More Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods 1138359521, 9781138359529

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MORE CRITICAL APPROACHES TO COMICS

In this comprehensive textbook, editors Matthew J. Brown, Randy Duncan, and Matthew J. Smith offer students a deeper understanding of the artistic and cultural significance of comic books and graphic novels by introducing key theories and critical methods for analyzing comics. Each chapter explains and then demonstrates a critical method or approach, which students can then apply to interrogate and critique the meanings and forms of comic books, graphic novels, and other sequential art. Contributors introduce a wide range of critical perspectives on comics, including disability studies, parasocial relationships, scientific humanities, queer theory, linguistics, critical geography, philosophical aesthetics, historiography, and much more. As a companion to the acclaimed Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods, this second volume features 19 fresh perspectives and serves as a stand-alone textbook in its own right. More Critical Approaches to Comics is a compelling classroom or research text for students and scholars interested in Comics Studies, Critical Theory, the Humanities, and beyond. Matthew J. Brown, Ph.D., is Director of the Center for Values in Medicine, Science, and Technology and Associate Professor of Philosophy, History of Ideas, and Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas. Since 2008, he has run the Comics and Popular Arts Conference, an annual, peer-reviewed, academic conference on comics and pop culture studies that takes place in Atlanta annually on Labor Day Weekend. He teaches Comics Studies in the Humanities Ph.D. program at the University of Texas at Dallas. Randy Duncan, Ph.D., is Professor of Communication and Director of the Comics Studies Program at Henderson State University. He is co-author of the widely used textbook The Power of Comics: History, Form and Culture (2015) and co-author of Creating Comics as Journalism, Memoir and Nonfiction (2015). Dr. Duncan is co-founder, with Peter Coogan, of the Comics Arts Conference, held each summer in San Diego. In 2009 Duncan received the Inge Award for Outstanding Comics Scholarship and in 2012 he

received the Inkpot Award for Achievement in Comics Arts. Duncan and Matthew J. Smith are editors of the Routledge Advances in Comics Studies series. Matthew J. Smith, Ph.D., is Interim Dean in the College of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences and Professor of Communication at Radford University in Radford, Virginia. He serves in the presidential line of succession for the Comics Studies Society and has co-authored nine books. These include The Secret Origins of Comics Studies (2017) and The Power of Comics: History, Form and Culture (2015). He and Randy Duncan are also co-curators on “Marvel: Universe of Super Heroes,” a traveling exhibit that debuted at the Museum of Popular Culture in Seattle in 2018.

MORE CRITICAL APPROACHES TO COMICS Theories and Methods

Edited by Matthew J. Brown, Randy Duncan, and Matthew J. Smith

First published 2020 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Taylor & Francis The right of Matthew J. Brown, Randy Duncan, and Matthew J. Smith to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted 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 utilized 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. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this title has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-35952-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-35953-6 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-43369-6 (ebk) Typeset in Minion by Swales & Willis, Exeter, Devon, UK

Matthew Brown dedicates the book to Sabrina Starnaman, who got me into this mess, to Damien Williams and Scott Nokes, my longest collaborators in comics and pop culture studies, and to my students, who helped me see the need for this book. Randy Duncan dedicates this book to Tommy Cash because, whenever writing and editing books about comics becomes a bit of a grind, conversations with Tommy remind me that comics can be fun. Matthew Smith wishes to dedicate this book to those good friends who have kept the conversation about comics going over the years, especially Robert C. Shelek and Christopher Krahel, two stalwarts from back home in the Valley.

C O N TE N TS

List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgments List of Contributors

x xii xiii xiv

Introduction

1

MATTHEW J. BROWN, RANDY DUNCAN, AND MATTHEW J. SMITH

PA RT I

Viewpoint

5

1 Critical Theory: Celebrating the Rich, Individualistic Superhero

7

MATTHEW P. MCALLISTER AND JOE CRUZ

2 Postcolonial Theory: Writing and Drawing Back (and Beyond) in Pappa in Afrika and Pappa in Doubt

20

CHRISTOPHE DONY

3 Critical Race Theory: Applying Critical Race Theory to Black Panther: World of Wakanda

37

PHILLIP LAMARR CUNNINGHAM

4 Queer Theory: Queer Comics Queering Continuity: The Unstoppable Wasp and the Fight for a Queer Future

48

VALENTINO L. ZULLO

5 Disability Studies: Disrupting Representation, Representing Disruption KRISTA QUESENBERRY

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61

CONTENTS

6 Critical Geography: Brotherman and Big City: A Commentary on Superhero Geography

75

JULIAN C. CHAMBLISS

7 Utopianism: The Utopia Conundrum in Matt Hawkins and Raffaele Ienco’s Symmetry

88

GRAHAM J. MURPHY

PA RT I I

Expression

103

8 New Criticism: Ordered Disorder in Jaime Hernandez’ “Flies on the Ceiling”

105

ROCCO VERSACI

9 Psychoanalytic Criticism: Visual Pathography as a Means of Constructing Identity: Narrating Illness in David Small’s Stitches

119

EVITA LYKOU

10 Autographics: Autographics and Miriam Katin’s We Are on Our Own and Letting It Go

134

ANDREW J. KUNKA

11 Linguistics: Comics Conversations as Data in Swedish Comic Strips

145

KRISTY BEERS FÄGERSTEN

12 Philosophical Aesthetics: Comics and/as Philosophical Aesthetics

160

AARON MESKIN AND ROY T. COOK

13 Burkean Dramatistic Analysis: An Echo of Diversity: Dramatistic Analysis of Comics

175

A. CHEREE CARLSON

PA RT I II

Relationships

189

14 Adaptation: From Mason & Dixon by Pynchon to Miller & Pynchon by Maurer

191

DAVID COUGHLAN

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CONTENTS

15 Transmedia Storytelling: Hyperdiegesis, Narrative Braiding, and Memory in Star Wars Comics

206

WILLIAM PROCTOR

16 Parasocial Relationship Analysis: “Like Losing a Friend”: Fans’ Emotional Distress After the Loss of a Parasocial Relationship

221

RANDY DUNCAN

17 Historiography: Incorporating Comic Books into Historical Analysis: Historiographical Cross-Reference and Wonder Woman

233

ADAM SHERIF

18 Bakhtinian Dialogics: Comics Dialogics: Seeing Voices in The Vision

246

DANIEL PINTI

19 Scientific Humanities: The Scientific Origins of Wonder Woman

261

MATTHEW J. BROWN

Index

275

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FIGURES

2.1 The cover of Pappa in Afrika (2010) 21 2.2 The cover of Pappa in Doubt (2015) 29 2.3 “Nsala, of the District of Wala”, Pappa in Doubt (2015), pp. 70–71 31 2.4 “Extinction”, Pappa in Doubt (2015), p. 29 32 4.1 The Unstoppable Wasp #1 (2018), p. 1. Justin Whitley and Elsa Charretier 55 5.1 Woman with facial disfigurement by cell-phone light in The House That Groaned by Karrie Fransman (Jonathan Cape, 2012) 69 5.2 “Do or Diet Group” members in The House That Groaned by Karrie Fransman (Jonathan Cape, 2012) 70 5.3 Demi Durbach blends into the upholstery in The House That Groaned by Karrie Fransman (Jonathan Cape, 2012) 71 6.1 Brotherman: Dictator of Discipline # 1, p. 5, panel 1 (2008) 82 6.2 Brotherman: Dictator of Discipline # 1, p. 14, panel 2, partial panel 1 (2008) 83 6.3 Brotherman: Dictator of Discipline # 1, p. 15, panel 1 (2008) 84 7.1 The Asia capital in Shanghai. Symmetry #5 (2016) Matt Hawkins and Raffaele Ienco 99 7.2 The Latin capital in Orlando. Symmetry #7 (2016) Matt Hawkins and Raffaele Ienco 99 8.1 The story’s very first page, a largely wordless and initially disorienting entry into the narrative that juggles multiple timelines and establishes several tensions. “Flies on the Ceiling,” Love and Rockets Book 9, p. 1 (1991) Jaime Hernandez 112 8.2 An entirely wordless and visually fragmented page in which Izzy encounters one of the story’s several “versions” of Satan, this time a mysterious man dressed in black. “Flies on the Ceiling,” Love and Rockets Book 9, p. 7 (1991) Jaime Hernandez 115 8.3 A page juggling at least two timelines that depicts Izzy’s fragile and fragmented consciousness after she has run away from the man and

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FIGURES

8.4

9.1

9.2

11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 13.1 14.1 15.1 15.2 18.1 18.2 18.3 19.1

Beto. “Flies on the Ceiling,” Love and Rockets Book 9, p. 11 (1991) Jaime Hernandez The bottom three panels of the penultimate page, a wordless sequence in which Izzy confronts the story’s final “version” of Satan, a woman dancing in the town square. “Flies on the Ceiling,” Love and Rockets Book 9, p. 14 (1991) Jaime Hernandez A portrait of an alternative identity. Featuring a mouthful of angry selves who try to speak, one from within the other, the author is trying to express his anger and pain. Excerpt(s) from Stitches: A Memoir p. 234 The innocent past self and the tormented present of the narration, intertwined in a single image, juxtaposing two levels of reality and their obvious connections. Stitches: A Memoir, p. 291 Speech balloons in Rocky #2948 (2013), Martin Kellerman Prolonged moment panel transitions in Rocky strips #3436, #3437, #3438 (2013), Martin Kellerman Ballooning and lettering in Fucking Sofo (2010), Lena Ackebo Dialog gutters in Rocky #2764 (2013), Martin Kellerman Daredevil: Vision Quest pg. 38 (2003, rpt 2015), David Mack Miller & Pynchon p. 25, panels 4 and 6 (2012), Leopold Maurer The opening crawl in Darth Vader #1 (2014), Kieron Gillan and Salvador Larrocca Vader learns that Luke Skywalker is his son in Darth Vader #6 (2014), Kieron Gillan and Salvador Larrocca Hark! A Vagrant (2011). Kate Beaton The Vision (2018), Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta Behold the Vision from cover of Avengers #57 (1968), John Buscema “The Rubber Barons,” Wonder Woman #4 (1943), p. 9, William Moulton Marston and Harry G. Peter

xi

116

117

129

131 146 147 153 156 183 202 215 218 251 256 257 268

TABLES

11.1 CA notation system for transcription 11.2 Transcription of the first two panels of Figure 11.3 (in English translation) 11.3 Transcription of Figure 11.4 (in English translation)

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149 154 157

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We want to thank our Routledge editors, Erica Wetter and Emma Sherriff, for their guidance and support. We are especially grateful to Denis Kitchen for providing a cover image that works so well with the image he provided for the cover of the first volume of Critical Approaches to Comics.

