
cases the silence is augmented by requiring the reader to examine
‘the ways in which images themselves may function as commu-
nicative acts’ in order to produce ‘an analysis of how meaning
is conveyed’ and of how images ‘impact on different audiences’
(Williams, 2003: 527). In such instances, images such as the
Muhammad cartoons signify differently to different viewers
depending upon their religious, social, and cultural proclivities.
Let us now examine two specific examples of political
cartoons and comics from very different eras and contexts in
order to illustrate these issues. On 9 May 1754, the Pennsylvania
Gazette published ‘Join or die’, a cartoon that commented
on colonial union in the emerging US. The visual image is a
woodcut, attributed to Benjamin Franklin, which shows a snake
cut into eight segments, each labelled with the initials of one
of the American colonies (Figure 5.2). It was accompanied by
an editorial, penned by Franklin, which discussed the ‘disunited
state’ of the colonies and emphasised strongly the merits of
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Journalism 129
Figure 5.2 ‘Join or Die’ by Benjamin Franklin (attrib.) (1754).
colonial unity. The cartoon became a popular symbol during the

American Revolutionary War. It made a far greater impression
and lasted much longer in the public memory than Franklin’s
actual words. The cartoon played on the prevailing belief at the
time that a snake that had been cut into pieces would be healed if
the pieces were put back together before the sun set. Opinion on
its meaning was, of course, divided. The Patriots, who supported
the new American republic, saw it as an image of connection,
vigilance, and strength; the Loyalists, who advocated allegiance
to Britain, read the cartoon in the light of the biblical serpent
that was a manifestation of evil deceit and treachery. In itself,
the image is very simple. The linework is bold and unfussy; the
wording is sparse. And yet the opposing messages it was thought
to contain were quickly and effectively transmitted. If we con-
sider the print culture of the time, we can clearly see why this
image looks as it does. It would not have been expensive or dif-
ficult to reproduce –an eighteenth-century version of today’s
highly shareable memes. It is a cartoon that focuses upon separ-
ation and division, mobilising the visual form to force the viewer
to envisage the dismembered colonies and instilling a desire to
mentally reconstruct them. The representation, therefore, either
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130 Journalism
became an image of the desirability of separation, or the image of
union, depending on which side of the political divide the reader
happened to be.
In 2019, political comics platform The Nib commissioned a
series of short ‘response’ comics to current socio-political issues,
and they were published on Instagram and on The Nib’s web-
site. UK Comics Laureate Hannah Berry created a four-panel
comic as her response to the UK’s decision to depart from the
EU (‘Brexit’), highlighting the familial discord caused by her
partner’s French nationality and her father’s British ‘leave’ vote
(Figure 5.3). Berry used a different image of disconnection from
Franklin’s, which was a literal cutting of the English Channel with
a pair of scissors representing a stark visual separation of the UK
from the EU. We can clearly see what Berry had in mind: Brexit
would mean a complete cutting off, an amputation, for her
family and for the UK. In contrast, someone who supported
Figure 5.3
‘Brexit’ by Hannah Berry (2019).
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Journalism 131
Berry’s father’s political position and voted ‘leave’ in the 2016
public referendum would not regard separation as an amputation
but a reclaiming of national sovereignty for the UK. Both Berry
and Franklin, though they are separated by almost two and a half
centuries in time, deploy the techniques of Comics to represent
political unity and disunity. Indeed, although they were created
centuries apart, both images are designed to make an immediate
impact in that they both attract the viewer’s attention immedi-
ately, and appeal directly to both sides of the political arguments
at whose services they are deployed.
Comics journalism: three key figures

Joe Sacco (1960– ) is one of the most frequently mentioned
names in comics journalism. Sacco trained as a journalist at the
University of Oregon, wanting to write hard-hitting, affective
journalism. After leaving the university, he began as a guidebook
writer in Malta, creating and drawing comics as a hobby. After
returning to the US, Sacco began to work for a range of comics
publications, including the satirical Portland Permanent Press and
The Comics Journal. However, what consolidated Sacco’s reputa-
tion as a leading figure in the development of comics journalism
began with Palestine, which was serialised from 1993 to 1995 and
published as a trade paperback in 1996. Palestine is a collection of
narratives and travelogues from Sacco’s time in Israel and Palestine
in 1991, and several of them are retellings of stories he was told
by Palestinians and Israelis. This collection won an American
Book Award in 1996 and heralded the beginning of a new,
dynamic use of Comics as a vehicle for journalism and investiga-
tive reportage. Sacco returned to the region for his 2009 graphic
novel Footnotes in Gaza that follows the artist’s investigations
into two massacres, at Khan Younis and Rafah, in 1956. The
story is assembled through interviews with residents and official
source material, all of which is developed alongside contempor-
aneous events, including the death of American activist Rachel
Corrie. Sacco’s comics journalism could be divided into two cat-
egories: the first is his work on the Middle East, while the second
focuses on the Balkans. Both Safe Area Goražde (2000) and The
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132 Journalism
Fixer: A Story from Sarajevo (2003) focus on the impact of this
intensely complex conflict from a single, narrow perspective. He
extended this in 2005, when he published War’s End: Profiles from
Bosnia 1995–96, a project funded by the prestigious Guggenheim
Fellowship. From this, we can conclude that Sacco’s close asso-
ciation with Comics had now begun to be taken seriously as a
form of journalism.
Sacco’s work is ground-breaking because of the ways in which
he adapts his skills as an artist and elides them with his journalistic
training. His creations are rigorously researched, but more import-
antly than this for our purposes, he mobilises the mechanics of the
Comics form to ensure that his work will appeal to the reader on
several levels. He takes complex, convoluted geopolitical conflicts
and extracts from them the stories that humanise the conflict so
that readers can connect on an emotional level with the stories
themselves. This is in addition to the factual details of the conflicts
he describes, as Bake and Zohrer observe:
Besides the comics-immanent possibilities Sacco uses in order

to tell the truth, he also breaks with expectations and draws
on techniques that are more conventional in science, news
journalism, or NGO human rights reporting for that matter,
using, for example, footnotes, quotes and geographic maps.
(2017: 86)
Gilbert and Keane compare Sacco to ‘foreign correspondents

or documentary film- makers’ insofar as they ‘share many of
their functions and have adopted a similar ethos’ (2015: 239).
Benjamin Woo argues that Sacco does not interview ‘notable
people’ (2010: 173); Hillary Chute counters by writing that
‘Sacco visualises history based on oral testimonies he solicits
from others, in a sense producing an archive from non-archived
material’ (2011: 108). If journalism is based on revealing some-
thing ‘hitherto unknown’, then Sacco’s archive-building does
exactly this, giving voice to the unspoken experiences of ordinary
individuals and communities.
Sacco is present within his comics in that, as Woo suggests,
‘he draws himself into the background as a near-constant figure
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Journalism 133
whose presence dismantles the conceit of detached journalistic
objectivity’ (2010: 75). The author avatar he employs is heavily
caricatured (his features are exaggerated) and wears blank glasses,
allowing the reader to project themselves onto the character, a
technique that will be further discussed in Chapter 6. Sacco has
said that ‘some people have told me that hiding my eyes makes
it easier for them to put themselves in my shoes, so I’ve kind
of stuck with it. I’m a nondescript figure; on some level, I’m a
cipher’ (qtd in Cooke, 2009: n.p.). He acts as a witness, watching
the events around him without interacting, but rather bearing
witness and reporting. Moreover, in placing himself in the action,
Sacco shows how he is involved in the creation of the story he is
writing. The narrative is based on real events and the accounts of
witnesses, but it is also an artefact, something that he is creating
from his own perspective, and he is ‘concerned with his own
entanglement in the material he depicts’ (Salmi, 2016: 8).
Unlike some other comics journalists, Sacco draws directly
from his own experiences of the specific location he is describing.
Kenan Koçak writes:
Sacco argues that in order to recreate a specific time, place

and situation, a comics journalist should draw in a realistic,
down-to-earth fashion. This precept is observed by nearly
all comics journalists because even those such as Joe Kubert
and Kemal Gökhan Gürses, who draw places they have not
visited, research photographs, films, documents and others’
drawings to create the exact environment.
(2017: 179)
This is not to disparage those who do not write from direct

experience, but it does speak to the specific power and influ-
ence of Sacco’s work. Unlike those who are first and foremost
comics artists, and whose primary focus is on the ‘comics’ part of
comics journalism, Sacco’s skills as a journalist occupy an equal
status with his art. Rosenblatt and Lunsford write, ‘More than
any other creator of comics reportage, Sacco’s work is closer to
traditional journalistic practices, and more than any other cre-
ator, Sacco self-consciously redefines journalism for the comic
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134 Journalism
book medium’ (2010: 69). His work gives voice to individuals
whose stories have remained out of the public arena, and opens
up this type of journalism to a wider audience. The real aim of
Sacco’s work is, as Rebecca Scherr writes, ‘to rethink his own
notions of prejudice and pain, and to convince others to do the
same’ (2013: 19).
Sarah Glidden (1980–) is another American artist, but one
whose work, while clearly comics journalism, is markedly
different from Sacco’s. Originally from Boston, she studied Art at
Boston University and began making comics in 2006, while living
at Flux Factory, an artist collective in New York. She has written
two long-form comics and a series of shorter pieces for online
and print publications. Glidden self-published a series of mini-
comics about her 2007 trip to Israel on a ‘Birthright Israel’ tour,
which won a 2008 Ignatz Award for ‘New Talent’. She developed
these mini-comics into her first book, How to Understand Israel in
60 Days or Less (2010), and she describes her experience learning
about the history and politics of Israel, reflecting on her own
identity as a secular, liberal, Jewish American. Her work is dis-
tinctly autobiographical in tone, and she focuses on her own
experiences, both on the tour itself and on what she learned
about both Israel and her own attitude toward it. Her second
book, Rolling Blackouts: Dispatches from Turkey, Syria, and Iraq
(2016), recounts a trip to the Middle East, when she was accom-
panied by two freelance journalists who were reporting on the
region’s refugee crisis.
In contrast to Sacco, Glidden does not work in a strictly jour-
nalistic style: she draws images of the journalists, but she does not
draw images as a journalist. Her work is more about reporting
on the creation of journalistic responses to an event or, in the
case of Rolling Blackouts, its aftermath, and allowing her work
to reflect on the issues inherent in journalism as a practice. In
Rolling Blackouts, Glidden accompanies Sarah Stuteville and Alex
Stonehill, two journalists who founded The Seattle Globalist,
and Dan O’Brien, a former Marine. Their aim was to collect
personal and record personal experiences and testimonies and to
weave together the untold stories of what it was like living in a
conflict zone. Rather than writing about the events as they were
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Journalism 135
happening, Stuteville and Stonehill aimed to examine their after-
math –what remains once soldiers and their military equipment
have left. Glidden’s role was to capture the way this kind of jour-
nalism works and to try to represent the processes that under-
pinned the images and narratives. As a review published on the
website of the British weekly newspaper The Observer stated at
the time:
Glidden’s book only explains what it can show with real

events. There’s no pages breaking down the pieces of the
crafts as an abstraction, such as: ‘how an interview works’,
‘how to find good sources’ or ‘fact-checking testimonials’.
Everything she wants us to see, she shows through actual
events that happened on the trip.
(Dale, 2016: n.p.)
The book is perhaps most notable for the ways in which it

makes the reporting process itself transparent; indeed, not only
does Glidden show how her journalist accomplices find and
collect information from their sources, but she also shows the
relationships that form inside the group, illuminating various
discussions on arising ethical questions and on other aspects of
reportage. Because of the complex and politically charged sub-
ject matter, there are many aspects of the book that are contro-
versial. Glidden’s depiction of interviews with Kurdish and Iraqi
individuals throughout the book tries to show that their speech
is being translated by another person in the room. She does
this by overlapping their speech bubbles in an aim to represent
graphically the number of voices involved in these exchanges.
For example, in a panel showing a Kurdish woman whose speech
is represented in her native language, the bubble will be almost
entirely obscured by another, overlapping bubble, containing
the English translation. Glidden has been praised for this visual
descriptor of translation, and the book is about giving a voice
to those who have been hitherto ignored in major international
conflicts or whose voices have been silenced by powerful forces
who have dominated the airwaves. The obscuring or silencing
of voices is even more politically offensive when we consider
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that many of those silenced in this way are female, while the
translators who mediate their voices are mostly male.
Glidden is aware of these issues, and her presence within the
text as observer and recorder allows her space to comment on the
issues of representation within the work itself. In an interview
with Tom Spurgeon, she revealed that:
With journalism you have to accept it’s going to be ethic-

ally weird. You have to accept with a book like this that you
are going to write pages where it’s [just people] in a room
talking. It’s going to be boring for a couple of pages, and
that’s okay.
(Spurgeon, 2016: n.p.)
Despite not being trained as a journalist, her understanding of

the ethical side of things is solid. Within comics journalism,
Glidden’s specific position offers new lenses through which we
can tell these stories, and she creates a frame that allows both
story and form to be critiqued on their own merits.
The final comics artist to be discussed here, Guy Delisle
(1966– ), creates work that is markedly different from the
others mentioned in this chapter. An animator by training,
Québécois Delisle worked at animation studios around the
world, and his experiences in Asian studios are recorded in
two books, Shenzhen (2000 [translated to English in 2006])
and Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea (2003 [translated to
English in 2004]). His later works derive their narratives from
trips to Myanmar and Jerusalem with his wife, who works for
the NGO Médecins Sans Frontières. The book that resulted
from the Myanmar trip was published as Burma Chronicles in
2007 (translated to English in 2008) and the one from the
Jerusalem trip was published as Jerusalem: Chronicles from the
Holy City in 2011 (translated to English in 2012); the latter
won the Angoulême International Comics Festival Prize for
Best Album in 2012. His latest book, Hostage (2016 [translated
to English in 2017]), departs from his own experiences and
tells the story of Christophe André, a Médecins Sans Frontières
employee, who was kidnapped in 1997. Whereas Sacco and
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Glidden create work that comment and reports directly on
events in areas of the world that are noted for their complex
histories of conflict and insurgency, Delisle does not. Though
he does visit places where there is political unrest and mili-
tary action (most obviously Israel), his books are perhaps
more accurately labelled as travelogues or travel writing. But
even then, he does not directly act as a journalist claiming
that ‘he does not find news, but that news finds him’ (Koçak,
2017: 183). Koçak writes:
In Jerusalem, Delisle does not directly write about the con-

flict between Palestinians and Israelis, he just shows it by
drawing armed soldiers, firing guns, shouting people and
chaotic streets. With similar intent Sacco constantly keeps
streets muddy throughout Palestine.
(2017: 178)
These elements are presented without comment and while the