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CONTRIBUTO RS

Kristy Beers Fägersten, Ph.D. is Professor of English linguistics at Södertörn University, Sweden. She is the author of Who’s Swearing Now? Social Aspects of Conversational Swearing (2012), editor of Watching TV with a Linguist (2016), and co-editor of Advances in Swearing Research (2017). Her current research on Swedish comic strips includes language play as humor, the depiction of alcohol consumption, and the (mis) alignment of visual and textual framing. A. Cheree Carlson, Ph.D. is a Professor of Communication in the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts at Arizona State University, Downtown Phoenix Campus. Her research has historically been focused on courtroom oratory as cultural text. Her interest in comics and popular culture is mainly focused on non-fiction, especially graphic journalism. Julian C. Chambliss, Ph.D. is Professor of English with a Joint Appointment in History at Michigan State University. In addition, he is a core participant in the MSU College of Arts & Letters’ Consortium for Critical Diversity in a Digital Age Research (CEDAR). His research interests focus on the race, identity, and power in real and imagined urban spaces. He is co-editor and contributor for Ages of Heroes, Eras of Men: Superheroes and the American Experience (2013), a book examining the relationship between superheroes and the American Experience. His newest books are Assembling the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Essays on the Social, Cultural and Geopolitical Domain (2018), which explores questions of culture, identity, and politics in the MCU, and Cities Imagined: The African Diaspora in Media and History (2018), a reader that examines African-Americans in media and culture. Roy T. Cook, Ph.D. is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. He works in the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of logic, and aesthetics (especially of popular art). He is co-editor of The Art of Comics: A Philosophical Approach (with Aaron Meskin) and The Routledge Companion to Comics (with Frank Bramlett and Aaron Meskin).

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CONTRIBUTORS

David Coughlan, Ph.D. is Lecturer in English at the University of Limerick, Ireland, and the author of Ghost Writing in Contemporary American Fiction (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). He has published on contemporary literature, graphic narrative, and Critical Theory in the journals Parallax, ImageTexT, Derrida Today, College Literature, Critique, and Modern Fiction Studies, and in several edited collections, including Heroes of Film, Comics and American Culture (McFarland, 2009) and Grant Morrison and the Superhero Renaissance (McFarland, 2015). Joe Cruz is a Ph.D. candidate in mass communications at the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Pennsylvania State University. Cruz is the current research assistant for the Don Davis Program in Ethical Leadership. He has published and presented about political engagement in social media, ideology in cinema and comic books, and data capitalism. Phillip Lamarr Cunningham, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Media Studies at Quinnipiac University. His research primarily focuses on black popular culture. His scholarly work has appeared in Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, Journal of Popular Music Studies, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, M/C Journal: A Journal of Media and Culture, and various anthologies on comics, film, television, and sports. Christophe Dony, Ph.D., is a liaison librarian at the University of Liège, Belgium, where he teaches information literacy and is a member of the postcolonial research group CEREP and the comics research group ACME. His research interests include open science, Comics Studies, and postcolonial theory. He has written on the socio-poetics of the DC/Vertigo imprint and its distinguished character in the American comics field. He has also co-edited the multi-contributor volumes Portraying 9/11: Essays on Representations in Comics, Literature, and Films (2011) and Comics in Dissent: Independence, Alternative, and Self-Publishing (2014). Andrew J. Kunka, Ph.D. is Professor of English and Division Chair at the University of South Carolina Sumter. He is the author of Autobiographical Comics from the Bloomsbury Comics Studies Series. In addition to writing about autobiography, he has also published on Dell and Gold Key Comics, Will Eisner, Kyle Baker, Jack Katz, comics noir, and race and comics. Evita Lykou holds a Ph.D. from the University of York, on Autobiography, Psychoanalysis and the Graphic Novel. With an academic and professional background in Communication, Media and Culture and a strong focus on the artistic and cultural movements of the twentieth century she has worked across disciplines and texts and studied various strands of the humanities. She is currently an independent researcher on the

xv

CONTRIBUTORS

graphic medium, comics, literature, and translation, and working as a translator in Athens, Greece. Matthew P. McAllister, Ph.D. is Professor of Communications, Communication Arts and Sciences, and Women’s Studies at Penn State. His research focuses on political economy of media and critiques of commercial culture. He is the co-editor of Comics and Ideology (2001, Peter Lang) and Film and Comic Books (2007, University Press of Mississippi). He has published in such outlets as Journal of Communication, Critical Studies in Media Communication, and Journal of Popular Culture. Aaron Meskin, Ph.D. is Head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Georgia. He works on a variety of issues in aesthetics, the philosophy of art, the philosophy of food, and philosophical psychology. He co-edited The Art of Comics: A Philosophical Approach and The Routledge Companion to Comics. Before July 2019, Aaron was Professor of Philosophical Aesthetics at the University of Leeds. Graham J. Murphy, Ph.D. is Professor with the School of English and Liberal Studies (Faculty of Business) at Seneca College (Toronto). In addition to ongoing work and co-editing The Routledge Companion to Cyberpunk Culture, Cyberpunk and Visual Culture, Beyond Cyberpunk: New Critical Perspectives, and co-authoring Ursula K. Le Guin: A Critical Companion, other publications appear in The Cambridge History of Science Fiction, The Rise of the American Comics Artist: Creators and Contexts, ImageText: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies, Science Fiction Studies, Extrapolation¸ Foundation, and The Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. Daniel Pinti, Ph.D. is Professor of English at Niagara University, where he teaches Comics and Graphic Narrative as well as Early British Literature. His recent and forthcoming publications include articles on Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese, Matt Fraction’s and David Aja’s run on Marvel’s Hawkeye, and Brian K. Vaughan’s and Fiona Staples’ Saga. His current research continues to explore how Bakhtin may be used in Comics Studies. William Proctor, Ph.D. is Senior Lecturer in Popular Culture at Bournemouth University, UK. He has published widely on numerous topics, including Batman, James Bond, The Walking Dead, Stephen King, and Star Wars. William is a leading expert on reboots and is currently finishing up his debut monograph, Reboot Culture: Comics, Film, Transmedia, for Palgrave Macmillan. He is co-editor of Transmedia Earth: Global Convergence Cultures with Dr. Matthew Freeman (Routledge, 2018); co-editor of Disney’s Star Wars: Forces of Promotion, Production and Reception with Dr. Richard McCulloch (University of Iowa, 2019); and co-editor, alongside Bridget Kies, of the themed section of

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CONTRIBUTORS

Participations: International Journal of Audience and Reception Studies on “Toxic Fan Practices” (2018). Krista Quesenberry, Ph.D. is a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Albion College and an Associate Editor for the Letters of Ernest Hemingway, Volume 5 (1932–1934) (Cambridge). She holds a dual-title Ph.D. in English and Women’s Studies from Pennsylvania State University. Krista is currently working on a book-length project that formulates an interdisciplinary methodology for feminist-literary criticism, as well as project that connects identity and diagnosis in graphic memoirs. Her recent comics research has appeared in The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics and Life Writing. Adam Sherif is an academic historian based at the University of Lincoln (UK), specializing in historical theory and methodology. With Jane Chapman, he is co-author of Comics and the World Wars: A Cultural Record and Comics, the Holocaust and Hiroshima (both 2015). He is also a contemporary comic book critic and Eisner Award winning retailer with Orbital Comics, London. Rocco Versaci, Ph.D. is an English Professor at Palomar College in San Diego, where he teaches composition, creative writing, and literature (including comics). His writing has appeared in The English Journal, The International Journal of Comic Art, Midwestern Gothic, and The Georgetown Review. In addition, he is the author of This Book Contains Graphic Language: Comics as Literature (Bloomsbury, 2007) and That Hidden Road: A Memoir (Apprentice House, 2016). More information is available at www.roccoversaci.com. Valentino L. Zullo is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of English at Kent State University and a licensed social worker practicing as a maternal depression Therapist at OhioGuidestone. He leads the Get Graphic program at Cleveland Public Library and is American Editor of the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. He has published articles in Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society, Asylum: A Magazine for Democratic Psychiatry, and the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics.

xvii

INTRODUCTION Matthew J. Brown, Randy Duncan, and Matthew J. Smith

We (in this case just Randy and Matt) conceived of the original Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods (2012) in response to a gap in the literature. It seemed that if other media had methods textbooks that helped students adopt a critical approach to their messages (take, for example, Vande Berg, Wenner, and Gronbeck’s Critical Approaches to Television, 2004) then so should Comics Studies. Others agreed, and the first volume was honored with both the Peter C. Rollins Book Award in Sequential Art/Comics and Animation Studies and a nomination for “Best Educational/Academic Work” in the Will Eisner Comic Book Industry Awards. Due to the success of that book, Routledge pressed us to consider updating it with a second edition. Then, along came Matthew Brown, a fervent adopter of the first volume with the idea of not merely editing what had been published in 2012, but adding a second volume. After all, the methods in the 2012 book were still valid and valuable, and cutting some of them to add just a few new methods would not do justice to the ever-expanding breadth of approaches in Comics Studies. We recognized that Matthew would help bring a fresh perspective to the selection of methods and invited him on to the editorial team for, not a new edition, but a companion volume. We (now Matthew, Randy, and Matt) believe the talented scholars recruited for this project have made More Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods a worthy companion to the first volume. The word “critical” appears in the title of this book just as it did in the companion volume. In a couple of reviews and face-to-face encounters, fellow scholars expressed some disappointment that the first volume did not completely live up to its title. While they generally liked, and even used the book, they lamented, “It’s not what I thought it was going to be.” What they meant was that not all the methods presented were Critical Theory approaches. We were using the old school (pre-Frankfurt School) term “critical” to refer to scholarship that involves description, analysis, and evaluation. In that broad sense of critical analysis, a variety of approaches, including Critical Theory, can be employed in the analysis stage of the process. 1

BROWN, DUNCAN, AND SMITH

However, in retrospect, the first volume of Critical Approaches to Comics might have been a bit lacking in actual (Frankfurt School) Critical Theory approaches. Providing broader coverage of the dominant perspective in the humanities is one of the reasons for creating this companion volume. Another reason is to stay abreast of (or at least not far behind) the developments in the robust field of Comics Studies. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of Comics Studies, the literature in the field benefits from a steady infusion of different approaches, with conversation analysis, parasocial relationship theory, and psychoanalytic criticism among those contributions that have come to our attention since the previous volume. In the first volume we placed a good bit of emphasis on production, from creative decisions to corporate decisions. This volume is more, but not exclusively, focused on reader response and on content analysis. The approaches employed in this volume reveal that the emotional reactions readers have to comics and the meanings they derive from them can be determined by a variety of factors that we have categorized as Viewpoints, Expression, and Relationships. The approaches under the rubric of Viewpoints deal with social perspectives or ideologies, or they involve political or contextual critique. There might be occasional reference to the viewpoint of the author, but, for the most part, the methods in this section suggest how comics can be read through various perceptual filters. The perceptual filters suggested by most of the approaches presented in the Viewpoints section are versions of Critical Theory, an approach that seeks to destabilize the widely accepted and often unquestioned concepts that support the dominance of certain groups and structures, and to emancipate the voices, usually of marginalized and oppressed groups, that have been suppressed by those in power. The members of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt who laid the foundations of Critical Theory, and perhaps even more so their acolytes, took to heart Marx’s response to Ludwig Feuerbach that “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it” (Marx, 1969, 15). Critical Theory is an activist strain of scholarship that seeks to have a liberating influence by calling attention to the power structures that stand in the way of a more just and equitable society, starting from an analysis of class structures and expanding to consider gender, race, colonialism, sexuality, and disability. As a family of approaches to the interpretation of literary and cultural artifacts, including comics texts, Critical Theory looks at the functions of such artifacts in supporting and naturalizing such power structures, as well as their potential for destabilizing them through counter-narratives. Over the past forty years, most humanities scholars have been trained in Critical Theory and have adopted the progressive ideology inherent in the approach 2

INTRODUCTION

The Viewpoints, Expression, and Relationships sections of this book are contrived rather than naturalistic divisions that do not precisely reflect the practice of scholarship. For instance, while the Viewpoints approaches deal primarily with ideas (content), most of them also take into consideration how ideas are operationalized in comics through formal aspects such as panel juxtapositions and art style. Because the form and content of comics are inseparable, virtually any critical analysis applied to comics will deal, at least peripherally, with expression. The approaches in the Expression section focus more intensely on the formal aspects of comics, including properties of visual form, sequential language, and narrative strategies. Robert C. Harvey, whose comics criticism evinces an appreciation for both clever gag strips and riveting adventure comics, does not totally discount the importance the story itself, but his primary litmus test for a good comic is “when words and pictures blend in mutual dependence to tell a story and thereby convey a meaning that neither the verbal nor the visual can achieve alone without the other” (Harvey, 1996, 4). The approaches in this section deal to some degree with the interaction and inter-animation of the textual and the pictorial, whether that blending be employed in producing a visual pathography, visually representing realistic talk-in-interaction, or depicting trauma in autographics. An analysis of comics form can be truly enlightening only in relation to the content of the comic, and vice versa. Thus, aspects of both content and form find their way into the third section of the book. However, the approaches in the Relationships section put the primary focus on intertextual, contextual, and paratextual relationships between comics artifacts and other texts, media, and artifacts. There have always been some comics that exist in relationships with the source material from which they are adapted or draw inspiration. Increasingly, comics exist in relationships with other mediums that adapt their content or as just one portion of a transmedia story. Sometimes comics content relates to realworld events, including scientific and philosophical thought. Readers can have relationships with publishers, creators, titles, or characters. In the case of long-running comic strips and serialized comic books, readers can have decades-long relationships with fictional universes or characters. Comics always exist within a complex web of relationships, and this is one of the least explored aspects of comics. The approaches described in the Relationships section provide the tools for reducing that deficit of attention, and new ways to understand comics not just as a medium or an art form, but an aspect of the cultural life of many people around the world. We hope that More Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods will be a useful resource for professors and graduate students who are already producing comics scholarship, but our primary target audience is the growing number of potential comics scholars who are studying comics in a variety of courses. The book is designed to give students the tools they 3

BROWN, DUNCAN, AND SMITH

need to actively engage in the analysis of comics. These tools are necessary to uncover the layers of meaning, relationships, and functions of comics that move beyond surface readings to scholarship. Each chapter explains and then demonstrates the application of a method or approach that students will be able to follow in their own critical analysis of comics. It is our hope that by applying a variety of perspectives and critical methods to analyzing the comics they find intriguing students will develop a deeper understanding and appreciation of the communicative power and cultural significance of comic books, comic strips, and graphic novels.

Bibliography Harvey, Robert C. 1996. The Art of the Comic Book: An Aesthetic History. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. Marx, Karl, and Frederick Engels. 1969. Marx/Engels Selected Works, Volume One. Trans. W. Lough, Moscow: Progress Publishers. Smith, Matthew J., and Randy Duncan. 2012. Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods. New York: Routledge. Vande Berg, Leah R., Lawrence A. Wenner, and Bruce E. Gronbeck. 2004. Critical Approaches to Television. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

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Part I VIEWPOINT

1 CRITICAL THEORY Celebrating the Rich, Individualistic Superhero1 Matthew P. McAllister and Joe Cruz

Introduction In the 2017 Warner Brothers movie Justice League, the seemingly ordinary Bruce Wayne (the alter ego of Batman) is asked by new recruit Barry Allen (a.k.a. The Flash), “What are your superpowers again?” Wayne replies, dryly, “I’m rich.” This exchange exemplifies a long-established key attribute of Bruce Wayne, a character who inherited Wayne Manor, Wayne Enterprises, and his vast wealth —net worth $9.2 billion in 2015, according to Time (Davidson 2015)—but through single-minded determination and training also molded himself into “The World’s Greatest Detective.” Similarly, Tony (“I am Iron Man”) Stark, also (in some versions of the character) an inheritor of a large family estate worth even more than Wayne Enterprises (Stark’s net worth $12.4 billion, again from Time2), developed his own path through ingenuity and individualistic vision. So central was Iron Man’s wealth to the character that Stan Lee even joked that he first considered as possible names for Tony Stark’s metal persona “Rich Man,” “Super-Financier,” and “The Mighty Industrialist” (Lee 1975). Although both Batman and Iron Man are clearly superheroes, they are also known as being abrasive and intolerant of others, often presented as a way of demanding greatness (for Wayne) or calling out BS (for Stark). Both characters have also been the heroes of their own stories for decades: Batman since 1939, and Iron Man since 1963. Such characterizations flow with established cultural tropes about the value of individualism and the assumed connections between the accumulation of wealth, genius, and single-mindedness. The accumulative lessons of these tropes can justify the legitimacy of our dominant economic system, capitalism, which arguably is inherently exploitative and inequitable. This chapter explores the insights that one scholarly perspective, critical theory, can bring to the ideologically infused stories and characters that are found in comics. These stories and characters teach us lessons about what to value in society, who our heroes are, and what they should be like. These stories

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MATTHEW P. MCALLISTER AND JOE CRUZ

and characters, though, have relationships to larger structures of power, including capitalism, the patriarchy, heteronormativity, and whiteness, and often serve to legitimize these larger structures. Critical theory helps to highlight the relationship of media content to larger structures of power, and to remind us that, even in comic books, “there are no innocent texts” (Durham and Kellner 2012, 4).