conflict is there, there is no clarity of focus. Rather, it is back-
ground noise, the socio-cultural canvas onto which Delisle paints
his story.
Delisle’s work treads a path between the straightforward, fac-
tual account of a visitor to a new country and politically and
socially charged commentary that the ‘facts’ might generate. Let
us consider his 2003 book Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea.
Delisle spent two months in North Korea, working for a French
animation studio, which outsourced much of their ‘filling in’ ani-
mation (the animated sequences of movement that are used to
knit together longer sequences, designed elsewhere) to a North
Korean company. On the face of it, the book follows Delisle as
he experiences some of the difficulties in cross-cultural working,
as he was being taken on many guided tours to various parts
of the city, while staying in an inferior hotel. The drawings he
produced are all presented in a simple monochrome style, but
there is also biting social critique, beginning when he informs
the reader of his choice of reading material for the trip: George
Orwell’s depiction of the experience of totalitarianism, Nineteen
Eighty-Four. Throughout the two-month trip, Delisle was able
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138 Journalism
to combine the banality of the job and his experience of resi-
dence in a largely empty hotel, with unemotional accounts of
cultural tours and trips to national monuments. Throughout
he was accompanied by a guide and translator, ‘Captain Sin’.
One particularly disturbing section recounts Delisle noticing the
apparent absence of disabled and elderly people in the streets of
Pyongyang. His guide tells him that North Korea has no disabled
people: ‘All North Koreans are born strong, intelligent and
healthy’ (Delisle, 2004: 136). A panel depicting Delisle’s face –a
simple line drawing but clearly displaying incredulity –is what
he offers by way of response. This is typical of much of the style
of Pyongyang; Delisle understands what the Western reader might
think of the events and topics being depicted and so he does
not feel that additional comment is needed. The image of an
incredulous face is enough.
The works of Guy Delisle are not as easily classified as jour-
nalistic comics as those of Sacco or Glidden. He does not report
on specific events, nor does he position himself explicitly as a
journalist. His work fits more neatly into the field of travel lit-
erature, which is itself a flexible and contentious genre. For Carl
Thompson, travel writing ‘encompasses a bewildering diversity
of forms, modes, and itineraries’ (2011: 1–2). Scholars of the
genre often note its inherent classist, and often racist (or at least
racially complex), nature. This is most evident in examples of
travel narratives from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
when the Grand Tour was a popular activity of the privileged
classes, but also included diaries of sailors and naturalists (notably
Charles Darwin). Others focus on the sociological, geograph-
ical, and ethnographic possibilities that these accounts contain,
though it is hard to ignore their largely Eurocentric emphasis.
Regardless of the writerly –and academic –lenses at play, travel
writing is an established, albeit flexible, genre. In placing Delisle’s
work within this category, two things are being suggested here.
First, that we take from his books the story of a journey, with
the artist as our guide and representative. Second, that Comics
can bring together the nuances and cultural peculiarities of a spe-
cific location and display them on the drawn page in ways that
are compelling, interesting, and informative. The multi-levelled
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Journalism 139
creation of the image can impart to us particular items of infor-
mation (‘All NK citizens are healthy’) but can also provide an
accompanying concise social comment such as the silent face at
the same time.
The combination of Comics and Journalism brings together
two kinds of narrative to provide an effective means of representing
complex social and political situations in an unusually vivid way.
The sheer economy of the graphic representation combines
‘showing’ and ‘telling’, which are the two key components of
narrative art.
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6
Drawing lives
In 2011, the Angoulême International Comics Festival (Festival

International de la Bande Dessinée d’Angoulême) was the site of a
curious scandal. The source was a young French Comics artist,
Judith Forest, who had published her first memoir in 2009.
1hr25 follows her addiction issues, her family relationships, and
her experiences of meeting various distinguished comics artists.
Forest was interviewed on television and radio, and she had a
popular social media presence. Quickly, the suspicions began,
especially as many of the people Forest claims to have met did not
remember her at all. Many people assumed she did not, in fact,
exist and the story was a strange, elaborate hoax. This general air
of unease increased with Forest’s second graphic memoir, Momon
(Masquerade), released in 2010. Momon is a response to 1hr25;
Forest discusses the success and controversy of the first book and
ultimately questions her own existence. Momon begins what the
editors finished at the Angoulême festival –it was a hoax. The
woman seen on televised interviews was an actress (Brethes,
2011). What makes this hoax particularly curious is that it does
not appear to have been driven by profit and sales. Instead, the
aim behind the creation of Forest was to ‘generat[e]‌discussion
about the value of authenticity and the limits of autobiograph-
ical comics’ (Johnson, 2017: 199). The editors, the Belgian press
La Cinquième Couche, had created something they perceived to
be badly written, formulaic, and trite; the Francophone Comics
world did not agree, and the fictional Forest became popular.
This was not part of the plan but did not affect the aim of the
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Drawing lives 141

experiment: it did make readers consider the importance of
authenticity within autobiography.
Outside of the Comics form, there have been many contro-
versial publications in life writing. One of the most incendiary
in the Anglophone world occurred when a skilfully written (if
long-winded) memoir of drug addiction and recovery was found
to be almost entirely false. James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces
(2003) recounts his experience of drug use, arrest, and rehab,
with the addition of some gory and fanciful snippets including
a root canal without anaesthetic. The book received a massive
boost when Oprah Winfrey discussed it on her show in 2005
and featured Frey as a guest. Unfortunately, in 2006 a long-form
article broke down Frey’s book piece by piece and revealed it
to be a fraud. He was forced to apologise on the Oprah Show,
and his publisher offered refunds. Another hoax –one that
carries the more horrific burden of being tied to the Shoah –
is that of Binjamin Wilkomirski. His memoir Bruchstücke: Aus
Einer Kindheit 1939– 1948 (Fragments: Memories of a Wartime
Childhood 1939–1948) was published in 1995 to huge critical
acclaim, winning many major book awards. However, as with
Frey, it was not true. Latvian-born Binjamin Wilkomirski was
Swiss-born Bruno Grosjean: the vast majority of the memoir,
including his reports of events that happened at both Auschwitz
and Majdanek, was fabricated. The fact that he chose to adopt
the identity of an innocent bound up in the Shoah is unpalat-
able to many; such lies do not sit well when the experience was
a stark reality for so many. Of the book and its autobiograph-
ical claims, Maechler writes: ‘Once the professed interrelation-
ship between the first-person narrator, the death-camp story he
narrates, and historical reality are proved palpably false, what was
a masterpiece becomes kitsch’ (2001: 81). Bruchstücke is not a
bad piece of writing; in many ways, it is beautifully constructed
and could have been considered great as a piece of Shoah fiction.
The truth claims removed this option, and, as Maechler states, it
becomes kitsch. But, if anything, these scandals only increase our
appetite for such stories.
Humans are curious, some many even say nosy, as a species.
We want to know things about our fellow humans and actively
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142 Drawing lives

seek out this information. Thankfully, humans are also a loqua-
cious species, and we willingly talk about all aspects of our lives
and experiences. Life writing in all its many forms, including
biography, autobiography, memoir, diaries, and letter writing, is
centuries old and part of a venerable tradition of capturing the
human condition in words (or pictures!). Many centuries older
than the novel, this genre finds its roots in two distinct documents
of antiquity: the Apologia and the biography. In this sense, the
biography is hard to distinguish from our modern usage of the
word: an account of the lives and actions of notable figures, usu-
ally emperors or great statesmen. I doubt whether the authors
of the time thought of their texts as life writing; more likely,
they would have called it history. An Apologia is a less common
occurrence in the modern world. The word has nothing to do
with the modern understanding of ‘apology’; rather, it is a jus-
tification or defence of one’s actions. These two parallel styles
developed into what we now think of as life writing, through
countless iterations and examples from all strata of the social
order. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the scandalous
(Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions [1789]) rubbed shoulders
with the artistic (such as William Hazlitt’s Liber Amoris [1823])
on bookshelves. This has been the shape of the genre ever since.
As Gillian Whitlock puts it,
Autobiography is a cultural space where relations between

the individual and society are thought out intensely and
experienced intersubjectively; here the social, political, and
cultural underpinnings of thinking about the self come to
the surface and are affirmed in images, stories, and legends.
(2007: 11–12)
Modern life writing spans the entire spectrum of human interest,

from celebrities and sports personalities, to political figures and
great thinkers, to tragic life stories and medical narratives.
Of course, with any kind of life writing, we face issues of
representation, ‘autobiographical truth’ and narration, though
not necessarily on the same level as the works of Forest, Frey,
or Wilkomirski/Grosjean. In her own autobiographical comic,
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One! Hundred! Demons! (2002), Lynda Barry uses the term
‘Autobiofictionalography’, an amusing portmanteau that
acknowledges the melting together of truth and fiction that is
central to life writing. The issue of ‘truth vs. fiction’ is an enor-
mous subject and cannot be fully covered in a paragraph, but it
bears mentioning because of its importance to the study of life
writing in general. We generally assume that, for a piece of life
writing to not be a work of fiction, basic historical fact must be
accurate –dates and locations of birth, life events, and such like.
However, Elisabeth El Refaie reminds us that ‘it is impossible to
draw strict boundaries between factual and fictional accounts of
someone’s life, since memory is always incomplete and the act
of telling one’s life story necessarily involves selection and artful
construction’ (2012: 12). Memory is fallible; our understanding
of our lives is governed by perception and subjective viewpoints.
Therefore, it is impossible to write something that is 100%
accurate on all counts. According to Philippe Lejeune, autobio-
graphical texts involve an implicit understanding between author
and reader, which he calls the ‘autobiographical pact’ (Lejeune,
1989). El Refaie describes this pact as the author ‘commit[ing]
him-or herself not to some unattainable historical exactitude
but to the sincere effort to be as truthful as possible’ (2012: 53).
Lejeune claims that autobiography ‘supposes that there is identity
of name between the author, the narrator of the story, and the
character who is being talked about’ (1989: 12), which ‘can only
be upheld if the self is construed as a coherent and unified entity’
(El Refaie, 2012: 53). We know that this is not how identity
works: our selfhood is not fixed, but rather a fluid understanding
of self that develops over time.
Comics has not ignored life writing. Instead, the formal
aspects of Comics and the arsenal of artistic techniques at hand
have been found distinctly able to give shape to intensely personal
narratives, with rich focus on individual stories and experiences.
‘Autographics’, as they are often rendered, are among the most
rigorously researched and academically interesting of all areas of
Comics Studies. In this chapter, I discuss the history and devel-
opment of autographics, the myriad issues surrounding author
avatars, Graphic Medicine, and end with three case studies.
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Ultimately, this chapter suggests reasons for the enduring (and
increasing) popularity and success of comics as a form for life
writing.
What is autographics?
Put in its simplest terms, autographics is a genre of Comics that
contains life writing in all its various guises. The word itself was
coined by Gillian Whitlock in a 2006 article. She writes:
By coining the term ‘autographics’ for graphic memoir

I mean to draw attention to the specific conjunctions of
visual and verbal text in this genre of autobiography, and
also to the subject positions that narrators negotiate in and
through comics.
(2006: 966)
In terms of theme and story construction, there are many simi-

larities between comics and prose life writing. In terms of form
and artistic choices, ‘comics are capable of demonstrating a
broader and more flexible range of first-person narration than
is possible in prose’ (Versaci, 2012: 36). Versaci adds that, ‘while
many prose memoirists address the complex nature of identity
and the self, comic book memoirists are able to represent such
complexities in ways that cannot be captured in words alone’
(36). The visual and artistic presentation of autographics does as
much to create the story as the plot, story, and characters and,
by extension, it guides the reader in their movement through
the work. But, as we discussed earlier in this book, the creative
choices artists make are bound up in wider concerns including
culturally and nationally bound customs of representation (see
Chapter 3). Davis positions these wider concerns as being inex-
tricably tied with the individual’s story, meaning that these
comics ‘cannot be read solely as a personal account [as] the cul-
tural connotations of the stories and the narrative choices […]
attest to the complex interweaving of the strategies of meaning’
(2005: 270). We cannot remove the social, cultural, national, and
ideological from autographics (or any type of life writing across
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all narrative forms), and we should not seek to. Life writing is
about connection –the narrator/author’s connection with their
world, their past, and their selves. In a narrative form that both
privileges the interconnectivity of word and image, although
remaining alert to the potential limitations and failures, it is not
a stretch to suggest that such formal concerns can be used to
represent themes of connection. The form already demands that
readers make narrative and hermeneutic connections during the
active reading process; mobilising readerly engagement to place
the reader in the role of a narrator seeking/creating connection
can lead to affective reading experiences and a close relationship
between reader and creator to develop empathy and identifica-
tion. I return to these connections later in the chapter.
In recent decades, autographics has become one of the most
widely researched genres of Comics, as well as being the most
broadly represented in the canon. Many of the texts that have
bolstered Comics’ reputation as a narrative form of substance are
autographics; many have also been very successful outside of the
form itself. Art Spiegelman’s rendering of his parents’ experi-
ence of the Shoah, Maus (serialised 1980–1991), won a special
Pulitzer Prize in 1992; Alison Bechdel’s coming of age story, Fun
Home (2006), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle
Award; and Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi’s 2000 Bildungsroman, set
against the backdrop of the Islamic Revolution, ranked #5 on
Newsweek’s list of the ten best fiction books of the decade. In the
introduction to his study of Autobiographical Comics, Andrew
J. Kunka lists these three works as the recipients of the majority
of critical attention in Comics Studies (2017: 2). The wealth of
scholarship and popular attention on this very short list of texts
may seem to suggest that this particular type of comic is both a
recent and a Western phenomenon; in reality, it is neither.
One of the earliest recorded autographics comes from Portugal.
Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro, a Portuguese artist and illustrator, had
been publishing humorous political caricatures and comics in
national newspapers for some time when, in 1881, he created
No Lazareto de Lisboa (The Lazaretto of Lisbon). This short work
contains personal thoughts and events, presented as a series of
drawings with captions, in a similar structure to Töpffer’s work
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146 Drawing lives
Figure 6.1
Cover of Psit!!! by Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro (1877).
(see Chapter 2). Figure 6.1 is from the popular Brazilian weekly
comic Psit!!!, which Bordalo Pinheiro drew during his time in
Rio de Janeiro in 1877. It demonstrates the influence of Töpffer
and his own development of the Comics form. Unfortunately,
Bordalo Pinheiro’s example was not taken up widely by Portuguese
artists, except for Carlos Botelho. Botelho drew a weekly full-
page comic called ‘Echoes of the Week’ for the humour magazine
Sempre Fixe between 1928 and 1950 (without a single break). He
would weave his own experiences of Lisbon life into the strips,
positioning himself as both observer and chronicler of events,
while also including a hefty dose of political satire. However, this
work received little interest outside of Portugal, and so its cultural
weight and influence are relatively low. Despite this, it is crucial
to the history of autographics, as it demonstrates that such types
of comic were being created in a range of national and social
contexts long before typically suggested.
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Other early autographics exist in similarly non-Anglophone
cultures. Yoshitaka (Henry) Kiyama’s The Four Immigrants
Manga was exhibited in San Francisco in 1927 before being
self-published in 1931. Each of the 52 strips is a vignette of
an experience of Kiyama and three of his friends, all of them
Japanese students who immigrated to San Francisco between
1904 and 1907. Figure 6.2 shows the four friends’ arrival in San
Francisco, using clear panels and speech bubbles. The rest of
the stories cover the arrival, as well as major historical events
such as the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the Panama-Pacific
International Exposition of 1915, and the various waves of legis-
lation against Asian immigrations (often nicknamed ‘The Yellow
Peril’). Another Manga artist, Taro Yashima, published two auto-
biographical works with a similar focus on his personal relation-
ship to major world events. The New Sun (1943) describes his
life as an anti-war, anti-Imperialist, and anti-militarist Japanese
citizen in the 1930s, as well as his wife’s imprisonment for the
same beliefs, while The New Horizon (1947) continues their life
post-prison and immigration to the US. A final example from
Japan is Yoshiharu Tsuge’s 1966 autographics work Chiko. Tsuge
depicts his life as a struggling artist, dependent on his partner, a
Figure 6.2 From The Four Immigrants Manga: A Japanese Experience in