Underlying Assumptions of the Approach Social systems in any society can have embedded in them inequitable power relationships. Simplified examples include class differences in capitalism, gendered inequities in patriarchy, racism and whiteness in white-dominated societies, sexual identities and structural homophobia in heteronormativity, and hardships against the disabled in ableist systems. Critical theory in media studies typically explores why and how dominant ideology—cultural meanings that reinforce the perspectives and positions of those in various sectors of power in society—is reflected and reinforced in our media systems. When the celebration of dominant ideology is so complete that it becomes naturalized in media (and other cultural systems), it approaches hegemony. In hegemonic cultural forms (the messages that circulate in media, education, and religion, for example), the dominant power structure of a society is assumed, becomes essentialized, and is treated as inevitable. Although critical theory often is associated with exploring the values of capitalism and how media systems reinforce this economic system and the power of economic classes who benefit most from capitalism—the roots of critical theory are found in Marxist analysis—other social systems in which inequities occur and are enduring may be informed by scholarship with critical-theoretical assumptions. These include certain versions of feminist media studies, critical race theory, queer theory, and disability studies. Critical theory’s emphasis on dominant ideology in media is often contrasted with other approaches—such as particular versions of cultural studies—that foreground the fluidity and complexity of media’s ideological meanings, the degree to which the polysemic, multiple-meaning nature of media messages allow for oppositional ideologies, and how audiences appropriate these meanings in their own lives in sometimes negotiated or even subversive ways. There are instances of media content that is created outside of the dominant media system, and in such cases, critical theory may highlight truly radical or counter-hegemonic ideas in such oppositional or alternative media (in the case of comics, see Sabin 1993). With its emphasis on the perpetuation of dominant ideology, critical theory is often associated with the intellectual tradition known as the Frankfurt School. In terms of its influence on media studies, this tradition is especially exemplified by Max Horkheimer’s and Theodor Adorno’s essay, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception,” originally published 8

CRITICAL THEORY

in the 1940s (reprinted 2012). As scholars who were influenced by intellectual traditions such as the ideas of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud, and who fled Nazi Germany for New York City during World War II, the authors were concerned that the totalitarianism that they escaped from was being duplicated through the mass-production logics and cultural messages in US popular culture. Frankfurt scholars argued that the industrialization of cultural forms like studio-produced movies, syndicated comic strips, and pop music—by using the same economically efficient logic of the assembly line and mass-production factory—emphasized standardization and the uniformity of ideas. The role of advertising and promotion further reinforced production routines of media. An assumption in Frankfurt critical theory is that the same ideas are repeated through multiple outlets of mass entertainment. Critical theory thus often underscores continuities across different media texts, rather than an in-depth analysis of one text. They argue that mass-media entertainment forms tended to be more alike than truly different, including reoccurring character types like the plucky heroine, dedicated physician, and rugged cowboy. While the Frankfurt theorists argued that “true” difference and individualistic thought can exist—especially in elite art forms like avant-garde theater and classic symphonies—it is rarely found in mediated content. Instead, character types found in media are more of a “pseudo-individualism”: heroes offer only minor stylistic differences from each other, and ultimately are offering the same range of values and behaviors. For example, one 1930s movie cowboy used six-shooters, another rifles, another wore black, another played a guitar, but all were basically the rugged hero who shoots bad guys on a lawless frontier. The scope of difference tended to be limited to ideas that flowed with capitalism. Ideas outside of this range—ideas that offered some potentially fundamental or structural criticisms of capitalism and inequity—were not portrayed at all, or were symbolically contained or negated. Rebellious heroes, for example, who seem to go against the system ultimately reinforce the status quo by bringing their stories to a satisfactory closure, returning in sequels, and working within the system even if they crack wise about its contradictions. Other characters who critique capitalism or other established systems of power were villains or tragic characters with mental health issues or hopelessly naive. The Frankfurt authors emphasized that such messages were not intentional propaganda, but rather the result of how mass media were created in industrial capitalism. As they argued of media corporations, “their ideology is business” (Horkheimer and Adorno 2012, 60). Ultimately, modern US mass media are designed to generate a profit, and their production is designed to be efficient and predictable toward that goal. However, with the profit motive as the sole driver of decisions, there could be unintended consequences of media’s production logic, including the majority of meanings in industrial mass media as collectively celebrating conformity and acceptance of the realities of capitalism. 9

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The Frankfurt School specifically, and critical theory more generally, has influenced modern media studies in several ways. Work engaging the political economy of media—critical approaches to media economics including patterns of ownership and advertising and their influence on content—is in debt to the perspective (Bettig 2002; Hardy 2014). Critical theory also resonates in scholarship that points to the repetitive nature of media, its commercial influences, and how it delegitimizes or negates criticism of social structures of power (about television see Gitlin 1979; Meehan 2005). Critical theory can, then, highlight the hegemonic implications of specific cultural meanings found in modern media that reinforce the economic status quo. For the purposes of this chapter, one especially relevant message that previous critical work has noted involves stories found in media that celebrate a particular kind of business entrepreneur—the individualistic, industrialist genius—who thrives in capitalism; it is an enduring narrative found throughout the history of industrialized US media. As the next sections detail, such characterizations and their ideological implications are also found in the comics.

Appropriate Artifacts for Analysis Comics are especially suitable for critical theory analysis. Comic books occupy a dual reality in the public imaginary. On one hand, they are dismissed as fatuous and innocuous fantasies for young readers; on the other, they are seen as capable of capturing and reinforcing ideological discourses (a point argued by Dorfman and Mattelart 1971, reprinted 1984). Scholars have highlighted the ideological messages in comics (for example McAllister, Sewell, and Gordon 2001), even arguing, in one classic work of critical theory applied to comics, that Disney-based comics served as capitalist imperialism when distributed to South American countries looking to develop more socialist or left-influenced governments (Dorfman and Mattelart 1971; reprinted 1984). Many comics are created in the context of largescale capitalist enterprises, most notably in the case of comic strips by large syndicators like King Features Syndicate (owned by Hearst Communications), or in comic books through publishers like Marvel (owned by Disney) and DC (owned by Warner Media). Both daily comic strips and monthly comic books are designed to be reproduced for long stretches of time, and in repetitive formats. Most comics are created and promoted around a single character or a small group of characters who appear in that comic for years. The stories may feature the same basic narrative arcs and plot progressions, and often the same themes. Some of the most enduring characters—and the circulation of a stable meaning in those characters—in our popular culture are based in comics. Horkheimer and Adorno, for instance, discuss the hapless white-collar worker Dagwood Bumstead, the husband of the title character in Blondie, a “gag” comic strip that has been produced 10

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and nationally distributed virtually every day since its debut in 1930. Many of its gags are about the lazy nature of Dagwood as a worker, or how much he eats and sleeps. Comic-book characters such as Superman and Batman similarly have been fixed in the popular imagination for decades. They appear in monthly comic books that are consistently the same basic length and format. Thematically, they are part of the relatively stable genre of superhero comics that argues, over and over, that problems are best solved through physical conquest and that clearly designated evil exists, is a threat, and needs to be conquered. This genre dominates the medium to such a degree that the masculinist tendencies of physical conquest may mark it as a hostile space for girls, women, and non-cis males (Orme 2016). The establishment of one particular type of comic-book superhero—the individualist with massive wealth—seems especially suitable for critical theory analysis, as the rest of this chapter explains.

Procedures for Analysis Critical theory will often examine the industrial context of a media artifact, but typically a key focus is to engage the repetition of similar, hegemonic messages and themes in a series of media texts. It asks, what are the dominant ideological messages found in media, how do they relate to larger structures of power, and how may they be hegemonic (reinforcing dominant structures in society)? Key steps in applying critical theory for media content such as comics include: •

•

•

Identifying hegemonic ideas that flow with dominant inequalities of society or celebrate dominant systems such as capitalism, and that may appear in mainstream media like comics. Previous work on critical theory is often a key aspect in understanding how such ideas have developed and their implications. Deciding on the category of media content to which to apply the analysis. A particular challenge in critical theory, as exemplified by Horkheimer and Adorno, is the emphasis on the repetition of ideas, especially as appearing in popular and well-circulated media content. An emphasis on repetition means that ideas circulate not only in one “text,” such as a single issue of a comic book, although analysis may focus on one text if it is viewed as especially significant to understanding a dominant theme. However, repetition of hegemonic ideas could involve an entire narrative world (such as the Marvel Universe), genre (superhero comics), series, character, or long-term storyline. Since such a textual category (narrative world, genre, series, character, serialized plot) may involve hundreds of individual texts (such as issues of 11

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•

a comic book), this can make the analysis daunting. In such cases, what may be involved is the reading of previous scholarship and popular examinations about a series or character to understand its history, and limiting the analysis to a few especially exemplar textual artifacts. Applying textual analysis to construct an interpretation of particular “texts” (e.g. film, tv show, advertisement, comic books) supported by various sources that include published scholarship, the researchers’ expertise, related cultural artifacts that may supplement the texts, and the texts themselves (McKee 2003, 33). Researchers build a case to make sense of the possible cultural meanings of these texts. Textual analysis may focus on a variety of elements in media content to highlight possible hegemonic meanings: dialogue or written words that explain actions; the backstories of characters; the labeling, behaviors, and stated/ implied motivations of heroes, villains and supporting characters; the look of characters, including their gender, race, and physical characteristics; the morals of stories that audiences are expected to learn, often indicated by how a story ends or musings by characters or narrators.