San Francisco, 1904–1924 by Henry (Yoshitaka) Kiyama,
translated by Frederik L. Schodt. © Estate of Yoshitaka
Kiyama, Frederik L. Schodt. Used by permission of Stone
Bridge Press, Berkeley, California.
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bar hostess. His work started the Watakushi Manga movement
(I Manga) and laid the groundwork for other artists to chron-
icle their development as an artist in this way, a type of story-
telling that shares much with the European tradition of the
Künstlerroman, a narrative tracing the education of an artist (lit-
erally ‘artist novel’). The relationship between the Künstlerroman
and Comics is a strong one, according to Rocío Davis:
Graphic narratives are highly effective Künstlerroman –

because the subjects of the autobiographical comics are, most
often, graphic artists themselves. The reader is privileged to
participate in the performance of both memory and art, and
the complex interaction between them.
(2005: 269)
Just as the graphic novel is often said to have sprung from

key texts published in 1986 (see Chapter 2), it can be said
that autographics has a ‘key year’. In 1972, Manga artist Keiji
Nakazawa published a 48-page story titled ‘I Saw It’, his first-
hand account of the bombing of Hiroshima. The Manga is bold
and visceral, depicting the event through the eyes of the child
narrator and changing the parameters for representations of war
in Comics, with the opening of the autobiographical witness
lens. ‘I Saw It’ was reworked into the longer, fictionalised Barefoot
Gen, serialised from 1973 to 1987. In addition, 1972 saw the
publication of Justin Green’s Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin
Mary, a landmark of both medical and confessional memoir,
which I discussed in Chapter 2. It is also the year of the founding
of Wimmen’s Comix, a female-authored comic (and later artists’
collective) that included work from Aline Kominsky-Crumb,
Diane Noomin, and Trina Robbins (also discussed in Chapter 2).
Jared Gardner writes of the collective that it ‘called for a new
approach to personal comix narrative, one that explored the
ways in which collective identities were forged through personal
autobiography and the ways in which personal self-exploration
was strengthened through collective creativity’ (2012: 126). It
would not be too bold to suggest that 1972 was the birth year of
Graphic Medicine (though the term itself came later), as well as
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the beginning of a greater number of works that saw both sexual
and conflict trauma as legitimate themes for autographics. Before
turning to the topic of author avatars and self-representation, let
us consider the term ‘Graphic Medicine’.
Graphic Medicine is a genre of Comics that brings together
medicine in all its guises and the Comics form, with special focus
on patients and medical memoir. The name itself was coined by
Ian Williams, a general practitioner, to encapsulate ‘the inter-
section between the medium of comics and the discourse of
healthcare’ (2007: n.p.). While writing his master’s dissertation
on medical narratives in comics, Williams set up the Graphic
Medicine website as a hub for clinicians and scholars. This does
not only mean medical memoir and illness narratives from the
patient’s perspective (though this makes up a large percentage
of texts), but also narratives from the point of view of clinicians
or medical researchers; non-fiction comics that give accessible
information about a specific condition or treatment; and guides
for those who are tangential to the patient experience, such as
loved ones and carers. Many creators also work in healthcare.
Williams is the creator of two graphic novels (The Bad Doctor
[2010] and The Lady Doctor [2019]) that follow GPs working in
rural Wales, their roles as doctors, and how their personal health
concerns affect their work. As another example, M.K. Czerwiec
(alias ‘Comic Nurse’) works as an HIV hospice nurse and has
been recording her experiences in comics form for many years.
Her work is available in book form (Comic Nurse [2006]) and on
her website.
When it comes to the subgenre of Graphic Medicine that
is explicitly autographical, we find ‘cartoonists who have
experienced illness [that] are telling their story not just about
a wounded body but through a wounded body’ (Williams,
2012: 24). The visual nature of Comics means that a med-
ical condition previously described only in words can now be
shown visually, leading to the development of innovative visual
metaphors to represent the symptoms and experiences of a con-
dition. According to Williams, this ‘visual knowledge plays
an important part in popular and professional understanding
of medicine, yet this mode of comprehension is generally
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undervalued in healthcare education, which places priority on
textual learning and verbal communication’ (2013: 64). Comics
is able to ‘inform the way that illness and disease are culturally
perceived’ (Williams, 2013: 64). In an academic article presented
as a comic, Williams discusses the importance of the ‘empathic
bond’ between creator and reader (Figure 6.3). Graphic Medicine
creates narratives of the experience of a condition, rather than just
its symptoms and ‘clinical presentation’, in a form that demands
that the reader engage with the narrative through connection of
image and word. In this way, Graphic Medicine is both effective
as a means of information transmission and also affective, seeking
to make the reader feel something of the author’s experience and
thus empathise with it.
What kinds of visual metaphors are being used in the represen-
tation of medical conditions? In Epileptic (1996–2003, in English
2005), David B. tells the story of his brother Jean-Christophe’s
Figure 6.3
‘Empathic Bonds’ by Ian Williams (2011).
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diagnosis of Epilepsy and the upheaval this caused in his family,
as their parents search out treatments and cures for the condition.
The original title of the book is L’Ascension du Haut Mal, which
roughly translates to ‘The Rise of High Evil’, referring to both
an archaic term for Epilepsy and to Jean-Christophe’s grand mal
seizures. The direct focus of the narrative is not Jean-Christophe
himself. If anything, he is a minor player in a story that centres
on his health. Rather, the main character is a young David (here
called by his childhood nickname ‘Fafou’) and his rich, obsessive
imagination. For Fafou, his imagination becomes a suit of armour
he can put on to protect himself from the events surrounding
him. The art within the book shows childlike dreams of battles
and monsters, with his brother’s Epilepsy represented as a snake
with a crocodile’s head and an endless body and with Fafou
buffered against the onslaught of the disease by his grandfather,
who is depicted as an ibis. The coming together of mythology,
war, and childlike imagination is both terrifying and completely
understandable. Looking through the eyes of a young narrator,
the reader is able to see why such coping mechanisms would be
necessary but can also read deeper into the images to see what
the ‘monster’ of Epilepsy is doing to the family dynamic, the
brothers’ relationship, and the brothers as individuals. On com-
pletion of Epileptic, the reader may not be any more knowledge-
able on the mechanics of the condition but is likely to have a
greater understanding of the social and familial dimension. This
is the general aim of autographics within Graphic Medicine: not
textbook but understanding –a sense of the condition or disease
and the impact it has on the patient and those around them.
The author avatar

The word ‘avatar’ comes from Hinduism; it is the name given to
the ‘earthly’ form of a deity (e.g., the avatar of Ganesh is depicted
with the head of an elephant). The word is likely more recog-
nisable to non-Hindu readers as referring to the symbol, image,
or name used by a person during online interactions, or as a
playable character in video games. Within Comics (specifically
autographics), the author avatar is the name given to the artistic
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representation of the author within the text. James Hall notes
that the inclusion of self-portraits in paintings has a long-standing
tradition in visual art as both a way to signify authorship and a
way to provide an artwork with a visual signature (2014); literary
and textual inclusion can be traced back throughout history, with
notable examples including the author of The Revelation of St
John in the New Testament (who describes his visions first-hand
[c. 95 C E ]) and Dante’s self-insertion into The Commedia (1320).
The inclusion of a version of oneself in a piece of artwork is by
no means something confined solely to Comics. That said, it
is something that has a distinct place within Comics, as Moritz
Fink writes:
With the emergence of comics as a form of popular enter-

tainment, questions of authorship have come to meet the
logics of consumer culture. The producers of comics have
always fostered the notion of the ‘original artist’ in an
attempt to set themselves apart from models of anonymously
produced mass culture. Although they are the products of
assembly-line-type collaborative processes, Superman as well
as Batman were initially marketed partly through the labels
of their creators.
(2018: 268)
In order to remain distinct from mass-produced work, seem-

ingly unclaimed by any artist, some artists explicitly labelled their
work with their own name, similar to the way painters sign their
paintings. Though this is not strictly an avatar, it is the beginning
of the visual and indistinguishable mark of the creator on a comic
book or character, something that became far more common with
the rise of underground ‘comix’ in the 1970s. Charles Hatfield
suggests that author avatars ‘confer an illusion of objectivity’
(2005: 115). The presence of the creator within the text, typic-
ally guiding the reader and central to the narrative, would logic-
ally suggest some level of objectivity. In creating their avatar, the
artist ‘objectified him or herself […] achieving at once intimacy
and critical distance’ (Hatfield, 2005: 115). We must remember,
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of course, that autographics faces similar issues to all life writing
in that there is a necessary muddying of the waters between fact
and fiction for the purposes of narrative creation. Referring to
avatars as ‘I-cons’, Michael Chaney sees their position as ‘visual
figures scarcely different from any other represented object […]
on view, being viewed rather than revealing the view’ (2017: 23–
24). Thus, the inclusion of the artist’s avatar is not necessarily
about a mark of objectivity within the text as much as about the
artist’s own understanding of their place within the story and
their representational judgment of it.
The author avatar is the representation of the author within
the text. This is not to say that the avatar will be a photoreal-
istic image, clearly recognisable as the author, nor that the
avatar will even bear the same name. Let us work through
these issues in sequence: first, the creation of a visual avatar;
next, the other options available visually; finally, the choice to
name the avatar character. According to El Refaie, ‘the require-
ment to produce multiple drawn versions of one’s self neces-
sarily involves an intense engagement with embodied aspects of
identity, as well as with the sociocultural models underpinning
body image’ (2012: 4). The artist must decide how to render
themselves within their work, making decisions that may affect
the way the work is received and the positioning of the author
avatar within the world of the story. An example of this can
be found in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. Satrapi’s style is rem-
iniscent of Persian miniatures and expressionist woodcuts, stark
black-and-white line drawings with very little fine detail. Her
style has become instantly recognisable, some may say iconic,
but it does pose a problem for distinguishing one character from
others. The problem is made more so by the topic of the comic’s
first chapter: Satrapi recounts the introduction of the hijab to her
school and so all of her friends are drawn as identically veiled
little girls. She is able to
[D]‌istinguish [herself] by the inclusion of a beauty mark to

the side of her nose. This way, through changes in hairstyles
or in scenes where she wears a hijab that may make her
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indistinguishable from other similarly clad women, the
reader can still identify the story’s protagonist.
(Kunka, 2017: 64)
Thus, her artistic choices both capture the central theme of the
book (the veiling of women in post-revolution Iran) and, simul-
taneously, keep her avatar recognisable. Just as Satrapi’s woodcut
style and beauty mark have become easily recognisable markers
for her works, so too do the avatar choices of other autographics
creators; their reasons for their choices are mixed. Joe Sacco,
whose work is discussed in Chapter 5, draws himself with car-
toonish, blank-lensed glasses. Wendy Kozol sees his blank glasses
as indicative of his status as an avatar (2012: 167); however, Sacco
admits that, while ‘it is deliberate now, it certainly wasn’t in the
beginning. If you look at the first few pages of Palestine, you’ll
see that I didn’t used to be able to draw at all!’ (Sacco, in Cooke,
2009: n.p.).
Author avatars are central to the experience of reading
autographics, regardless of their style of presentation. It is
important to remember, as Daniel Stein points out, that the
avatar is not a real person. The avatar may be representative of
the author, but it is still a mediated representation and not the
unvarnished truth. The self that is drawn within the avatar is
the self that the author wishes to put forward. This is governed
by a number of factors, including the narrative itself; changes
may be made to the character of the author if it behoves the
narrative’s comprehension and coherence. Stein uses the example
of the avatar ‘R. Crumb’ in Robert Crumb’s various confessional
comics. The self-insertion is a narrative ‘gesture’; the author
avatar is an element within the creative arsenal that speaks to the
possibilities within the Comics form (Stein, 2009: 212–213). It
would be too crude to say that Crumb inserts himself ‘because
he can’ but the suggestion that Stein makes is that we must be
careful in reading too much into author avatars. Readers should
always be wary of a first-person narrator, as they are unreliable to
a high degree. While we should not necessarily distrust all author
avatars within autographics, readers should place their trust care-
fully. This follows for autographics, wherein we have the added
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visual dimension: not only do we ask, ‘why are they writing
themselves this way?’ but also ‘why are they drawing themselves
in this way?’
Of course, there are more ways to represent oneself than
just as a drawn human. Zoomorphic and non-human avatars
are occasionally employed in autographics in order to create a
visual shift or to extend the visual metaphor beyond the human
sphere. Notable examples include the cat and mouse characters
in Art Spiegelman’s Maus (1991), James Kochalka’s buck-toothed
not-quite-human in American Elf (1998– 2012), and Lewis
Trondheim’s bird-headed self in The Nimrod (1998–present). By
‘visual shift’, the inclusion of a non-human avatar can be jarring.
In a narrative in which all other characters are visually human,
presenting the protagonist as something ‘other’ makes them stand
out and draws attention to their difference. This difference may
be literal (e.g., a physical disability or demarcation) or it may be
perceived by the protagonist. Alternatively, if all characters are
rendered as non-humans, this may extend the theme of the text
into such visual metaphors. For example, Cece Bell’s El Deafo
(2014) chronicles her deafness and use of a hearing aid since
childhood. Because of the technology involved in her hearing
aid, Bell sometimes hears private conversations between her
teachers; she develops a secret superhero identity, ‘El Deafo’.
All the characters are drawn as rabbits. When asked about her
choices in an interview, Bell stated, ‘What are bunnies known
for? Big ears; excellent hearing’: the visual metaphor continues
the theme of deafness and hearing (Bell in Bircher, 2015: n.p.).
The use of zoomorphic or non-human avatars is challen-
ging: Kunka asks if ‘the value of the allegorical representation
overcome[s]‌any questions that the representations might raise
with regards to documentary truth’ (2017: 64). It goes without
saying that the reader knows that the authors are not actu-
ally animals and that their animal avatar is an artistic decision.
However, the issue of documentary truth can go both ways in
this case. On the one hand, the animal avatar makes clear the
fictional parts of the narrative, which are present by the very
nature of life writing but are often obscured or ignored by the
reader. Although it is highly likely that the reader is aware of
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the fictive dimension to all life writing, such a stark reminder of
this may not be entirely comfortable or welcome. On the other
hand, it creates a level of artistic distance between the narrative
and the creator. Viewing oneself through a different lens (e.g., as
a bird-headed human, as Trondheim does) can allow for a level
of critical distance that may not be present in a narrative led
by a more photorealistic avatar. This not only leads to a poten-
tially different, vital take on a personal issue but can also help the
reader to empathise as they are not being asked to identify with a
specific individual but an animal or other non-human.
Finally, I turn to the issue of naming the avatar character.
In many cases, the avatar is named for the creator, as we might
expect. But this is not always the case. In Binky Brown Meets the
Holy Virgin Mary (1972), Justin Green draws himself as Binky,
a young man struggling with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
and Catholicism. Binky had previously appeared as an avatar
for Green in ‘Confessions of a Schoolboy’ (1968). Green states
that, ‘the creation of Binky Brown was one phase in my spiritual
development […] It’s a slow process’ (Green, qtd in Manning,
2010: n.p.). My second example also concerns a narrative of a
traumatic childhood. Phoebe Gloeckner’s (semi)autographical
rendering of her childhood first appears in A Child’s Life and
Other Stories (1998); The Diary of a Teenage Girl was published
as a graphic novel in 2002. Her work tells the story of Minnie
Goetze, living in 1970s San Francisco, with her mother; Minnie
recounts losing her virginity to her mother’s boyfriend and her
subsequent sexual encounters. Though the character is not expli-
citly supposed to be Gloeckner, their childhoods are almost iden-
tical, and she has ‘a tendency to shift arbitrarily between referring
to “Minnie” and “me”’ in interviews (Orenstein, 2001: 28). As
these examples demonstrate, the decision not to name the avatar
character directly after the creator does not affect a comic’s status
as autographics. It is likely nothing at all to do with disguising
identities for the reader and is instead a necessary type of psycho-
logical distancing for the creator. Still, as with the use of zoo-
morphic and non-human avatars, some readers may feel that the
lack of naming parity suggests a lack of truth.
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As I have already stated, autographics is, at its heart, about
connection. It is about the author finding a way to understand
and tell their story within the context of the wider world and in
a form that makes sense. The myriad artistic and representational
strategies in use may include those that blur the lines between
objective truth and fictionality and ask the reader to question
the text’s veracity; often, this is necessary in the artist’s recreation
of the essence of an experience. This is especially true of trau-
matic memories, where the ‘truth’ may be uncommunicable or
unreachable, even to the artist. Rather than recreate the minutiae
of an event or experience, the artist will work to mimic some
small part of the traumatic experience in a form that is commu-
nicable to the reader.
I conclude this chapter with three case studies. Each study
discusses a different example of the connections that are being
made within autographics and the different representational strat-
egies at play. The three comics discussed are tied together by their
mutual themes of trauma, memory, and identity construction.
They are all also works by (cis) women, writing about their own
experiences. In her 2010 book Graphic Women, Hillary Chute
discusses the marginalisation of female artists and relates it to the
silencing of narratives of trauma. She suggests that the gendered
suspicion of memoir, and especially the ‘extreme’ or ‘oversharing’
memoirs of women, in combination with the visual register, are
central causes to this marginalisation; the visual register is often
seen as ‘excessive’ (Chute, 2010: 5). In Chapter 2, I discussed
Aline Kominsky-Crumb and her relationship to both the fem-
inist collective Wimmin’s Comix and fellow artist Robert Crumb.
She is a good example of the seeming ‘excess’ of women’s life
narratives: ‘Her underwhelming reception contrasts markedly
to that of her husband, cartoonist Robert Crumb, who has
been canonized exactly for writing the darker side of (his own)
tortured male sexuality’ (Chute, 2010: 31). Women’s trauma
narratives are considered extreme regardless of their exact con-
tent; men’s narratives are not, and the reasons for this difference
in perception are rarely questioned. The three comics I present
here as my case studies each focuses on addressing a different
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158 Drawing lives

type of connection: between artist and the past, artist and the
world, and artist and the creative process. This is not to say that
each text considers only the specific type of connection that I am
highlighting in them, but that it is the prevalent theme and forms
the basis of the work.
Three case studies: connecting with…

In 2018, German-born artist Nora Krug published Heimat: A
German Family Album, a comic that asks difficult questions about
her family’s involvement in the Second World War. Interestingly,
the book has been published under three titles: earlier, I gave
the British title, but the original German is Heimat: Ein deutsches
Familienalbum, whereas in the US the book was titled Belonging: A
German Reckons with History and Home. The word heimat has no
literal English translation that would faithfully capture all aspects
and so the decision to keep it in the British release title speaks
to this untranslatability. Krug was born in 1977, and as such,
‘[t]‌he task of Vergangenheitsbewältigung [struggle to overcome the
negatives of the past], of coming to terms with the National
Socialist era, is in Germany mainly associated with the litera-
ture and films of Krug’s parents’ generation’ (Grujić and Schaum,
2019: 196). The task undertaken by Krug, to discover and recon-
cile her family’s involvement in the atrocities of the Nazi regime,
is therefore not one that might necessarily be expected of her
generation. In her struggle to overcome the negatives of the past,
she must become acutely aware of the chance that her discov-
eries give her an insight into her family that is not palatable: the
answers she receives may not be the ones she wants. And this is
the crux of Krug’s book. She is seeking to connect with the past,
to reconcile herself to it, and to understand how such events and
decisions affect her experience of living in the twenty-first cen-
tury, her national and cultural identity, and her future.
In order to form this connection, Krug researches her family
through archives, personal notebooks belonging to her uncle, and
family photographs. She becomes a collector of what she calls
‘things German’, a selection of trinkets and ephemera that she
buys from flea markets ‘because [her] own family never left [her]
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Drawing lives 159

any of those things’ (Krug, qtd in Reyes, 2018: 14). Grujić and
Schaum consider her to be a ‘memory archivist’, and much of
the book’s images are photographs of the objects she is collecting,
alongside photographs of places and people, as well as simple
drawings of people (2019: 201). In an interview, Krug has stated:
I think we all need to recognize ourselves as carriers of our

country’s past. We can’t pretend that we exist in a vacuum.
We carry the memory of wars and political events, and these
memories are passed from generation to generation. We have
a responsibility to watch what we do with these memories.
We have to be able to learn from these things and apply them
to the present.
(Krug, qtd in Reyes, 2018: 15)
Her connection with her past –and the past of her country –is
intensely important for her present and future. This is where the
issue of the word heimat becomes relevant once more. It is a word
without accurate English translation and speaks of a national and
cultural belonging and a tie to a ‘homeland’ that goes beyond
nationality. For a country in which nationalism and national
pride are bound up with shame, heimat itself is contentious, and
being able to view their connection to their history and their
homeland without shame is a task that many will never achieve.
Krug’s mission is to seek what is lost and to regain her connection
to her roots and her past in a way that neither excuses nor vilifies.
In bringing together the visual and textual histories of her family,
Krug creates a comic that represents many of the contradictions
and traumas of the past in close physical-visual proximity; she
allows them to exist concomitantly, and the visual placement acts
as comment. It is for the reader to see the relationality between
the different elements and to work with Krug as she pieces
together the narrative. The ‘working through’, to use a psycho-
analytical term, that goes on is performed by the reader and pro-
tagonist together. The connection with the past is made manifest
in the connection between reader and writer.
While Krug’s book forces her to ask difficult questions about
a past of which she was not a part, Una’s 2015 book Becoming
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160 Drawing lives

Unbecoming places its focus on a past that very much belongs to the
artist. Thus, her book is not necessarily about the past as much as
the past is ‘about the book’, lurking as a kind of haunting figure.
As such, I see Becoming Unbecoming as being about the artist’s
connection with her understanding and conception of herself,
tracking the ways this connection changes from the 1970s to the
2010s. Beginning in 1977, when she was twelve and living with
her family in Yorkshire, Una chronicles her early teen years in
relation to the unfolding ‘Yorkshire Ripper’ investigation. The
Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, killed thirteen women and ser-
iously injured nine others in the late 1970s, before being arrested
in 1980; the case was poorly handled by the police and led to
reform within homicide policing procedures nationally. Becoming
Unbecoming is intensely concerned with what it is to grow and
develop as a young woman in an era where each woman feels
stalked and threatened by an unknown sexual predator. Rita
Jacobs writes that, ‘in [the context of the book], the Ripper’s
sensational crime is seen as less of an aberration than we might
expect, though it is writ larger. In fact, the everyday crimes of
men against girls and women appear to be legion’ (2017: 91).
Una is attempting to grow up in a world that is against what she
is and what she is becoming.
The opening page of the book shows a stooped and exhausted
Una carrying an empty speech bubble over her shoulder like a
sack; the weight of wordlessness and an inability to speak appears
to be incredibly heavy for her, and this initial image crystallises
the themes of the book (Figure 6.4). The motifs of a hunched
Una carrying a load in the form of empty speech bubbles recur
throughout the comic. It becomes clear to the reader that the
immense weight of silence on Una derives from the sexual abuse
that she suffers as a young woman, and which remains unspoken.
Within the comic itself, Una does not contain her own speech
within bubbles and her child avatar remains silent. Rather, her
words are uncontained by bubbles or caption boxes on the page,
instead being shown as free-floating text. This is, in part, to
emphasise that she is narrating the events on the page (which
happened in the past) in the present, as an adult; it also provides a
stark contrast to the empty containers. Where previously she was
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Drawing lives 161
Figure 6.4 Becoming Unbecoming (p. 7). Reproduced with the permis-

sion of Myriad Editions (www.myriadeditions.com) ©
Una 2017.
unable to speak and, we infer, had no hope of being heard, now

she is able to speak about herself and her experiences freely. In
this sense, the whole book is a speech bubble, a declaration of self.
Much of Una’s struggle to find and learn herself is a struggle
to find words; given that trauma is generally discussed in terms
of its ‘unspeakability’, this is possibly to be expected. There are
myriad ways that Comics can represent traumatic experience
through artistic choices, including fragmented panels, use of
muted (or excessively vibrant) colour, image montages, and a
total removal of all words. Nancy Pedri suggests that in Becoming
Unbecoming, it is the use of absent or unusual panels that most
clearly convey ‘Una’s impossibility of reaching a coherent and
determinable understanding of sexual violence, public and
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162 Drawing lives

private responses to sexual violence, and the impact of sexual
violence on understandings of self ’ (2018: 308). However, des-
pite its traumatic subject matter and the horrible, life-altering
events discussed,
[T]‌he text does not offer a story of permanent victimhood.

Rather, it boldly speaks back to the misogynistic social, legal
and political structures and attitudes that attempt to silence
women and girls and tacitly endorse gender and sexual dis-
crimination and prejudice.
(Appleton and Mallan, 2018: 49)
It is in this connection to the darker experiences of womanhood

and in her weaponising of her story to combat them that Una
becomes herself.
The boldest and most compelling hint at Una’s desire for
connection with selfhood is found in her chosen nom de plume
and the name she gives her avatar: ‘Una, meaning one. One
life… one of many’ (2015: 10). Despite this name, which suggests
connection and wholeness, there are two Unas for the majority
of the book: the narrator and the visual subject. As Appleton and
Mallan write,
The function of the narrator–Una–is to explain the contexts

that impacted on her life as well as to make sense of a trau-
matic experience –rape and sexual abuse –that she and
many children and women have suffered. […] In contrast
to the adult narrator, young Una, the visual subject, barely
speaks while fragments of her life –childhood, adolescence
and adulthood –are narrated.
(2018: 51)
It is only in the final few pages of the book, in which we see the
adult Una and her new life, with wings fully functional, that the
two Unas become one. She moves home, renames herself as ‘Una’,
attends university and marries; a double page presents her new life,
which is witnessed from a distance, ‘showing a family with their
backs to readers’ (2018: 62). Pedri writes that Una is unable to
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Drawing lives 163

understand the impact of sexual violence on the self, as quoted
above, but this is not strictly true; though she obviously struggles
with the traumata of her younger years, her art has given her voice
and the story within the book is a step towards understanding.
French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir famously wrote, ‘One
is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’: Becoming Unbecoming
represents the becoming woman of one individual and her process
of connection with herself and what ‘woman’ is to her (2007: 295).
For Una, the work of art is a form for self-reflection and self-
acceptance. For Nicola Streeten, the first British woman to pub-
lish an autobiographical comic, it is a vehicle for considering art
itself –as a process, as an object, and as a cultural issue. This is the
final connection I discuss here and a key issue in autographics: the
connection of the individual artist and work to the wider artistic
community and the world at large. In her 2007 book, Billy, Me
and You, Streeten chronicles her experiences following the death
of her two-year-old son. It is an unusual book in many ways.
The drawings are taken from Streeten’s diaries of the period
and they are drawn on lined paper, in scratchy, imperfect biro,
with the dates from the original diary visible at the bottom of
the page. Rather than each drawing being made in relation to
the others, as one would for a ‘typical’ comic book, each one
exists in its own moment. The book is then assembled from the
images: there is a clear narrative through the images but rather
than being a fluid creation, it still retains the clunky feeling of
something that fits together awkwardly. This is not to the detri-
ment of the book at all. Streeten is writing and drawing about
raw grief and the openness and honesty that is communicated
through this assembly process sits well with the subject matter.
In the ‘afterword’ of the main narrative, Streeten tells the reader
that she started a master’s degree, for which she would create a
graphic novel, and here the process begins. Not only the pro-
cess of creating the book but also of positioning herself and her
story within the world of Comics. After grappling with her
reading list (including ‘phenoMENology’), Streeten attends a
public roundtable on Comics (2011: n.p.). Figure 6.5 shows her
sitting in the audience, listening to another woman asking about
women’s interaction with Comics, as well as the reactions of other
164
164 Drawing lives
Figure 6.5
Billy, Me and You (n.p.) by Nicola Streeten (2011).
attendees. The other woman is Sarah Lightman, with whom

Streeten founded Laydeez Do Comics in 2009. Despite Comics not
being an andro-dominated form in reality, it can certainly appear
that way to the casual observer. Nevertheless, Streeten’s task is a
complex one, especially as her story is bound up in narratives of
motherhood (and womanhood). Indeed, her book is a bold inter-
vention into Comics and autographics purely because of what it is,
without opening the cover: it is the first work of autographics by
a British woman, and the subject matter of parenting and mother-
hood is one that receives relatively little discussion.
Despite being a memoir of grief and loss, Billy, Me and You is
not meant to be a cathartic enterprise for the creator. In an inter-
view with Ian Williams, Streeten states:
The modern usage of ‘Catharsis’ is derived from early psy-

choanalytic ideas of getting rid of traumatic events through
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Drawing lives 165

an emotional charge, the psychoanalyst being the conduit for
this process. The idea is of cleaning out pent up trauma with
the suggestion of a cure at the end. This theory becomes
applied to the author rather than the audience, catharsis
being understood as the therapeutic tool.
(Streeten, qtd in Williams, 2011: 357)
But to return to Aristotle’s use of the word, catharsis is some-

thing for the audience, not the creator. Streeten goes on to say
that many people have suggested that the creation of the book is
a work of therapy: ‘I did not think about the work in terms of
therapy or catharsis for myself or anyone else when I began, but
it’s a question repeatedly asked’ (2011: 357). Instead, the book is
a work of art. She is creating an artefact that tells a story but is
not made because of an outpouring of emotion; rather, it is made
because she wants to tell this particular story in this particular way.
And what is the story in this book? It is about the death of her
son, but beyond that, it is about the process of creating a narrative
about grief. Streeten is intensely concerned with the ‘how’ of the
work. In the first part of the book, she discusses the immediate
reaction to Billy’s death. Her partner, John, takes photographs
of discarded objects around their flat as ways of capturing the
quotidian aspects of his presence in their lives; these photographs
are included in the book. Streeten does not explain his deci-
sion to do this and the lack of explanation is, in itself, explana-
tory. There is no way to explain why people act the way they
do when grieving, and the decision to photograph their son’s
discarded toys is a type of memorialisation that makes sense in the
moment. Furthermore, Streeten’s partner is an artist. The desire
to make a visual remembrance of their son through a photo-
graph of a discarded toy truck or pair of flip-flops is no different
to Streeten’s own memory artefact, the book (2011: n.p.). The
book itself and the process of creation contained within it dem-
onstrate the connection of artist and process that is central to
autographics. As Frederik Byrn Køhlert writes,
[I]‌
mpervious to truth claims [through the nature of the
comics form], comics autobiography allows the artist to
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166 Drawing lives

structure the narrative to correspond to a larger, emotional
truth, and to visually externalize subjectivity on the page in
a way that is constitutive of selfhood while remaining true to
dominant ideas of the self as fragmented and multiple.
(2015: 127)
Here is the crux of autographics. It is a distinct genre in which the

creator is using their own experiences, emotions, and stories to
connect to their past, their communities, their selfhood, and the
wider world. The result is a rich and diverse collection of texts
which allow the reader access to a broad spectrum of humanity
and human experience.
167
Conclusion
In 2013, the Australian Department for Immigration and Border