Artifacts Selected for Sample Analysis Because in typical superhero stories the line between good and evil is clearly drawn, the main characters—the superheroes who nearly always vanquish evil—embody the type of lifestyle a virtuous individual should pursue. In turn, their individual characteristics become associated with virtue. Since many heroes originate from wealthy backgrounds (Iron Man, Batman, Black Panther, Green Arrow, Emma Frost), readers may associate their net worth, access to resources, and immediate networks with the most ideal individual traits. The wealthy superhero often expresses technocratic and pseudoindividualistic tendencies; that is, they perceive science and technology (developed through their personal resources) and single-mindedness as crucial tenets to the pursuit of justice. For this analysis, the hegemonic ideas highlighted were the industrialist, individualistic, and single-minded characteristics of both Batman and Iron Man. A few well-known texts involving the characters were chosen to exemplify these ideas. Both Batman and Iron Man are characters with long histories of popularity, and fairly consistent backstories and motivations. Batman has regularly been one of the most popular characters in American popular culture since his introduction in the 1930s (for scholarly reviews, see Brooker 2001; Pearson, Uricchio, and Brooker 2015). He has been featured in numerous comic-book and comicstrip titles, films, and animated cartoons, and has had a consistent presence in the toy industry. Batman is DC Comics’ most-licensed character worldwide (Block 2014). Iron Man is a valuable commodity for Marvel Comics because of his enduring popularity and successful cinematic appearances. As a member of the Avengers, Iron Man is part of Marvel Comics’ most profitable property 12

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(after Spider-Man) (Block 2014). Batman and Iron Man deserve critical analysis, particularly because of their pervasive presence in a variety of media, and because their empowerment as wealthy technocrats helps illuminate current discourses about capitalism, masculinity, and American individualism. The below analysis pulls from several especially notable examples that illustrate Batman’s and Iron Man’s personas, and how these celebrate the idea of the rich, individualistic superhero.

Sample Analysis Finger, Bill, and Bob Kane. 1939a. “The Case of the Chemical Syndicate.” Detective Comics, 27, DC Comics. Finger, Bill, and Bob Kane. 1939b. “The Batman Wars Against the Dirigible of Doom.” Detective Comics, 33, DC Comics. Kaminski, Len. 1994. “The Sound of Thunder.” Iron Man, 1, 304, Marvel Comics. Lee, Stan, and Larry Lieber. 1963. “Iron Man Is Born!” Tales of Suspense, 1, 39, Marvel Comics. Michelinie, David, and Bob Layton. 1981 “Escape from Heaven’s Hand.” Iron Man, 1, 152, Marvel Comics. Miller, Frank. 1986. “Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.” The Dark Knight Returns, 4, DC Comics. Waid, Mark, and Alex Ross. 1997. Kingdom Come, DC Comics. Waid, Mark. 2000. “Tower of Babel, Part 1: Survival of the Fittest.” JLA, 1, 43, DC Comics. If critical analysis attempts to understand the entrenchment of a hegemonic portrayal, then here we review the ideological aspects of the wealthy male industrialist as an intrepid, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps individualist. This persona has been engrained in the American psyche since the Industrial Revolution. The perceived tenacity and inventiveness of the likes of Henry Ford and Howard Hughes and, more recently, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, are often treated by the media and entertainment industries as nothing short of legendary (Peck 2014). All have been featured in numerous films, documentaries, and/or news coverage that lionize their exploits. Media stories of rich capitalist innovators paint them as individuals who overcome hardship, are rebellious against the current system, and bring a singular vision and success to their enterprise (Wilner et al. 2014). Stories may also celebrate wealthy individuals who are beneficial to the overall public good and are “job creators” (Peck 2014). The “heroicization” of the wealthy especially is applied to those who are white and male (Hamilton 2013; Liu and Baker 2016). This notion of the rebel and anti-establishment CEO captures the “rugged individualism” that is often presented as exemplifying the American Revolution and remains fixed in our social fabric. As

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the acolytes of personal rights would declaim, autonomy begets innovation; government oversight, social accountability, and collaboration are barriers to be overcome if not obliterated altogether. In turn, it is only through the individual pursuits of wealthy industrialists—not public or collective enterprise—that society truly flourishes. The traditional male industrialist embodies the hyper-individualistic characteristics expected of the American people if they wish to succeed in the current capitalist system. Media coverage of the CEOs’ persona implies that they have survived on their own, prioritizing their interests over the common good, with little or no assistance from the broader community (Mims 2018). Conservative media such as Fox News tend to reinforce this narrative when it romanticizes wealth, power, and individuality by highlighting the self-centered ventures of CEOs from important companies as inherently beneficial to society as a whole (Peck 2014). However, even in other media such as the business sections of newspapers, rich CEOs—often from the tech industry—are portrayed as the ultimate visionaries: individuals worth emulating to unleash a successful life in a capitalist system (Wilner et al. 2014). They may even seem “super” in their own right because they act like single-minded individuals who opt to bypass authority, and sometimes government oversight, to pursue their personal projects. Elon Musk, for example, often framed as the “genius” behind the Tesla electric automobile, has added to his image of being both hyper-rich and individualistically quirky through stunts that showcase his financial and social stature like launching a car into space. It should not be a surprise that Musk has expressed his fandom and admiration for superhero characters, especially Batman and Iron Man (Word 2017). Like the portrayal of the entrepreneurial CEO, some of the most popular superheroes command massive wealth, lead multinational companies, and belong to large aristocratic networks. They include Oliver Queen, a.k.a. Green Arrow, Marc Spector, a.k.a. Moon Knight, and, perhaps most importantly, Batman and Iron Man. Not coincidentally, these characters draw many of their “special” abilities from their access to vast economic resources and cutting-edge technology. Batman uses an armory of expensive gadgets and vehicles to combat crime, while Iron Man depends on his suit’s weapons and abilities to best his enemies. In other words, being rich may earn you a place among the likes of Superman, Wonder Woman, and the Hulk. Even though they belong to different comic-book universes, Batman and Iron Man share similar financial profiles that allow a public persona of being “wealthy playboys” and provide powers through accumulation of advanced technologies; they also both have individualistic personalities that often signal troubled relationships with other characters. In many ways, Batman and Iron Man are the ultimate representations of American individualism and citizen empowerment (Robinson 2018). Their adventures often emphasize the need to safeguard their rights to privacy, owning 14

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property, and often operating autonomously from government. This, of course, describes many superheroes, but in this case both Batman and Iron Man have access to surveillance and weaponized technology. Both characters embrace developing their advanced, proprietary technology in seclusion and away from the law (Hendrix 2008). Both characters’ interactions with the notion of privacy are depicted in various key scenarios throughout their respective comic-book history. These characteristics are evident with a passing knowledge of the characters’ histories. However, some are hinted at in each character’s early comic-book appearances. For example, at the very first appearance of Bruce Wayne, Batman’s secret identity, in Detective Comics #27, he is described as a “young socialite,” is dressed in a stylish suit, and is spending his leisure time with an important public figure, Gotham City’s Police Commissioner Gordon. Later in the story it is revealed that Bruce Wayne is Batman (Finger and Kane 1939a May). In a more detailed origin sequence a few issues later, the comic establishes the character’s wealth as key and at first he is a rich loner. (Robin was introduced a few issues later.) Sitting by himself in an opulent sitting room and before a timely, inspirational bat flies through his window, Wayne begins to consider life as a crime-fighter by musing that “Dad’s estate left me wealthy. I am ready” (Finger and Kane 1939b November). Similarly, Iron Man’s first trademark suit was built in relative seclusion. In his origin story, Tony Stark, a genius military-weapons manufacturer, is injured in an explosion and kidnapped by the war criminal Wong-Chu, who forces him to build weapons in a cave (Lee and Lieber 1963). The explosion leaves Stark with a fatal heart wound and only a few days to live. Unlike Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark does have assistance in becoming a superhero. Ho Yinsen, another prisoner who is a physicist, helps Stark builds his signature armor and escape (Lee and Lieber 1963). Stark’s involuntary isolation serves as a metaphor for the current type of pseudo-individualism that permeates media narratives. His prodigious intellect conjures the idea for the iron suit in obscurity and although he receives assistance from another equally intelligent person, it is not an equitable situation. Credit for the versatile, nearly indestructible iron suit is ultimately attributed solely to Stark’s ingenuity, a move that mirrors the celebration of wealthy capitalists such as Thomas Edison, largely crediting with “inventing” the motion picture camera at the expense of contributions such as those of his employee, William Dickson (“William Kennedy Dickson,” N.D.). In the producerist mindset, where “job creators” are much more valuable to society than laborers (Peck 2014), Stark, as a wealthy industrialist, has more to offer the common good than Ho Yinsen. The public and media industries treat current CEOs with the same level of veneration and mysticism. After various failures to launch one of the first personal computers in the 1980s, Steve Jobs became infamously detached from the public eye, only to reemerge from obscurity in the late 1990s to found Pixar Animation Studios and introduce the iMac. Like Tony Stark, he “locked himself away to produce 15