Protection launched ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’ (OSB).
Introduced as a response to what was seen as an ‘immigration
crisis’ of ‘illegal maritime arrivals’, people without visas entering
Australia via boat, the campaign consisted of leaflets, posters, and
a short, wordless comic. Titled ‘No Way’, the comic is eighteen
pages long and contains no words except the stark directive
‘You will not make Australia home’ in Farsi and Pashto on the
front page. The narrative follows a young man’s journey from
his home country to a detention camp on Nauru, by plane and
boat. While in the camp, he remembers his home fondly, while
bugs fly around him (see Figure C.1). The art style is simple,
with clean lines for easy dissemination and understanding, but
despite the simplicity of the art, it is obvious that the character
is a person of colour, most likely from the Middle East. Almost
immediately, the comic was met with outcry from other agencies
of the Australian government and from around the world. Aaron
Humphrey describes the comic as ‘an accidental backstage
glimpse inside the government’s international public relations
campaign to deter asylum seekers with an implied promise of
misery’ (2018: 458–459). It was removed from the Department
for Immigration and Border Protection’s website, though the
operation itself is still live. As recently as 2019, the campaign was
being discussed, this time by US President Donald Trump who
posted a photograph of the posters on Twitter, with the caption
‘These flyers depict Australia’s policy on Illegal Immigration.
168
168 Conclusion
Figure C.1 Panel from No Way by the Australian Department for

Immigration and Border Protection (2013).
Much can be learned!’ (2019, n.p.). As has become the norm

with Trump’s tweets, this comment revived and intensified the
discussion on immigration in Australia and beyond, with out-
spoken opinions on both sides.
The situation in Australia, and the universal resistance to
the reception of refugees from war-torn regions of the world
(but for our purposes more importantly the use of the Comics
form to publicise the policies of some governments) raises
some important questions about the immediacy and its inter-
national appeal. This was certainly crucial in the reception and
overall effect of the ‘No Way’ message of Australia’s immigration
authorities. Elisabeth El Refaie notes that ‘many of the inherent
features of comics, such as the gaps between panels and the semi-
otic tensions between words and images, work to encourage the
169
Conclusion 169
critical mental involvement of the audience’ (2012: 206). It is in
the very nature of the form construction to draw on the ‘mental
involvement’ and, by extension, the emotions and sensitivity
of the reader. In the case of the Australian example, a simple
caption effectively reversed a centuries-old policy of welcoming
immigrants, while at the same time offending readers who were
sensitive to the racial implications of the visual representations
themselves, Similarly, for Lisa Freinkel, the narrative power of
‘comics’ narrativity depends on what she calls the ‘gappiness’ of
the narration. Narrative meaning leaps across visual gaps and is
founded on the gutter that separates one panel from the next
(2006: 251). As Thierry Groensteen observes, through the con-
cept of braiding, the gaps innately involve levels of interpret-
ation, invention, and narrative creation on the part of the reader,
which necessarily leads to greater engagement with the work
(2007: 478). Comics necessarily stir the emotions of the reader
and demand a considerable amount of readerly engagement.
This Australian comic was always going to receive emotional
reactions, with the coming together of Comics reading styles
and with a universally emotive subject matter. In addition, as
Humphrey writes, the comic is a clear example of
[H]‌ow drawn visual representations of marginalised groups

of people can be used without the involvement or consent
of those groups. [It highlights] the ways that the gaps used
in comics and other forms of digital visual communication
can generate reader engagement, while also eliding clear
statements and obscuring both authorship and authenticity.
(2018: 481)
Aside from being a case study in the ugly negative uses of comics,
the Australian OSB comic demonstrates how an awareness of
the political nature of comics and the way they are used is an
important skill, especially as transmission of culturally and linguis-
tically defined comics is now easier and faster than ever before.
Part of accepting that Comics is a fully developed narrative,
and artistic form involves understanding it in relation to other
170
170 Conclusion
media. For Henry Jenkins, contemporary media are characterised
by what he calls convergence, and he uses the term ‘convergence
culture’ to denote the coming together of new and old media
forms and the way they shift and merge across platforms (2006).
He writes:
Our ties to older forms of social community are breaking

down [and] our rooting in physical geography is diminishing.
However, new forms of community are emerging. These
new communities are defined through voluntary, temporary
and tactical affiliations, are reaffirmed through common
intellectual enterprises and emotional investments and are
held together through the mutual production and reciprocal
exchange of knowledge.
(35)
Comics is central to this convergence culture and is a popular

nexus of knowledge for a large number of other media forms.
We can see how media franchises often centre on comics as the
founding media format for the franchise. Key examples include
the Marvel and DC comics and cinematic franchises, the adap-
tation of Manga into Anime (Japanese-language animated series),
and the large number of comics-to-film adaptations as well as the
resulting merchandising that they generate:
On the one hand, convergence represents an expanding oppor-

tunity for media conglomerates, since content that succeeds in
one sector can expand its market reach across other platforms.
On the other hand, convergence represents a risk, since
most of these media fear a fragmentation or erosion of their
markets. Each time they move a viewer from, say, television to
the internet, there is a risk that the consumer may not return.
Convergence is also a risk for creative industries because it
requires media companies to rethink old assumptions about
what it means to consume media –assumptions that shape
both programming and marketing decisions.
(Jenkins, 2004: 37)
171
Conclusion 171
While convergence culture is important for the continuation
of many types of media, it does not mean that they become
subsumed into a homogeneous mass. The distinctions between
forms remain and they continue to exist separately, even though,
as Jenkins observes, the movements between media are not
without risks. The most commonly discussed type of crossover
for comics is with film; as Booker suggests,
[T]‌the rise of the graphic novel as an identifiable format

in comics publishing has been inextricably intertwined in
recent years with what has been easily the most important
commercial development in comics publishing during that
period: the rise of comic book film adaptations.
(2017: 160)
According to Booker,
Graphic novels are so well suited to film adaptation that one

might argue that one of the most important functions (for
better or worse) of the graphic novel nowadays is to serve as a
sort of experimental cultural laboratory for the film industry.
(2017: 161)
However, it is crucial to remember, as Marjane Satrapi observes,

that film and Comics are ‘false siblings […] They resemble one
another but they’re two completely different things’ (2011: n.p.).
She stresses the difference in terms of the active reading that
comics require and passivity of film watching, as well as the fact
that comics are, typically, consumed by one person at a time,
whereas films often are not. She also reminds us that comics are
a distinct form from films: one is not a preliminary stage in the
creation of the other; this opinion arises from the fact that film
storyboards resemble comics. Nevertheless, the convergence of
Comics and film works in the interests of both forms. Comics
creators now receive more attention because they are exposed to
an increasingly wide readership, while the sheer voracity of film
as a practice widens what can be adapted for the cinema.
172
172 Conclusion
Figure C.2 Statistics on film adaptations from comics as original source.
Figure C.2 indicates the number of films released in cinemas

internationally that are adapted from Comics (including graphic
novels, Manga, Bandes Dessinées, and newspaper strips). This
list was created by compiling statistics from online film infor-
mation sites The Internet Movie Database, Rotten Tomatoes, and
The Numbers. We can see that there has been an increase in the
number of adaptations in the past fifteen years, many of which
are based on the Marvel or DC comics universes. There have also
been a large number of adaptations of Manga into feature films.
The graph also shows another expansion in numbers during the
1940s, and this went hand-in-hand with the popularity of news-
paper comic strips, ease of accessing intellectual property rights,
and built-in fan bases that led to a spate of adaptations of strips
such as Blondie (created by Chic Young in 1930), Bringing Up
Father (created by George McManus in 1913), and Joe Palooka
(created in 1930 by Ham Fisher).
173
Conclusion 173
The migration of Comics to the cinema has raised a number
of formal issues, not the least of which is the antagonism that
some film-makers have shown towards the convergence of the
two forms. For example, Martin Scorsese made headlines in
November 2019 when he commented that the recent glut of
film adaptations of Marvel comics were ‘not cinema’ (Scorsese,
qtd in De Semlyen, 2019: n.p.). He went on to say that
[T]‌he closest I can think of them, as well-made as they are,

with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances,
is theme parks. It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying
to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another
human being.
(2019: n.p.)
This distinction between ‘cinema’ and films as ‘theme parks’ is

not an uncommon one, though there are comics adaptations that
have successfully made the transfer into film and received con-
siderable critical acclaim. In 2013, Julie Maroh’s Bande Dessinée,
Le Bleu est une Couleur Chaude (published in English as ‘Blue
Is the Warmest Colour’) became the first comic book adapta-
tion to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Earlier,
the animated adaptation of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis had won
the Jury Prize in 2007. Comics adaptations have appeared at the
Sundance Festival, as evidenced by one noteworthy example: A
Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, with art by Jon Conrad (2014).
This comic is based on the film of the same name, which
preceded it, and the script for the comic was written by the
film’s director, Ana Lily Amirpour. The film and the comic were
released simultaneously at the festival, highlighting the sym-
biotic nature of the connection between narrative forms and
emphasising the different roles that each played in the creation
of the narrative. Even so, for the most part, American main-
stream comics adaptations have not received much acknowledge-
ment from award-giving organisations, although some have been
recognised. It may be that the focus on action and visual spec-
tacle in such films marks them as inferior, although in recent
174
174 Conclusion
years the situation has begun to change. Two actors have won
Academy Awards for playing Batman’s enemy, the Joker: Heath
Ledger in 2008 (Best Supporting Actor for The Dark Knight, to
date the only posthumous Academy Award) and Joaquin Phoenix
in 2020 (Best Actor for Joker). Both actors have been praised
for emphasising the deep psychological turmoil of the character
and communicating it through powerful performances. In 2018,
Marvel’s Black Panther became the first comic book adaptation
to be nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award. From
this evidence, it is clear that comics adaptations are proving very
successful internationally and the successes of ‘such films indicate
a rich future for adaptations of graphic novels to film, though the
ultimate impact of such adaptations on the graphic novel form
itself remains to be seen’ (Booker, 2017: 172).
While the comics versus film debate may well be resolved
by a mutual acknowledgement of the separateness of the two
forms, a debate of another kind is proving less easy to disen-
tangle. This involves the question of whether it is possible to
consider Comics as a form of ‘art’ with an accompanying aes-
thetics. To what extent should Comics be considered a separate
art form with its own protocols, as opposed to being simply
an offshoot of the literary narrative form? In 2005, The Comics
Reporter published an academic debate between Charles Hatfield
and Bart Beaty, which aimed to resolve this question. The two
scholars considered the categorisation of Comics as either Art
(Beaty’s position) or Literature (Hatfield’s position). Hatfield
concluded by outlining the issues that the discussion raised, one
of which was ‘the ongoing redefinition of literary study in the
face of cultural studies, particularly in light of what I take to be a
re-conceptualising of the visual vis-à-vis literary texts’ (Beaty and
Hatfield, 2005: n.p.). It is necessary to see definitions as mutable
and to reconceptualise them in the light of new information,
technologies, and cultural developments. Similarly, a central con-
cern with comics is their ephemerality and their disposability. It
is argued that the lifespan of a comic is ended once it loses its
immediate value for the reader. This is in contrast to ‘high’ art,
which, according to Kunzelman, is ‘immortal where the pop
object, mass produced and disposable, lives a life that is nasty,
175
Conclusion 175
short, and brutish’ (2013: n.p.). However, this distinction could
not be sustained and began to break down with the rise and the
challenge posed by the rise of Pop Art in the 1960s; Beaty writes
that ‘Pop Art constituted a threat to the established hierarchies of
the arts’ (2012: 63). According to an article in Art in Print,
[T]‌he continuing critical view of comics as ‘raw material’ for

real art betrays a monolithic and ahistorical conception of the
medium, ignoring its aesthetic development and bypassing
alternative comics altogether –the comics that could most
easily be recognized as art.
(Dana, 2013: n.p.)
Thus, as Comics began to develop a history of its own, attention

began to turn towards analysis of its formal properties, or what
was thought of as its ‘aesthetic development’ where those formal
properties and that development were used to align a popular
form with a more durable ‘art’.
It is likely that the emphasis on comics as a literary narrative
form has muddied the waters of this debate, and it does not help
that fan communities are vigilant in their gatekeeping and policing
of the boundaries of the form (see Chapter 4). Of course, there
are notable structural differences between Art and Comics as
industries: the Comics industry tends to foreground accessibility
and mass appeal, selling through the internet, conventions, and
physical shops at (generally) affordable prices, whereas the Art
world is concerned with one-of-a-kind, often extremely expen-
sive objects that are tightly controlled in terms of creation, sale,
and exposure. Ultimately, the acceptance of Comics as Art is not
essential to its continued acceptance and development as a form,
although this is another obstacle in the way of its acceptance as a
serious endeavour.
This barrier has much in common with the high and low
culture debates that are sometimes seen as being characteristic
of Modernism. In his 1986 book After the Great Divide, Andreas
Huyssen identifies ‘the inherent hostility between high and low
[culture]’ as being a key element of Modernism (1986: viii).
176
176 Conclusion
According to Huyssen, the rise of Postmodernism has led to the
dissolution of this hostility and produced a marked shift in
the relationship between high and low (or popular) cultures. The
fact that ‘the categorical demand for the uncompromising seg-
regation of high and low has lost much of its persuasive power’
(Huyssen, 1986: 197) means that popular and marginalised forms
are accorded an equal status in critical discourse and in academic
curriculae. Comics has benefited from the removal of the bound-
aries between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture, and the cultural value of
comics as artefacts oscillated over time. However, the most sig-
nificant single change in the evolution of Comics has been the
rise of the graphic novel and, correspondingly, the growth of
Comics Studies as an academic field.
In Chapters 2 and 3, I outlined the histories of Comics and
their modes of circulation and demonstrated how they have
undergone marked shifts from political cartoons to newspaper
strips, to magazines to bound books. It is possible to see these
histories as manifestations of a phenomenon informally referred
to as the ‘Cerebus Syndrome’. The expression is taken from Dave
Sim’s multi-award-winning comic series Cerebus the Aardvark,
which ran from 1977 to 2004. Beginning as a parody of heroic
fantasies such as Conan the Barbarian, the series follows Cerebus,
a misanthropic aardvark. Throughout its run, it developed from
simple, parodic stories and humour into a platform for Sim’s
personal, and often controversial, views on a range of topics from
politics and the economy, to the battle of the sexes and fem-
inism. Such views were given special prominence in Issue #186,
part of the ‘Mothers and Daughters’ story arc, published in 1994.
Through a fictional persona, Viktor Davis, Sim presented an
essay that pontificated on the nature of men and women, pro-
posing a binary split between the ‘Female Void’, which focused
on feelings and emotions, and the ‘Male Light’ which focused
on reason. According to Sim, male reason risked being eclipsed
by the alleged void of femininity in a binary logic that insisted
on the radical distinction between ‘male’ and ‘female’ identities.
Although his categories were crude and were based upon long-
held masculine mythologies that emphasised the superiority of
177
Conclusion 177
masculinity, the division was taken seriously by some scholars,
male and female, and even though the fashion did not last long,
the debate has been re-energised more recently in relation to
the controversy surrounding the issue of trans-gender and trans-
sexual identities.
Sim had already acquired a reputation as a staunch critic of
feminism, but the opinions voiced in Issue #186 marked him
clearly as a misogynist in the minds of many readers, and the
result was a sharp decline in the numbers of his readership.
The Cerebus Syndrome refers to the gradual shift in tone from
parodic humour and a corresponding levity to a more serious
concern signalled by a much stronger, more politically charged
content. A further example to support this is to be found in
the changing representation of the central figure of the popular
comic series Batman. Launched in 1939, the brightly coloured
and fanciful stories of what has come to be regarded as a product
of the mainstream Golden Age are strikingly different from
Frank Miller’s 1986 The Dark Knight Returns or Grant Morrison’s
Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth (1989). Further
difference can also be seen in Adam West’s camp Batman series
and the films of the Dark Knight Trilogy, directed by Christopher
Nolan (2005–2012). Whereas in earlier representations readers
or viewers may be unaware of shifts in tone, more recent
representations are much more self-conscious.
We can trace the shift in the tone of Comics throughout the
world in relation to the Cerebus Syndrome. As many scholars,
news outlets, and popular writers have reiterated repeatedly,
comics have traditionally faced a negative press. The history
of their position as cheap, ephemeral casual entertainment has
proved difficult to shake. But it is possible to mobilise this igno-
minious history as a strategy for increased readership by addressing
the new and varied demographics of the energised readership.
Comics is highly self-aware and uses audience perceptions to its
advantage: if comic books are not required, by definition, to be
anything other than low-level, ephemeral entertainment, then
they can do anything they choose because there are no precon-
ceived ideas, nor pressures. As I have written elsewhere:
178
178 Conclusion
It is precisely because comics are not expected to deal with
weighty subject matter that they are effective at doing so.
The cultural perception of comics as a form that ‘doesn’t do
serious’ allows the form to reach a wider and more diverse
audience than may be typically possible with text literature
or film.
(2017: 194)
The form is able to make significant statements precisely because

it is not placed under pressure to do so since nobody expects to
find such themes in a form often associated with childhood. As a
form that can transcend educational, linguistic, cultural, and gen-
erational borders, it has proven its worth across a range of areas
of public life, from medical education and public information, to
language learning and reading. Comics creators have embraced
their form’s initial low status to encourage, educate, inform, per-
suade, and entertain.
Ultimately, we have a form that is able to speak, to a wide
readership and in many ways. It can articulate existing myths and
fantasies, but it can also be a vehicle for criticism, and its effect-
iveness in all these areas of public and personal life is, in large part
due to its immediacy and its incisiveness. Comics is a form that
can teach and entertain, while also adapting to new readerships
and rapidly evolving technologies. It can reflect various social
trends and the rapidly changing interests of its readers. As a
form, it stands on the front lines of political, social, and historical
conflicts, on battlefields both literal and ideological, and it has
shown that it can react and respond quickly to situations as they
arise. It can reflect on the Zeitgeist of the time or it can stand in
opposition to it. In short, Comics is a form that is for all people
and for all time.
179
Glossary
Adaptation An altered version of a text from one form to

another –for example, from novel to comic or from comic
to film. Adaptations may be very closely aligned to the
source material (often referred to as a ‘faithful’ adaptation)
or may differ greatly. Director Alain Resnais suggested that
adapting a text without changing any aspect is like ‘reheating
a meal’; those who wish to create adaptations across narrative
forms must contend with the different techniques for story-
telling and representation available to them (Resnais qtd in
Sheppard, 2017: 20).
Affect A feeling or sensory experience accompanying a
thought or action, or occurring in response to a stimulus.
Elsewhere, I have written that ‘Affect is at once both
delightfully simple and notoriously complex; definitions
are multitudinous and theorists have long thrashed out the
most effective way to explain it’ (2017: 42). It is an artistic,
narrative phenomenon with a long history of critical refer-
ence. Aristotle writes that affect is ‘that which leads one’s
condition to become so transformed that his judgment is
affected, and which is accompanied by pleasure and pain’
(1991: 6). It is the coming together of reading and emotion
in which the reader experiences a text viscerally and/or
emotionally.
Autographics Comics that use the themes and techniques of
life writing, combined with the comics form, to tell a true
story. The term was coined by Gillian Whitlock (2006) to
180
180 Glossary
bring together discussions of image, text, and the self. It is
an umbrella term that covers autobiographical, biograph-
ical, and memoir comics; a cognate term is ‘life writing’ (see
entry ‘life writing’).
Caricature A portrait or other artistic depiction, usually of
a face, in which the characteristic features of the original
are exaggerated for comedic or satirical purposes. The term
derives from the Italian caricare (to overload or to exaggerate)
and has been used in English as a noun since the 1680s.
Comics laureate An ambassador for comic books and their
potential to improve literacy, elected to the role by Comics
Literacy Awareness (CLAw), founded in 2014. There have
been three Laureates to date: Dave Gibbons (2015–2017),
Charlie Adlard (2017– 2019), and Hannah Berry (2019–
2021). A new laureate will take over in February 2021.
Cosplay A portmanteau of ‘costume play’, coined in Japan in
1984, to refer to the act of dressing up in costume, esp. as a
character from comics, Manga, or other media forms, with
an implied element of performance (Takahashi, 1983: n.p.).
It derives from the long-standing tradition of ‘masquerade’
and the wearing of costumes for parties, pageants, and other
social events. It is a popular type of fan engagement.
Cultural capital The term was coined by French sociologist
Pierre Bourdieu in his 1986 essay ‘The Forms of Culture’.
Bourdieu writes that
cultural capital can exist in three forms: in the embodied

state, i.e., in the form of long-lasting dispositions of the
mind and body; in the objectified state, in the form of
cultural goods (pictures, books, dictionaries, instruments,
machines, etc.) […]; and in the institutionalized state.
(1986: 242)
The concept of cultural capital collects together elements

of a person including education, tastes, posture, clothing
style, material belongings, and family connections that are
acquired or developed through being part of a certain social
181
Glossary 181
class. Sharing similar forms of cultural capital with others
creates a sense of collective identity that is often used to
leverage social mobility. Bourdieu makes it clear that cultural
capital is a source of social inequality. Certain forms are more
highly valued and affect social mobility as much as income or
wealth.
Dōjinshi Sometimes transliterated as Doujinshi. Japanese term
for self-published Manga. Though these are usually the work
of amateurs, some professionals also self-publish. The term
comes from 同人(dōjin –same person) and 誌(shi –a suffix
meaning ‘periodical publication’). Dōjinshi became a major
phenomenon with Manga in the 1980s, but the first recorded
examples date back to the Meiji period (c. 1874).
Doxxing The act of publishing an individual’s private infor-
mation online; this may include name, address, bank
information, place of employment. ‘Doxxing’ is short for
‘documents-ing’ and is typically carried out with malicious
intent. It developed from the 1990s internet slang ‘dropping
dox’ which was ‘an old-school revenge tactic that emerged
from hacker culture in 1990s’ (Honan, 2014: n.p.).
E-readers Also known as ‘e-book reader’ or ‘e-book device’.
A hand- held electronic device designed to be used for
reading digital versions of books. E-readers typically use a
type of screen technology called ‘electronic paper’ rather
than an LCD screen, to mimic the reading experience of
a printed book. The first e-reader, the ‘Sony Libre’, was
launched in 2004. The most popular to date is the Amazon
Kindle, which has sold over 20 million units since its launch
in 2007 (Kozlowski, 2018: n.p.).
Ergodic literature A term coined by Espen Aarseth in his
1997 book Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. It is
derived from the Greek ἔργον (ergon – work) and ὁδός
(hodos –path) and refers to literature that does not follow
a clear reading path or requires a considerable amount of
work on the part of the reader.
Fan fiction and art Works of narrative or decorative art
created by fans of a text, artist, or character, in order to
182
182 Glossary
participate in their fandom and engage with the source
material. The term was first used in 1939 as a disparaging
term to distinguish between science fiction novels written
by amateurs and ‘pro fiction’, written by professional writers
(Prucher, 2007: 57).
Gatekeeping The act of controlling, and often limiting, access
to a community or artefact by those within the community.
The terms originally appeared in Kurt Lewin’s book publica-
tion Forces Behind Food Habits and Methods of Change (1943).
Lewin studied the processes by which families changed their
food consumption during the Second World War; the ‘gate-
keeper’ was usually the housewife. Since then, the term has
developed into a, typically pejorative, description of one
who seeks to protect their object/community of interest by
placing a high bar for ‘entry’, such as possessing niche or
large amounts of knowledge. ‘Gatekeepers’ are often heavily
involved in fan activities and have a low opinion of those
they consider as ‘fake’ fans.
Geek A subculture of enthusiasts that is traditionally associated
with low forms of media (comics, anime, science fiction,
video games, etc.). The word ‘geek’ comes from Low
German Geck, meaning a ‘fool’ or ‘freak’, and was often used
in reference to circus performers throughout the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries (Etymology Online, 2020: n.p.). The
word took on its modern meaning as a person ‘perceived to
be overly intellectual, boring, or socially awkward’ in the
1970s and 1980s.
Hermeneutics The study and understanding of textual inter-
pretation. It is derived from the Greek word ἑρμηνεύω
(hermēneuō –translate or interpret), which suggests a link to
the messenger god, Hermes. Though it is often used in rela-
tion to biblical interpretation, the term is also used more
broadly, referring to written, verbal, and non-verbal texts.
Interdisciplinarity Work (typically academic) that brings
together two or more academic, scientific, or artistic dis-
ciplines. Though we may think of interdisciplinarity as
a twentieth and twenty-first century concept, this is not
183
Glossary 183
strictly true. Giles Gunn suggests that Greek historians and
dramatists used elements from a wide range of other discip-
lines, including philosophy and medicine, to develop their
understanding of their own fields (1992: 239–240).
Lazaretto A quarantine area for people travelling by sea, ini-
tially set up to stop the spread of Leprosy, a highly infectious
disease. The name derives from the biblical parable of Lazarus
and the rich man, appearing in the Gospel of St Luke (Luke
16:19–31). Lazarus is a beggar ‘covered in sores’, traditionally
interpreted as a description of Leprosy (Luke 16:21).
Life writing A general term for a genre of storytelling that
includes autobiography, biography, memoir, diaries, letters,
testimonies, and blogs; it is also sometimes used to describe
the collection of information relating to one’s genealogy and
the building of a family tree or similar record.
Modernism An artistic and literary movement that began in the
late nineteenth century and ended in the 1930s. Modernists
believed that the arts, faith, philosophy, and the sciences
were no longer fitting for their roles and that the increasingly
industrialised world demanded new ways to engages with
the social, political, and economic environment. This is most
clearly encapsulated in Ezra Pound’s 1934 exhortation: ‘Make
it new!’ In addition, modernists rejected the sense of cer-
tainty and epistemological security that they claimed was
found in the Enlightenment thinking of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, preferring instead to focus on self-
conscious experimentation and engagement with the self,
consciousness, and the personal. Noted thinkers and artists of
the modernist period include the artists Picasso, Seurat, and
Matisse; poets T.S. Eliot and e.e. cummings; writers Virginia
Woolf, James Joyce, and Samuel Beckett; and thinkers Henri
Bergson, Walter Benjamin, and Edmund Husserl.
Onomatopoeia From the Greek ὀνοματοποιία (ὄνομα –
name and ποιέω –to make), an onomatopoeia is a word
that phonetically imitates the sound it describes. Examples
include words such as ‘crackle’ or ‘smash’, as well as many
animal noises, such as ‘oink’ or ‘miaow’.
184
184 Glossary
Paratext The material that surrounds or supplements a
published work, such as front cover, introduction, footnotes,
interviews, and letters pages (common in many comics).
Literary theorist Gérard Genette writes that a paratext is
a zone between text and off-text, a zone not only of

transition but also of transaction: a privileged place of
pragmatics and a strategy, of an influence on the public,
an influence that is at the service of a better reception
for the text and a more pertinent reading of it.
(1997: 2)
Plagiarism The act of taking another’s work and presenting it

as one’s own. The term comes from the Latin word plagiarius
(kidnapper) and is most commonly used in academic and
publishing circles to denote ‘work stealing’ but can also be
used in relation to poor referencing and citation practices.
Postmodernism An artistic movement that developed in the
mid-to late twentieth century in philosophy, the arts, and
political thought. It is most commonly defined by its rejec-
tion of grand narratives, overarching scepticism, and rejec-
tion of many of the ideologies of both Modernism and the
Enlightenment. Though the name might suggest a simple
relationship between Postmodernism and Modernism, this
is not necessarily the case. In terms of the words themselves,
the prefix ‘post’ is confusing. It is evident that Postmodernism
identifies itself as something that is ‘not modernism’ but
the actual meaning of the prefix is ambiguous. This ambi-
guity immediately signals the complexity of the relation-
ship between the two. Various interpretations include
Postmodernism as the result, aftermath, development,
denial, or rejection of Modernism (Appignanesi and Garratt,
2006: 4). In his germinal essay ‘Answering the Question: What
Is Postmodernism?’, Lyotard writes, ‘[Postmodernism] is
undoubtedly a part of the modern’ (1991: 79). He does not
see Postmodernism as a separate entity at all but as some-
thing that can emerge within the modern at any time, as a
natural reaction to Modernism. What is central to Lyotard’s
185
Glossary 185
understanding of the Postmodern is that it has not broken
away from the Modern (and does not necessarily desire to)
but moves beyond what is ‘good’ and known solely for the
purposes of creating new methods of representation in order
to demonstrate, paradoxically, the unrepresentable.
Self-publishing The publication of media by the author
without the involvement of an established publisher; typ-
ically, the term refers to books and magazines, but can also
apply to music, video, zines, or photography. Platforms such
as Createspace, launched in 2000 and now part of the Amazon
media corporation, specialise in self-publishing.
Social mores The social norms that are commonly held or
observed within a given society. The word derives from the
Latin mōrēs (plural of mōs –manner or custom). The mores of
a society determined what behaviours, speech types, and types
of interaction are acceptable within that social group. The
term was first used by American sociologist William Graham
Sumner in his 1906 work Folkways: A Study of the Sociological
Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals.
Trade paperbacks (TPBs) A type of comic book whose con-
tent was previously published in a serial format, now bound
together as one work. Many trade paperbacks also contain
additional material, such as an introduction, interviews with
the creative team, or character sketches.
White paper First used in the UK, this is ‘an official gov-
ernmental consultation paper, outlining proposals for future
policy or legislation on a particular subject’ (OED, 2019: n.p.).
The term was first used in 1922 for the ‘Churchill White
Paper’, a response to the 1921 Jaffa Riots.
Working through According to historian Dominick LaCapra,
‘working through’ is
an articulatory process [in which] one is able to distin-

guish between past and present and to recall in memory
that something happened to one (or one’s people) back
then while realizing that one is living here and now with
openings to the future.
(2001: 22)
186
Further reading
Companions and general essay collections

Aldama, Frederick Luis (ed.). (2018) Comics Studies Here and Now.
Abingdon: Routledge.
———. (2019) The Oxford Handbook of Comic Book Studies. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Bramlett, Frank, Roy Cook, and Aaron Meskin. (2016) The Routledge
Companion to Comics. Routledge: Abingdon.
Domsch, Sebastian, Dan Hassler-Forest, and Dirk Vanderbeke. (2020)
Handbook of Comics and Graphic Narratives. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Goggin, Joyce (ed.). (2010) The Rise and Reason of Comics and Graphic
Literature: Critical Essays on the Form. Jefferson: McFarland.
Heer, Jeet and Kent Worcester. (2009) A Comics Studies Reader.
Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Stein, Daniel and Jan-Noël Thon. (2015) From Comic Strips to Graphic
Novels: Contributions to the Theory and History of Graphic Narrative.
Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015.
General works on comics

Eisner, Will. (2008a) Comics and Sequential Art. New York: W.W.
Norton.
———. (2008b) Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative. New York:
W.W. Norton.
Fingeroth, Danny. (2008) The Rough Guide to Graphic Novels.
London: Rough Guides.
Gravett, Paul. (2013) Comics Art. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Groensteen, Thierry. (2007) The System of Comics. Jackson: University
of Mississippi.
187
Further reading 187