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a paradigm-shifting invention” (Hendrix 2008). While the media framed Jobs’ previous isolationism as “eccentric,” his colleagues tend be less charitable. They often describe his seclusion and perceived single-mindedness as arrogance, and an inability to embrace collaboration (CNET News Staff 1996). Iron Man’s individualistic identity manifests through how he uses and enhances his suit (Stefanopoulou 2017). Since his entrapment at the hands of Wong-Chu, Tony Stark has built numerous suits that were intended to improve on previous models. Each new one possesses a unique ability like stealth (Michelinie and Layton 1981) or incredible strength (Kaminski 1994) that only Iron Man understands and can activate. Stark’s mastery and access to his armor affords him social and economic stature (Hogan 2009; Stefanopoulou 2017). Because of the various abilities granted by his suits, Stark has the privilege to access superhuman circles (e.g. the Avengers). The need for privacy and seclusion especially shapes Batman’s persona. Unlike Iron Man, who typically operates from the publicly known Stark Enterprises, Batman retreats to a cave located under Wayne Manor to concoct his plans. However, Batman’s brand of individualism diverges from Iron Man’s in various ways. For example, he expresses his single-mindedness through antagonistic behavior towards group collaboration. Although he has had numerous partners across the years (most notably of course Robin), his interactions with other superheroes tend to be marked by tension and paranoia. Arguably the most celebrated illustration of Batman’s “leadership style” occurred when he disciplined the rebellious Guy Gardner (one of the many Green Lanterns) with a knock-out punch in a 1987 issue of Justice League International (Giffen and DeMatteis 1987). The “Tower of Babel” storyline explores Batman’s distrust of others—in this case, the Justice League (JLA). Since most JLA members possess superhuman abilities, Batman is wary of them because, if they were to go rogue, he rationalizes that no force on Earth would be able to stop them (Waid 2000). And because he lacks superpowers, he is aware of his limitations if he were to, say, battle the incredibly strong Wonder Woman hand to hand. Using his vast resources, he devises a plan to neutralize all the heroes by exploiting their weaknesses. In this particular case, Batman perceives global security as paramount to safeguarding the common good. His immediate collective, the JLA, poses a threat powerful enough for him to ignore his in-group loyalty. Conversely, with only his cunning intellect and access to advanced technologies, Batman demonstrates that, despite his limitations as a non-superpowered being, anyone could beat the JLA if they have enough money and power. Batman’s radical pseudo-individualism is perhaps best exemplified by some of his actions near the climax of the infamous The Dark Knight Returns graphic novel. This story finds Batman retired from fighting crime and living a rather mundane life. With crime running rampant in Gotham City, Bruce Wayne, now a 55-year-old, decides to don the cowl once more. However, his new brand of vigilantism, where he beats up gang members and surveils the city potentially violating citizens’ rights to privacy, finds 16

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him at odds with the local and federal authorities. The US government directs Superman to bring in Batman to face justice and a showdown between “The Man of Steel” and “The Dark Knight” becomes inevitable (Miller 1986). Because he is no match for Superman, Batman secludes himself to build a robot armor that could help him fight Superman. Like Tony Stark and Steve Jobs, Bruce Wayne isolates himself to create a “paradigm-shifting” artifact that could level the playing field (Hendrix 2008). In this context, Batman’s robot suit serves as a metaphor for citizen empowerment, particularly that which is concerned with providing community surveillance when law enforcement is perceived to have failed. Batman’s isolationist nonconformity is also reinforced in another celebrated alternative-future story, Kingdom Come, a graphic novel designed to highlight the mythic nature of superheroes (and the human crises and angst such beings would trigger). Another character in this story, Wonder Woman, calls Batman out about his individual-genius image: “You have the nerve to swagger out of your cave and expect everyone to bow before your precious wisdom!” (Waid and Ross 1997, 172). Both Iron Man and Batman, then, exemplify the rich, genius entrepreneur, a persona that is celebrated in media coverage of rich businessmen. We see this most clearly in the mythos created around both the historic “captains of industry,” but also in more recent profiles of Internet and new-tech billionaires. The Wall Street Journal saw the explicit connection between Tech CEOs and the superhero label as so strong, and ultimately blinding to their drawbacks, that they implored, “the age of the tech superheroes must end” (Mims 2018). However, the long-enduring cultural story of the rich hero may also explain even more impactful trends. Depictions of Batman’s and Iron Man’s actions in comic books warrant scrutiny due to the current state of our technological and political landscape. Much of President Donald Trump’s cult-like appeal for his supporters, after all, is rooted in his image of an individualistic business genius, a self-made millionaire who mastered “the art of the deal” and who for many seasons on the reality program The Apprentice would bluntly judge others as inadequate in proclamations from his very own Trump Tower. It perhaps, then, was not a harmless indulgence when, as reported in The Washington Post (Cavna 2015), as a Presidential candidate, Trump answered a boy’s question (“Are you Batman?”) without hesitation: “I am Batman.”

Notes 1 The authors wish to thank Aya Al Khatib and Ziyuan (Maggie) Zhang for their help with the research for this chapter. 2 Time ranks T’Challa, the Black Panther, as the richest superhero; in fact, they label him as “undoubtedly the wealthiest fictional character of all time,” with personal wealth in the trillions. However, his royalty and communitarianism (in terms of Wakanda, at least) place him in a different symbolic relationship with his wealth than Wayne or Stark.

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Selected Bibliography Bettig, Ronald V. 2002. “The Frankfurt School and the Political Economy of Communications.” In Rethinking the Frankfurt School: Alternative Legacies of Cultural Critique, edited by Jeffrey T. Nealon and Caren Irr, 81–94. New York: SUNY Press. Block, Alex Ben. 2014. “Which Superhero Earns 1.3 Billion a Year?”. The Hollywood Reporter. November 11. www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/superhero-earns-13billion-a-748281 Brooker, Will. 2001. Batman Unmasked: Analyzing a Cultural Icon. London: Continuum. Cavna, Michael. 2015. “Donald Trump Says He’s Batman. Here Are 15 Reasons Why he Might Be.” The Washington Post. August 18. www.washingtonpost.com/news/ comic-riffs/wp/2015/08/18/donald-trump-says-hes-batman-here-are-15-reasonswhy-he-might-just-be-right/ CNET News Staff. 1996. “Fall and Rise of Steve Jobs”. CNET. December 20. www. cnet.com/news/fall-and-rise-of-steve-jobs/ Davidson, Jacob. 2015. “These Are the 5 Richest Superheroes.” Time. July 9. http:// time.com/money/3950362/richest-superheroes-comic-con/ Dorfman, Ariel and Armand Mattelart. 1984. How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic. New York: I.G. Editions. Durham, Meenakshi Gigi and Douglas M. Kellner. 2012. “Adventures in Media and Cultural Studies: Introducing the KeyWorks.” In Media and Cultural Studies: KeyWorks, edited by Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner, 1–23. Second edition. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Finger, Bill and Bob Kane. 1939a. “The Case of the Chemical Syndicate.” Detective Comics, 27, DC Comics. Finger, Bill and Bob Kane. 1939b. “The Batman Wars Against the Dirigible of Doom.” Detective Comics, 33, DC Comics. Giffen, Keith and J. M. DeMatteis. 1987. “Gray Life Gray Dreams.” Justice League, 1, 5, DC Comics. Gitlin, Todd. 1979. “Prime Time Ideology: The Hegemonic Process in Television Entertainment.” Social Problems, 26 (3): 251–266. Hamilton, Eleanor. 2013. “The Discourse of Entrepreneurial Masculinities (and Femininities).” Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 25 (1–2): 90–99. Hardy, Jonathan. 2014. Critical Political Economy of the Media: An Introduction. New York: Routledge. Hendrix, Grady. 2008. “Why Iron Man Is Like Steve Jobs”. Slate. May 1. https://slate. com/culture/2008/05/why-iron-man-is-like-steve-jobs.html Hogan, Jon. 2009. “The Comic Book as Symbolic Environment: The Case of Iron Man.” Et Cetera, 66 (2): 199. Horkheimer, Max and Theodor Adorno. 2012. “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception.” In Media and Cultural Studies: KeyWorks, edited by Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner, 53–75. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Kaminski, Len. 1994. “The Sound of Thunder.” Iron Man, 1, 304, Marvel Comics. Lee, Stan. 1975. Son of Origins of Marvel Comics. New York: Simon and Shuster. Lee, Stan and Larry Lieber. 1963. “Iron Man Is Born!” Tales of Suspense, 1, 39, Marvel Comics. Liu, Helena and Christopher Baker. 2016. “White Knights: Leadership as the Heroicisation of Whiteness.” Leadership, 12 (4): 420–448.

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McAllister, Matthew P., Edward H Sewell, Jr. and Ian Gordon. 2001. Comics & Ideology. New York: Peter Lang. McKee, Alan. 2003. Textual Analysis: A Beginner’s Guide. London: SAGE. Meehan, Eileen R. 2005. Why TV Is Not Our Fault: Television Programming, Viewers, and Who’s Really in Control. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Michelinie, David and Bob Layton. 1981. “Escape from Heaven’s Hand.” Iron Man, 1, 152, Marvel Comics. Miller, Frank. 1986. “Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.” The Dark Knight Returns, 4, DC Comics. Mims, Christopher. 2018. “The Age of Tech Superheroes Must End”. The Wall Street Journal. June 7. www.wsj.com/articles/the-age-of-tech-superheroes-must-end1528387420 Orme, Stephanie. 2016. “Femininity and Fandom: The Dual-Stigmatization of Female Comic Book Fans.” Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 7 (4): 403–416. Pearson, Roberta, William Uricchio and Will Brooker. Eds. 2015. Many More Lives of the Batman. Second edition. London: British Film Institute. Peck, Reece. 2014. ““You Say Rich, I Say Job Creator”: How Fox News Framed the Great Recession Through the Moral Discourse of Producerism.” Media, Culture, & Society, 36 (4): 526–535. Robinson, Ashley Sufflé. 2018. “We are Iron Man: Tony Stark, Iron Man, and American Identity in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase One Films.” The Journal of Popular Culture, 51 (4): 824–844. Sabin, Roger. 1993. Adult Comics: An Introduction. New York: Routledge. Stefanopoulou, Evdokia. 2017. “Iron Man as Cyborg: Between masculinities.” Gender Forum: An Internet Journal of Gender Studies, 62 (62): 21. Waid, Mark. 2000. “Tower of Babel, Part 1: Survival of the Fittest.” JLA, 1, 43, DC Comics. Waid, Mark and Alex Ross. 1997. “Kingdom Come.” DC Comics. “William Kennedy Dickson.” N.D. Historic Camera. http://historiccamera.com/cgi-bin/ librarium2/pm.cgi?action=app_display&app=datasheet&app_id=2512 Wilner, Adriana, Tania Pereira Christopoulos, Mario Aquino Alves and Paulo C. Vaz Guimarães. 2014. “The Death of Steve Jobs: How the Media Design Fortune from Misfortune.” Culture and Organization, 20 (5): 430–449. Word, Marguerite. 2017. “4 Ways Comic Books Shaped Elon Musk’s Bold Vision of the Future.” CNBC. June 23. www.cnbc.com/2017/06/23/4-ways-comic-booksshaped-elon-musks-vision-of-the-future.html