———. (2014) Comics and Narration. Jackson: University of Mississippi.
Kukkonen, Karin. (2013) Studying Comics and Graphic Novels.
Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell.
Sabin, Roger. (1993) Adult Comics: An Introduction. Abingdon: Taylor
& Francis.
———. (1996) Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels: A History of Comic
Art. London: Phaidon.
Wolk, Douglas. (2007) Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and
What They Mean. Cambridge: Da Capo.
Books on specific themes, national traditions,

or creators
Bongco, Mila. (2014) Reading Comics: Language, Culture, and the Concept
of the Superhero in Comic Books. Abingdon: Routledge.
Chute, Hillary. (2010) Graphic Women: Life, Narrative and Contemporary
Comics. New York: Columbia University Press.
Denson, Shane, Christina Meyer, and Daniel Stein. (2013) Transnational
Perspectives on Graphic Narratives: Comics at the Crossroads.
London: Bloomsbury.
Earle, Harriet E.H. (2017) Comics, Trauma, and the New Art of War.
Jackson: University of Mississippi.
Gabilliet, Jean-Paul. (2010) Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of
American Comic Books. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Grove, Laurence. (2010) Comics in French: The European Bande Dessinée
in Context. New York: Berghahn.
Hatfield, Charles. (2005) Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature.
Miller, Ann. (2007) Reading Bande Dessinée: Critical Approaches to French-
Language Comic Strip. Intellect: Bristol.
Miller, Ann and Bart Beaty. (2014) The French Comics Theory Reader.
Leuven: Leuven University Press.
Pizzino, Christopher. (2016) Arresting Development: Comics at the
Boundaries of Literature. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Postema, Barbara. (2013) Narrative Structure in Comics: Making Sense of
Fragments. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer.
Singer, Marc (2019). Breaking the Frames: Populism and Prestige in Comics
Studies. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Williams, Paul and James Lyons (eds.). (2010) The Rise of the American
Comics Artist: Creators and Contexts. Jackson: University Press of
Mississippi.
188
188 Further reading

Witek, Joseph. (1989) Comic Books as History: The Narrative Art of Jack
Jackson, Art Spiegelman, and Harvey Pekar. Jackson: University Press
of Mississippi.
Wright, Bradford. (2001) Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth
Culture in America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Comics about comics

Madden, Matt. (2006) 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style. London:
Jonathan Cape.
Sousanis, Nick. (2015) Unflattening. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
189
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205
Index
Academy Awards 174 (comic) 167–169, 168;

‘An Act for the Encouragement of ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’
Learning, by vesting the Copies (OSB) 167–169
of Printed Books in the Authors autographics 11, 56–57, 58, 59,
or purchasers of such Copies, 140–166; author avatar 11,
during the Times therein 56–57, 133, 138, 143, 149,
mentioned’ (UK, 1710) 112 151–156, 160, 162–164
Action Comics 48
Altenberg, Tilmann 70; see also Bacon-Smith, Camille 114
Altenberg, Tilmann and Baetens, Jan and Hugo Frey: The
Ruth Owen Graphic Novel: An Introduction 19
Altenberg, Tilmann and Ruth Bake, Julika and Michaela
Owen 69, 70 Zöhrer 132
Amalgamated Press 47, 49 Bandes Dessinées (BD) 7, 15, 63,
American Revolutionary War 75–80, 106, 172, 173;
129–130 Roman BD 80
Amnesty International 123 Barry, Lynda 11, 142–143; One!
Aniconism 125 Hundred! Demons! 11,
anime 81, 85, 170 142–143
Antos, Heather 100 Batman (comic series) 177
Appleton, Catherine and Kerry Batman (TV series) 177
Mallan 162 Batman (character) 48, 58,
Art in Print 175 152, 174
L’Association 80 Bayeux Tapestry 35, 36
À Suivre 80 The Beano 9, 49–50
Attack on Titan 85 Beaty, Bart 175; see also Beaty, Bart
Auschwitz 141 and Charles Hatfield
Austin, Hailey 101 Beaty, Bart and Charles
Australian Department for Hatfield 174
Immigration and Border Bechdel, Alison: Fun Home 57,
Protection 167; ‘No Way’ 59, 145
206
206 Index
Bede: Ecclesiastical History of the Busse, Kristina 112–113;
English People 36 see also Hellekson, Karen and
Beerbohm, Robert 41 Kristina Busse
Beetle Bailey (Mort Walker et al) 16 Butler, Octavia: Kindred 61
Bell, Cece 155; El Deafo 155
Bell, Steve 17; If… 17 Cain, Chelsea 100; see also Cain,
Berman, Antoine 70–71 Chelsea and Joëlle Jones
Berry, Hannah 9, 25, 130–131; Cain, Chelsea and Joëlle Jones 100;
Adamtine 25; ‘Brexit’ Mockingbird 100, 102
130–131, 130 Campbell, David 128
Betty Boop 51 Cannes Film Festival 173
Beylie, Claude 76 Captain America (character) 48
The Big Bang Theory 97 Captain America (comic series) 101
Bizarre Sex 56 Carroll, Lewis 41; Alice’s Adventures
Black, Rebecca 114 in Wonderland 41
Black Panther (Ryan Coogler) cartoons 23
174 Castaldi, Simone 88, 89
Blombos Cave 33 ‘Cerebus Syndrome’ 176–177
Blondie (Chic Young) 172 Cestac, Florence 107, 107
Bluitgen, Kåre 123 Chabon, Michael 60–61; The
Bolland, Brian 59 Amazing Adventures of Kavalier
Booker, M. Keith 171 and Clay 60
Booker Prize 4–5 Chaney, Michael 153
Bordalo Pinheiro, Rafael Chaplin, Charlie 46
145–146, 146; No Lazareto de Charb (Stéphane Charbonnier) 121
Lisboa 145 Charlie Hebdo 11, 23, 118,
Bors, Matt 120 121–125, 125
Botelho, Carlos 146; ‘Echoes of the Chasing Amy 96–97
Week’ 146 Chevely, Lyn 55
Bourdieu, Pierre 3, 66 Children and Young Persons
Breen, Marta 71; see also Breen, (Harmful Publications) Act (UK,
Marta and Jenny Jordahl; 1955) 50, 51
Jordahl, Jenny Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga 80–81
Breen, Marta and Jenny Jordahl: Chute, Hillary 10, 55, 57, 132;
Women in Battle 71, 72 Graphic Women 157; see also Chute,
Brienza, Casey 86 Hillary and Marianne DeKoven
Bringing Up Father (George Chute, Hillary and Marianne
McManus) 172 DeKoven 13–14
Brontë, Charlotte: Jane Eyre La Cinquième Couche 140–141
61 Civil Rights Movement 116
Brother Jonathan 41 Comic Book Resources
Bruner, Jerome 33 (website) 116
Bunty 51 Comic Cuts 47
Busch, Wilhelm 42–43; Max und Comic Magazine Association of
Moritz 43, 64 America (CMAA) 49
207
Index 207
Comics as art 174–176 Davis, Rocío 144, 148
Comics Code Authority (CCA) Dawes, Simon 123
49, 50, 51, 79 DC Comics 48, 59, 61, 106,
Comicsgate 8, 100–102 170, 172
The Comics Journal 131 DC Thomson 49–50
The Comics Reporter 174 de Beauvoir, Simone 163
Comics Studies 3–4, 11, 12, 15, Defoe, Daniel 62; Robinson
24, 26, 29, 143, 145, 176 Crusoe 36, 62
ComiXology 94 Delacroix, Eugène: ‘Liberty
conventions 8, 89, 93, 94, Leading the People’ 122
104–110, 105; Angoulême Delisle, Guy 11, 119, 136–138;
International Comics Festival Burma Chronicles 136; Hostage
106–107, 136, 140; Comiket 136; Jerusalem: Chronicles from the
107–108; Grand Prix de la Ville Holy City 136–137; Pyongyang: A
d’Angoulême 106–107; Lucca Journey in North Korea 136,
Comics & Games 107; San 137–138, 139; Shenzhen 136
Diego Comic-Con International Der Derian, James 126–127
(SDCC) 106, 109; São Paulo DeviantArt 114–115, 116
Comic Con Experience 106 Diamond Comics Distributors 93
convergence culture 170–174, 172 digital comics 20–23, 100; see also
Cook, Roy 52–53 web comics
Corben, Richard: Bloodstar 18 Dirks, Rudolph 44–45; The
Corrie, Rachel 131 Captain and the Kids 45; The
Il Corriere dei Piccoli 87 Katzenjammer Kids 16, 31,
cosplay 94, 108–110, 109 44–45, 64, 88
The Crow (film, 1994) 5 Disney (The Walt Disney
Crumb, Robert 53–55, 56, 57, Company) 44
154, 157; Zap Comix 53 Donald, Chris 56
Cruse, Howard 57 Donovan, Hope 86–87
cummings, e.e. 45 Doonesbury 16
Czerwiec, M.K. (‘Comic Nurse’) Doran, Sabine 44
149; Comic Nurse 149 Douglass, Jeremy, William Huber
and Lev Manovich 86
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Drăghici, Iulia 67
122 Dragon Ball 85
The Dandy 9, 49–50, 90 Drnaso, Nick 4–5; Sabrina
Dante Alighieri 152; Divina 4–5
Commedia 35, 152 Druillet, Philippe 79; see also
Dark Horse Comics 61 Mœbius (Jean Giraud) and
Dark Knight Trilogy (Christopher Philippe Druillet
Nolan) 174, 177 Duffett, Mark 94, 116;
Darwin, Charles 138 Understanding Fandom 94
David B. (Pierre-François Duncan, Randy and Matthew J.
Beauchard) 80, 150–151; Smith 24, 30
Epileptic 150–151 Dupuis 77
208
208 Index
The Eagle 50–51; Dan Dare 51 Fumetti 15, 63, 87
Editorial Bruguera 89 Funny Aminals 57
Eisner, Will 2, 31–32, 106; Comics
and Sequential Art 31–32; A Gabilliet, Jean-Paul 103; Of Comics
Contract with God 18; Will Eisner and Men: A Cultural History of
Comic Industry Awards 106 American Comic Books 103
El Refaie, Elisabeth 143, 153, Gable, Clark 52
168–169 Gago, Manuel: El Guerrero del
L’Épatant 76 Antifaz 89
European Court of Human Gaiman, Neil 9, 19, 59, 60; The
Rights 123 Sandman 9
Eventbrite 105–106, 105 Gardner, Jared 16, 148
Garfield (Jim Davis) 2
Falk, Lee: The Phantom 90 Garnett, George 35
Falloppi, Giovanni di Gauld, Tom 17;
Pietro: 35–36 ‘Mindblowing’ 17, 18
Famous Funnies 47 gender 9–10, 98–101, 103–104,
fandom 94–117 107, 108, 114, 115, 116,
fan art 114–116 135–136, 157, 162–164,
fan fiction 8, 94, 110, 113–114 176–177; ‘Women in
FanFiction.Net 113–114 Refrigerators’ trope 9–10;
Farmer, Joyce 55 see also LGBT+ identities
Felix the Cat 31, 88 Ghermandi, Francesca 88
feminism 55, 71, 92, 100, 157, Ghosh, Vishwajyoti: This Side, That
176–177 Side 91
Fingeroth, Danny 48, 52 Gibbons, Dave 59; see also Moore,
Fink, Moritz 152 Alan and Dave Gibbons
Fisher, Geoffrey (Archbishop of Gilbert, Jérémie and David
Canterbury) 50 Keane 132
La Flaca 88 Gillray, James 23, 39
Flash Gordon 90 Il Giornale dei Balilla 88
Flux Factory 134 Gipi (Gianni Pacinotti) 88
Forbidden Planet (retailer) 104 Girl 51
Forest, Judith 140–141, 142; A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
Momon 140–141; 1hr25 140–141 (film, dir. Ana Lily Amirpour)
Forton, Louis: Les Pieds Nickelés 76 173; comic (Jon Conrad and
Frank, Anne: Diary of Anne Ana Lily Amirpour) 173
Frank 61 The Glasgow Looking-Glass (later
Franklin, Benjamin 39, 128–129, The Northern Looking-Glass) 6,
129, 131; ‘Join or die’ 128–130, 41–42; ‘History of a Coat’ 42
129, 131 Glidden, Sarah 11, 119, 134–136,
Franquin, André 78, 89 137, 138; How to Understand
Freinkel, Lisa 169 Israel in 60 Days or Less 134;
Frey, James 141, 142; A Million Rolling Blackouts: Dispatches from
Little Pieces 141 Turkey, Syria, and Iraq 134–135
209
Index 209
Gloeckner, Phoebe 156; A Child’s Hellekson, Karen and Kristina
Life and Other Stories 156; The Busse 113; see also Busse,
Diary of a Teenage Girl 156 Kristina
Gn, Joel 108 Hergé (Georges Remi) 77;
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Les Aventures de Tintin (The
von 39–40 Adventures of Tintin) 77
Goffman, Erving 96 Herriman, George: Krazy Kat 16,
Goldman, William 61 45, 46, 58
Gordon, Ian 104 Hindustan Times 22
Goulart, Ron 47 Hiroshima 148
Graphic Medicine 143, 148–151 Historietas 63
graphic novels 4–5, 17–20, 57, Hoffmann, Heinrich 43;
58–59, 148, 156, 163–165, Struwwelpeter 43
171–174, 176 Hogarth, William 23, 37–40, 58,
Gravett, Paul 25, 41 80; ‘A Harlot’s Progress’ 38; ‘A
Green, Justin 56–57, 156; Binky Rake’s Progress’ 38–39
Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary Hokusai, Katsushika 7, 82; Hokusai
56–57, 148, 156; ‘Confessions of Manga 81–82, 82
a Schoolboy’ 156 Holmes, Sherlock 113
Green, Richard ‘Grass’ 56 Humphrey, Aaron 167, 169
Green Lantern 9 Huyssen, Andreas 175–176; After
Griffith, Bill 56 the Great Divide 175–176
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm
Grimm 68; Grimm’s Fairy Ibáñez Talavera, Francisco:
Tales 68 Mortadelo y Filemón 89
Groensteen, Thierry 20, 24, Ikeda, Riyoko 84; Berusaiyu no
27, 169 Bara 84
Grove, Laurence 41 Illustrated Chips 47
Grujić, Marija and Ina Schaum Indrajal Comics 90
159 Inge, M. Thomas 39, 41
The Guardian 17, 124 The Internet Movie Database 172
Gürses, Kemal Gökhan 133 Irving, John 61
Ishida, Kanta 81
Hall, James 152 Ishiyama, Kei: Grimm Manga Tales
Harmsworth, Alfred 47 66, 67–68
Harrington, C. Lee and Denise It Ain’t Me, Babe 55
Bielby 95 Ito, Kinko 80, 85
Hatfield, Charles 152; see also Izawa, Eri 84
Beaty, Bart and Charles Hatfield
Hathaway, Rozi: ‘Umbrella’ Jacobs, Rita 160
14 Jacques, Jeph: Questionable Content
The Hawkeye Initiative (THI) 115 21–22, 22
Hazlitt, William: Liber Amoris 142 Jason 31; Sshhhh! 31
Hearst, William 44–45 Jenkins, Henry 110–111, 170–171
Heath, William 41–42 Jensen, Joli 95
210
210 Index
Jiji Shinpō 83 Kunzelman, Cameron 174–175
Joe Palooka (Ham Fisher) 172 Kunzle, David 40
Joker (character) 174
Joker (Todd Phillips) 174 Lamb, Charles 38
Jordahl, Jenny 71 Lamerichs, Nicolle 110
Jousselin, Pascal 27; Imbattable Laydeez Do Comics 164
27–29, 28 Lecigne, Bruno 78
Judy 45 Ledger, Heath 174
Jyllands-Posten 10–11, 23, 118, Lee, Stan 116; ‘X-Men’ 116
123–124, 127; Flemming Rose Lejeune, Philippe 143
123–124 Lethem, Jonathan 61; Omega the
Unknown 61
Kahneman, Daniel 126 LGBT+ identities 9–10, 91, 114
Kaindl, Klaus 70, 74 ‘Der Liebeszauber’ (a Lower Rhine
Kamishibai 81 Master, c. 1470) 6
Kawai, Hayao 83 Lightman, Sarah 164
Keener, Joe 67 Ligne Claire 78
Kern, Adam 80 Li’l Abner 16
Khordoc, Catherine 30 Loi du 16 Juillet 1949 sur les
Kibyoshi 81 publications destinées à la jeunesse
Kingsman (film, 2015) (Law of 16 July 1949 on
Kirby, Jack 48 publications intended for young
Kirchoff, Jeffrey and Mike Cook people, France) 78–79
21 long-form comics 119, 131–139
Kitazawa, Rakuten 83 Lopes, Paul 96, 115
Kitchen, Denis 53 Lovecraft, H.P. 79
Kiyama, Yoshitaka (Henry) 147; Lund, Martin 101
The Four Immigrants Manga
147, 147 McCloud, Scott 2, 21, 24, 25,
Knerr, Harold 45 29; Reinventing Comics 21;
Koçak, Kenan 133, 137 Understanding Comics 1–2
Kochalka, James: American Elf 155 McLuhan, Marshall 2, 15, 63;
Kohlert, Frederik Byrn 165–166 Understanding Media: The
Kominsky-Crumb, Aline 55, 56, Extensions of Man 2
57, 148, 157; ‘Goldie’ 55 McNair, Brian 119; The Sociology of
Kouachi, Chérif 121 Journalism 119
Kouachi, Saïd 121 Maechler, Stefan 141
Kozol, Wendy 154 Majdanek 141
Krug, Nora 11, 158–159; Heimat: Manga 7–8, 10, 15, 63, 64, 66–68,
A German Family Album 71, 80–87, 90, 92, 97–99, 104,
158–159 108, 147–148, 170, 172; dōjinshi
Kubert, Joe 133 84, 108; Jiji Manga 8, 83; Seinen
Kunka, Andrew J. 145, 155; 84–85; Shōjo 83–84; Shōnen 83,
Autobiographical Comics 145 84–85; Tankōbon 85; Watakushi
Künstlerroman 148 Manga 148; Yaoi 84
211
Index 211
Manga Shakespeare (Richard Murray, Chris 45, 47
Appignanesi et al) 66–67, 68 Mussino, Attilio: Bilbolbul 87–88
Manhwa 63, 92
Marmaduke 16 Nakazawa, Keiji 148; ‘I Saw It’
Maroh, Julie: Le Bleu est une 148; Barefoot Gen 148
Couleur Chaude 173; film Naruto 85
adaptation 173 Nashe, Thomas: Pierce Penniless, His
Marvel Comics 48, 61, 100–102, Supplication to the Divell 36
106, 109, 170, 172, 173, 174 Nast, Thomas 39
Médecins Sans Frontières 136; The Nation 96
Christophe André 136 National Book Critics Circle
Metzger, George: Beyond Time and Award 59, 145
Again 18 National Socialism (Nazism) 158
Meyer, Christina 19 New Journalism 119
Mickey Mouse 31, 52; Topolino 88 New Scientist 17
Mighty Atom (Osamu Tezuka) 83 Newsweek 59, 145
Millais, John Everett: ‘Ophelia’ 115 New York Evening Journal 45
Miller, Ann 78 New York Journal 44–45
Miller, Frank 60; The Dark Knight The New Yorker 17
Returns 58–59, 177; 300 30; New York Press 44
see also 300 (film, 2007) The New York Times 57
Mirzoeff, Nicholas 126 The Nib 11, 120–121, 130
Mitchell, W.J.T. 14–15, 127–128 Noomin, Diane 148
Modernism 58, 95, 175 The Northern Looking-Glass see The
Mœbius (Jean Giraud) and Philippe Glasgow Looking-Glass
Druillet 79; Métal Hurlant 79 The Numbers 172
Moodian, Patricia 55
Moore, Alan 19, 59–60; Swamp Oboler, Andre 122–123
Thing 60; see also Moore, Alan O’Brien, Dan 134
and Dave Gibbons The Observer 135
Moore, Alan and Dave Gibbons Oda, Eiichiro: One Piece 85
58; Watchmen 58–59 Orwell, George: Nineteen
Moore, Michael 120 Eighty-Four 137
Mora, Víctor and Miguel Outcault, Richard F. 43–44;
Ambrosio Zaragoza: Capitán Hogan’s Alley (later Yellow Kid)
Trueno 89 15–16, 43–44; ‘The Yellow Kid’
Morris (Maurice De Bevere): 16, 43–44
Lucky Luke 78
Morris, Reverend Marcus 50–51 Pai, Anant 90–91; Amar Chitra
Morrison, Grant 59; Arkham Katha 90–91
Asylum: A Serious House on Panama-Pacific International
Serious Earth 177 Exposition, 1915 147
Moto, Hagio 84 Patil, Amruta: Kari 91
Mouly, Françoise 57 Pedri, Nancy 161–163
El Mundo Cómico 88 Pennsylvania Gazette 128
212
212 Index
penny dreadful 46–47 Sabin, Roger 3, 4, 53, 64
Le Petit Vingtième 77 Sacco, Joe 11, 119, 120, 124,
Peyo (Pierre Culliford) 78 131–134, 136–137, 138, 154;
Phoenix, Joaquin 174 The Fixer: A Story from Sarajevo
Picasso, Pablo 116; ‘Guernica’ 131–132; Footnotes in Gaza
116, 126 131; ‘On Satire: a response
La Piccola Italiana 88 to the Charlie Hebdo attacks’
Pilote 79 124–125, 125; Palestine 131,
Portland Permanent Press 131 137, 154; Safe Area Goražde
Postema, Barbara 24–25 131–132; War’s End: Profiles from
Postmodernism 176 Bosnia1995–96 132
Pratt, Hugo: Corto Maltese 88 Saga (Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona
El Premio Nacional del Cómic Staples) 2
89 Saga of the Swamp Thing 60; see also
Proctor, William and Bridget Moore, Alan: Swamp Thing
Kies 102 Saint-Ogan, Alain: Zig et
proto-comics 7, 37–42, Puce 76–77
80–81 Sandvoss, Cornel 102
Psit!!! 146, 146 Sanger, Margaret 71
Publishers Weekly 103 Satrapi, Marjane 59, 145,
Pulitzer, Joseph 44–45 153–154, 171; Persepolis 57, 59,
Pulitzer Prize 57, 59, 60, 145 96, 145, 153–154; Persepolis (film
Punch 23, 42, 82; John Leech 23 adaptation) 173
Pustz, Matthew 103–104, 111–112 Sazae-san (Machiko Hasegawa)
83
Raw 57 Scarlet Witch (character) 109, 109
Reid, Calvin 87 Scherr, Rebecca 134
The Revelation of St John in the New Schmid, Johannes 119
Testament 152 Schulz, Charles 73; Peanuts 2, 3, 4,
Rice, Joyce 121 73–74, 73
Rivière, Jacqueline and Joseph Scorsese, Martin 173
Pinchon: Bécassine 76 Screech, Matthew 77
Robbins, Trina 54–55, 148 The Seattle Globalist 134
Rob-Vel (Robert Velter) 77; Seldes, Gilbert 45
Spirou 77 La Semaine de Suzette 76
Rogers, Mark 104 Sempre Fixe 146
Rosenblatt, Adam and Andrea Shakespeare, William 35,
Lunsford 133–134 61, 66–67, 115; see also
Ross, Charles Henry and Marie Manga Shakespeare (Richard
Duval 45–46; Ally Sloper 45–46; Appignanesi et al)
Ally Sloper’s Half-Holiday 46 Shannon, Edward 52, 54
Rotten Tomatoes 172 Shelley, Mary: Frankenstein 61
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques: Shelley, Percy Bysshe:
Confessions 142 ‘Ozymandias’ 35
Rowlandson, Thomas 39 Shuktara 90
213
Index 213
Sim, Dave 2, 176–177; Cerebus 2, Tennyson, Alfred Lord 115
176–177 Theroux, Louis 120
Simmonds, Posy 19 Thompson, Carl 138
Simon, Joe 48 Thompson, Craig 58
Simone, Gail 9–10 Thompson, Hunter S. 120
The Simpsons 97, 122 300 (film, 2007) 5; see also Miller,
Singer, Marc 13, 15 Frank: 300
Sjöberg, Lore 96 Ticketmaster 106
Slow Death 56 Time (magazine) 59
Smolderen, Thierry 31, 38 The Times 50
Sousa, Cynthia 116; ‘X-Men The Times of India 90
Guernica’ 116 Tits & Clits 55
Spanish Civil War 116 Toba-e 7, 81
Spurgeon, Tom 136 Toba Sōjo (Bishop Toba) 81
Spurlock, Morgan 120 Tolmie, Jane 10
Spiderman 50 Töpffer, Rodolphe 6, 39–41, 42,
Spiegelman, Art 14, 18, 24, 56, 47, 76, 145–146; Adventures of
57–58, 145; Maus 57–59, Doctor Festus 39–40; Histoire de
145, 155 M. Jabot 40, 40; Histoire de M.
Stack, Frank (Foolbert Sturgeon): Vieux Bois 41, 64
The Adventures of Jesus 52 Townshend, George 23
Star Trek 96 Trajan’s Column (Rome)
Star Wars franchise 44 34–35, 34, 36
Stein, Daniel 154 translation 8, 63, 64–66,
Steinberg, Flo 100 68–75, 86–88, 90, 135–136;
Steranko, Jim: Chandler: Red scanlation 85–87
Tide 18 travel writing 137–139
Stern 74 Trondheim, Lewis 80, 156; The
Stoll, Jeremy 91 Nimrod 155, 156
Stonehill, Alex 134–135 Trump, Donald 167–168
Streeten, Nicola 11, 163–165, 164; Tsuge, Yoshiharu 147–148; Chiko
Billy, Me and You 163–165, 164 147–148
Studio Ghibli 81 2000 AD 59, 79
Stuteville, Sarah 134–135
Sundance Film Festival 173 Uderzo, Albert 78, 122; see also
Superman (character) 27–29, 48, Uderzo, Albert and René
52, 152 Goscinny
Sutcliffe, Peter 160 Uderzo, Albert and René
Swarte, Joost 78 Goscinny: Astérix 31, 74–75,
Symbolia 120–121 79, 122
Una 11, 159–163; Becoming
Takahata, Isao 81 Unbecoming 159–163, 161
Tales from the Crypt 50 Unbreakable 96
Tate Britain 116 underground Comics (Comix)
TBO 88–89 51–57, 58, 88
214
214 Index
United States Senate Subcommittee on Wilkomirski, Binjamin
Juvenile Delinquency (1953) (Bruno Grosjean) 141,
49 142; Bruchstücke: Aus Einer
Upton, Chris 23 Kindheit 1939–1948 141
Williams, Ian 149–150, 164–165;
The Vault of Horror 50 The Bad Doctor 149; ‘Empathic
Versaci, Rocco 144 Bonds’ 150, 150; Graphic
Vertigo 60 Medicine (website) 149; The
Viz 56 Lady Doctor 149
Williams, Kristian 120
Ware, Chris 58 Williams, Samuel 26
Waterhouse, John William: ‘The Wimmen’s Comix 55, 148, 157
Lady of Shalott’ 115 Winfrey, Oprah 141
Watson, John 41 Wingfield Digby, George 35
Watt, Ian 62; The Rise of the Wolk, Douglas 60
Novel 62 Women’s Comix Collective 55
Wattpad.com 114 Wonder Woman (character) 48
web comics 5, 10, 13, 20–23, Woo, Benjamin 132–133
55, 65, 91–92, 99–100; see also
digital comics Yamagishi, Ryoko 84
Weber, Wibke and Hans-Martin Yang, Gene Luen: American Born
Rall 119–120 Chinese 21
WEBTOON 99 Yashima, Taro 147; The New
Weissbort, Daniel and Ástráður Horizon 147; The New Sun 147
Eysteinsson 68–69, 72–73 ‘Year 24 Group’ 83–84; see also
Wertham, Fredric 49; Seduction of individual members
the Innocent 49 Yong-Hwan, Kim 92
West, Adam 177 Yoshihara, Yukari 66–67
West, Mae 52 Young Lust 56
Westergaard, Kurt 124
Whitlock, Gillian 142, 144 Zanettin, Federico 62, 69–70
Wikipedia 111 Zerocalcare (Michele Rech) 88

Comics An Introduction

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i

Comics: An Introduction provides a clear and detailed introduction

Harriet E.H. Earle is Lecturer in English at Sheffield Hallam

Harriet E.H. Earle

First published 2021

For Dr Fuhs, my very own Jolly Jumper

List of figures viii

Introduction –​comics: no laughing matter 1

1 Definitions and mechanics 12

3 Going global: comics on the world stage 62

4 Cultures and commodities 93

6 Drawing lives 140

I.1 Roger Sabin as Schulz’s ‘Snoopy’ by John

This is my favourite part of the book to write –​an outpouring

Figure I.1 Roger Sabin as Schulz’s ‘Snoopy’ by John Miers (2019).

where the scholarship is rooted and how it is being constructed in

Comics is not a genre but a form all its own

Comics has a ‘chequered’ history

Figure I.2 ‘Der Liebeszauber’ by a Lower Rhine Master of the fifteenth

Comics is an international form

Comics is not just about the text

Comics is for everyone

The point is humorously made: women’s value in superhero

Comics can be world changing and life defining

What is Comics? What are Comics?

Definitions and mechanics 13

14 Definitions and mechanics

of Modern Fiction Studies, Hillary Chute and Marianne DeKoven

[Co-​mix] is a hybrid term for the mixture of media and

Definitions and mechanics 15

Mitchell’s understanding of the nuances of Comics in relation

16 Definitions and mechanics

All of these early strips were addressed first and foremost to

Rather than being juvenile, many of these narratives were

Definitions and mechanics 17

18 Definitions and mechanics

Definitions and mechanics 19

20 Definitions and mechanics

Digital and web comics

Definitions and mechanics 21

22 Definitions and mechanics

from 2003 and 2019 respectively. The difference in style comes

Definitions and mechanics 23

24 Definitions and mechanics

The mechanical and the technical

Definitions and mechanics 25

One of the rules I set myself is that anything that happens

The gutters begin to affect the story and it is up to the reader to

26 Definitions and mechanics

Definitions and mechanics 27

The full-​page layout

28 Definitions and mechanics

Definitions and mechanics 29

Bleeds and splash pages

30 Definitions and mechanics

An example of the mobilisation of the violence of bleeds is Frank

Definitions and mechanics 31

32 Definitions and mechanics

The earliest forms of storytelling deployed visual images rather

Introduction –comics: no laughing matter 1

This is my favourite part of the book to write –an outpouring

Figure I.1 Roger Sabin as Schulz’s ‘Snoopy’ by John Miers (2019).

Figure I.2 ‘Der Liebeszauber’ by a Lower Rhine Master of the fifteenth

[Co-mix] is a hybrid term for the mixture of media and

The full-page layout

If the structure, language games, and referential nature of text-

Figure 3.2 Panels from Peanuts by Charles Schulz (1950–2000).

National-cultural comics traditions

Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga is often cited as a precursor to Toba-e, printed

Scanlations circulate on the internet, on image-based websites,

As with the Mussolini dictatorship in pre-war Italy, censorship