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2 POSTCOLONIAL THEORY Writing and Drawing Back (and Beyond) in Pappa in Afrika and Pappa in Doubt Christophe Dony

Introduction Readers who have never come across Anton Kannemeyer’s work may be intrigued, to say the least, just by looking at the cover of his anthology Pappa in Afrika (2010). This cover (Figure 2.1) is indeed a parody of the (in)famous comic cover of Tintin in the Congo (1932) by Hergé. Tintin in the Congo has been described as the colonial comic par excellence (Rifas 2012), notably for its stereotypical (mis)representation of Congolese people as inferior, inept, primitive, or marginal. Hergé’s colonial gaze and aesthetic also undoubtedly lie in his visual tokenizing of the black body, for which the artist systematically relies on golliwog and coon iconography – that is, grotesque characters with “very dark skin,” big clown-like lips, “wildrimmed eyes,” and “wild, frizzy hair” (Pilgrim 2000, n. p.). As a result, Kannemeyer’s reproduction of Hergé’s racist iconography in the twenty-first century may seem offensive and troublesome to many. Yet, paradoxically enough, Kannemeyer’s use of Hergé’s aesthetic is meant as a critique of colonial discourse and ideology, and their persistence even in so-called postcolonial times. This becomes especially clear when examining how Kannemeyer employs other subversive elements to denounce fantasies, violence, and anxieties surrounding colonial discourse and its legacy, which Tintin in the Congo articulates narratively and visually. For example, the presence of a dead black man as well as several mutilated black characters condemns the violence inherent in the process of colonization. Their suffering and grotesque traits seem to be the direct result of an ongoing modern form of (neo)colonization, which Kannemeyer references by tagging boxes amidst the luggage of Tintin’s avatar with mentions of oil field service multinational companies, international aid, and genetically modified foods. Implied here is that all of these products and the 20

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Figure 2.1 The cover of Pappa in Afrika (2010). © Anton Kannemeyer

companies or organizations from which they originate have, in one way or another, participated in the exploitation and misery that have plagued many people and countries in Africa, both during and after the colonial period. Kannemeyer’s addition of mainly distressed or dead black characters also produces an uncanny effect, especially for Western eyes, that

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sharply contrasts with the almost idyllic but mostly fantasized African landscape from Hergé’s original cover. This cover, the reader might remember, features nothing but Tintin’s car in the middle of an empty, savannah-like landscape, with a giraffe prominently standing in the background. This type of romantic landscape was common and popular in the colonial imaginary because it helped legitimize Europeans’ real and cartographic takeover as well as their settlement, all the while minimizing the idea of violent territorial intrusion and appropriation (Huggan 1989; Huggan and Tiffin 2015). In addition to debunking this colonial representation of Africa as an empty space, Kannemeyer suggests that colonization also played an important role in the extinction of wildlife. The “real” giraffe from Hergé’s cover has indeed disappeared on the cover of Pappa in Afrika. Kannemeyer’s cover still features a giraffe, but a wooden sculpture of one that is stacked in the car of Tintin’s avatar. This subtle change in form may be said to epitomize colonizers’ inclination to literally tame species and lands to advance colonial projects, including the crafting of colonial fantasized memorabilia. The cover of Pappa in Afrika contains several other subversive elements besides those described above, some of which will be examined later on. For now, suffice it to say that the previously discussed revisions illustrate a form of “writing back,” which is the critical framework adopted in this chapter. Writing back can be defined as a form of postcolonial appropriation whereby artists adopt and adapt colonial traditions and discourses to better expose their “flaws, shortcomings and politics” (Nayar 2015, 13), and then possibly modify their very form(s) or mode(s). Writing back can thus provide an approach for the examination of the type of appropriation and subversion of colonial discourse and aesthetic such as those found in Pappa in Afrika’s cover. In this chapter, an expanded version of the writing back paradigm will be applied to various comics and formal elements from Kannemeyer’s anthologies Pappa in Afrika (2010) and Pappa in Doubt (2015). The readings of the elements presented in this chapter are based on certain assumptions about what the writing back paradigm is and what it can do. It is therefore first necessary to critically engage with these assumptions and their theoretical underpinnings before the framework is applied.

Underlying Assumptions of the Approach The first underlying assumption is that a text which writes back does so in engaging with another individual text or a body of texts and with the underlying socio-cultural, ideological, and political realities that these texts reflect and shape. This engagement with what lies beyond textuality and narrative is what distinguishes the writing back paradigm from other critical concepts based on relationality, such as intertextuality, intermediality, or 22

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genre theory. These critical concepts from literary and media studies are concerned with how texts and narratives engage with other texts and narratives; they provide a rationale for describing and analyzing how writers and artists adapt, expand, or provide commentaries on fictional worlds and/or literary traditions. However, while they are helpful in establishing typologies of textual and narrative relations and in highlighting writers and artists’ possible influences and (af)filiations, these approaches generally show little concern for extratextual issues such as ideology and politics. A second underlying assumption is that the political and ideological tenets underlying the writing back paradigm are the result of the model’s roots in postcolonial theory. In The Empire Writes Back, one of the foundational critical texts of postcolonial studies which conceptualized the writing back paradigm, the editors argue that postcolonial literatures engage with and reflect on the effects of the imperial process and colonization even after the dismantling of former colonial powers (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin 2002, 2). This seminal work also posits that many a postcolonial text contests and exposes the discriminatory systems of all kinds imposed by colonizers on colonized people, which include government procedures and regulations, economic and socio-cultural models, but also linguistic and literary traditions. In writing back against these models, postcolonial authors have sought to reclaim colonized people’s voices, heritage, and agency. In fact, postcolonial authors have often aimed to revise colonial historiography and Western literature’s Orientalist aesthetic (Said 1985). Orientalist representations of places, cultures, and “others” abound in Western literature and testify to its long-held “denial of the value of the ‘peripheral,’ the ‘marginal’ and the ‘uncanonized’” (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin 2002, 3). A third assumption is that the writing back mode can take many different forms. For example, many postcolonial writers have revised a particular Western classic, thus articulating a writing back mode around a clear one-to-one textual correspondence. This is notably the case in Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), which builds on of the “mad woman in the attic” trope present in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847). J.M. Coetzee’s Foe (1986) is another example that is woven around Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719). Aimé Césaire’s A Tempest (1969) focuses on revising Shakespeare’s The Tempest (ca. 1611). These postcolonial narratives reflect the weight of Western cultural and literary traditions in former colonies, and how various strands of discrimination against and misrepresentations of former colonized people were deeply ingrained in Western narratives. Of course, all of these authors may engage with different aspects of the Western canon. As John Thieme reminds us in his exploration of a postcolonial canon: “a heterogeneous range of societies ha[ve] experienced colonialism” differently, and there are accordingly “major disparities between the ways in which” particular authors “wrote back” and “engaged with the canon” (Thieme 2001, 2). On the whole, however, this type of writing back generally aims to “redesign, relocate, reevaluate the classic protoworld” (Doležel 1998, 206), that is the “original” fictional world as it was first imagined in the source and often “classic” 23

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text, whose narrative elements and themes often serve as springboards for revision or expansion of said fictional world. These narrative transformations generally affect and comment on characters, space, and time. For example, characters whose voices and roles were downplayed in the source text, notably because of their status, position, or race, may be given more prominence. The psyche and personality of major characters from the source text can also be revised so as to expose how its characters both reflect and shape discriminatory and paternalistic discourses and attitudes. Moreover, spatial and temporal settings from the source text may be redesigned so as to draw attention to often previously overlooked locales or histories, or simply to offer alternative perceptions of history than those conceived by Western historiography. Finally, even if this has been the focus of less critical attention (Goebel and Schabio 2013; Munos and Ledent 2018), these narrative transformations can be intertwined with a reevaluation of specific poetics and politics of storytelling which can comment on formal and stylistic elements, genre traditions, or tropes, especially those that present whiteness, traditional masculinity, heterosexuality, “truth” and temporal linearity as normative. These revisions do not necessarily target a Western literary text, but a broader “worldview” as constructed and perceived by Western discourses. Writing back can thus be understood in a much broader way than bilateral textual relations. A fourth underlying assumption is that most narratives to which a writing back mode can be assigned sustain the spatial metaphor of a culturally and politically dominated periphery that is subordinated to an authoritative center. This is because the very concept of writing back was built on spatial reflections and vocabulary. This concern for this spatial dialectic is implied in the previously referenced The Empire Writes Back, whose title alludes to a 1982 article “The Empire Writes Back with a Vengeance” by Salman Rushdie. In this article (Rushdie 1982), the writer contends that language and literature constitute means to resist and fight colonialism. Drawing on Rushdie’s line of reasoning, Aschroft et al. later theorized the writing back mode to explain how authors from former colonies (i.e. the periphery) revised Western literary and cultural traditions to expose the disastrous consequences and traumas caused by colonial centers. The prominence of this spatial dialectic underlying the writing back model is precisely what has led critics to attack the critical framework. In their postmodern conceptualization of imperialism, for example, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri argue that the writing back paradigm is obsessed with colonial history and, as such, reinforces the prevalence of binary oppositions such as colonizer/colonized and center/periphery (Hardt and Negri 2001). There is no doubt that colonization has had a significant impact on formerly colonized people and their literary histories. However, assessing all literature coming from formerly colonized regions as primarily concerned with contesting colonial historiography and Western aesthetic is questionable. This is a view shared by literary critic Evan Maina Mwangi, who argues that many African writers foreground textual and 24

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literary conversations with each other, thus articulating relations that go beyond the “‘writing back to the colonial center’ paradigm”(Mwangi 2010, 4). Postcolonial writers’ increasing “preoccupation with the Self, with one’s history – literary and non-literary” (Ghazoul 2013, 127) – allegedly points to the outmoded character of the “writing back to the Empire” paradigm. Writing back to the West and to the English canon was particularly popular among what could be labeled the first generation of postcolonial authors, that is, authors who engaged with the colonial history of a former colony and that of its metropolis during, or shortly after, the process of decolonization because they experienced it firsthand. Postcolonial writers and artists of later generations seem to have moved away from this pattern. Many of the reasons behind this shift lie in the rise of globalization. Globalization, understood as the increasingly faster flow of capital, cultural goods, and people around the world, has undermined the importance of national sovereignty, and possibly the need for postcolonial artists to revise a national past and history as deeply intertwined with colonization. Moreover, transcultural and transnational issues arising from various forms of global migration may have pushed artists to scrutinize forms of identification beyond the scale of the national. Another possible reason for the decline of the writing back paradigm may be that writers and artists who have not actually experienced colonialism or the processes of decolonization can only understand this traumatic past indirectly. Contemporary postcolonial artists may therefore struggle to deal with a colonial past and history which they may not directly relate to, or whose details they do not entirely possess. Despite its decline and ideological shortcomings, the writing back paradigm should not be entirely dismissed, as some have argued (Fasselt 2016, 155; Mongia 2016, 67). Rather, writing back as a mode of contesting and revising ideological, political, and narrative authorities could be expanded so as to go beyond what it has meant so far. The very act of writing back is, indeed, a moving target, whose mode and forms can vary according to medium-specific issues and particular historical and cultural junctures. After all, postcolonial theory itself has moved beyond the narratives and processes underlying decolonization to accommodate new critical practices that are anchored in our global era and its “neocolonial imbalances” (Wilson, Sandru, and Welsh 2010, 2); it has indeed “further modulated and refined its engagement with neo-imperial practices” by increasingly considering issues of environment, gender, race, and migrancy (Wilson, Sandru, and Welsh 2010, 1). There is thus no reason that these new soundings in postcolonial theory would not apply to the writing back mode, or its expanded version.

Procedures for Analysis Readers can start a critical analysis through the writing back lens by identifying the differences and similarities between the relevant narratives, traditions, or 25

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discourses that the writers and artists engage with: In what ways are characters, space, and time re-evaluated at the level of the fictional world or story space? How are genre, traditional discourses, or narrative traditions revised, and to what effect? How much of the protoworld(s) or prototext(s) is appropriated or adapted? Readers may also look beyond traditional textual and discursive transformations to examine how stylistic and medium-specific elements such as gridding and layout strategies, color palette, line style, or even publication format and seriality may contribute to an expanded writing back agenda. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to outline analytical procedures for each of these aspects, especially as each of them can be tackled from different critical angles. And it is, of course, very unlikely that a writing back mode can be applied or achieved in regard to all of the previously mentioned aspects. Next to providing commentaries on narrative and genre revisions, my own analysis will mainly focus on two of these formal and comics-specific elements, namely line style and seriality, which I now briefly turn to. According to comics critic Jared Gardner, line style is “the one feature of comics that marks them as profoundly different … from both the novel and film” (Gardner 2012, 56 quoted in Tarbox 2016, 144); it articulates a particular voice, “not the metaphorical ‘voice’ of narrative theory, but the human voice of oral storytelling, of song, or performance” (Gardner 2012, 66 quoted in Tarbox 2016, 144). Gardner actually coins the term “voiceprint” to highlight how comics artists visually and aesthetically expand on storytelling traditions in unique ways by visually and aesthetically “join[ing] together,” as Tarbox puts it (Tarbox 2016, 144), “voice and writing, orality and print, performance and text” (Gardner 2012, 66 quoted in Tarbox 2016, 144). As Tarbox suggests (Tarbox 2016, 144–56), the concept of “voiceprint” can be used to examine how artists may adopt and/or adapt a dominant or popular line style and color palette for various reasons, including lineage and symbolic capital or, more interestingly for our concern, writing or drawing back purposes. Gardner also pinpoints seriality as another important narratological aspect of comics in his exploration of the medium’s history of storytelling. He defines comics’ seriality as “an economy” that “simultaneously epitomizes and travesties the logic of consumer capitalism” (Gardner 2012, 26). In other words, Gardner suggests that seriality is intrinsically and paradoxically connected to repetition and change since what underlies serial storytelling is the ongoing development of a particular fictional world (see Saint-Gelais 2011), whose boundaries and features may be reconfigured by artists desiring to distance themselves from the weight of continuity, fidelity, or tradition. Obviously, the nature of serial narratives, which can “exist as entities that keep developing in adaptive feedback with their own effects” (Kelleter 2017, 1), may be used by artists wishing to push this adaptive feedback to its limits. 26

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Appropriate Artifacts for Analysis An expanded writing back approach can be applied to any comic that consistently questions a dominant system of representation, narrative tradition, or worldview. Comics actually produced in an actual postcolonial context may offer more relevant samples. But the very idea of postcolonial comics goes beyond particular national and historical boundaries, especially as transnational and global aspects have animated worldwide comics production for decades (see Denson, Meyer, and Stein 2013; Dony 2014). This is a view also shared by the editors of Postcolonial Comics, who tend to bypass the very phrase and argue that “ninth art [comics] in global contexts records historical critique, political action, or emergent transnational narratives of trauma, gender, protest, and global exchange” (Mehta and Mukherji 2015, 5). As a result, it may be possible to stretch the writing back mode to particular comics produced in the US, Europe, and Japan, especially those that challenge issues of dominant continuity and/or the normative realities that a particular publisher may present as central in their uni- or multiverse.

Artifact Selected for Sample Analysis Anton Kannemeyer can be described as a central figure in the world of postcolonial comics as he has been very influential in the development of a South African comics culture. In the early 1990s, he co-founded the Bitterkomix magazine with Conrad Botes. As its title indicates, the magazine features comics whose tone and content can be described as bitter, virulent, and disquieting. This is because both Botes and Kannemeyer have used Bitterkomix to notably display and comment on their anger, anxieties, and fears regarding South Africa’s particular racial politics and multiracial environment. Publishing more and more diverse artists over the years, Bitterkomix became one of the central forces for the development of an indigenous comics culture in South African. This development was also influenced by Kannemeyer’s increasing fame through exhibitions in galleries worldwide. Many of the cartoons and short graphic narratives featured in Kannemeyer’s Pappa in Afrika and his sequel Pappa in Doubt were either previously published in Bitterkomix or featured in previous exhibitions. As such, his anthologies are quite representative of his eclectic and long-spanning oeuvre. Moreover, they are also worth examining as they articulate a type of serial storytelling that further participates in and comments on Kannemeyer’s many references to Hergé’s The Adventures of Tintin.

Sample Analysis Kannemeyer, Anton. 2010. Pappa in Afrika. Auckland Park: Jacana. Kannemeyer, Anton. 2015. Pappa in Doubt. Auckland Park: Jacana.

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Anton Kannemeyer has grown up and lived for most of his life in South Africa, where he was raised in a middle-class environment where white Afrikaner culture prevailed. White Afrikaner culture is mainly associated with rather conservative and Christian values; its dominant political force throughout the twentieth century is the system that enforced racial segregation and the apartheid regime. Of course, many contemporary white Afrikaners now struggle and feel uneasy with the traumatic past and regime that their ancestors directly implemented or (in)directly supported, a system which contemporary generations of white Afrikaners may or may not have witnessed firsthand, and in which they may not have directly participated. Anton Kannemeyer is clearly critical of this white Afrikaner culture and its underlying colonial legacy in postcolonial times. His oeuvre, which contains many autobiographical narratives, consistently shows signs of distress, resentment, and guilt towards this “old” white Afrikaner culture, what it has come to represent, and – more generally – the ghosts of colonialism beyond South Africa. One of these signs is undeniably the tears dropping from the face of Tintin’s avatar in the covers of both albums (see Figure 2.1 and 2.2), more specifically in the top banner that mimics the types of logo that used to appear in the weekly Franco-Belgian comics magazine Le Journal de Tintin and some editions of The Adventures of Tintin, including newspaper ones. This type of logo usually depicted a close-up shot of Tintin and Snowy smiling, or a body shot of Tintin and Captain Haddock in adventurous poses. The presence of this type of logo thus functioned as a brand with particular genre and publication markers, indicating to readers that they might expect cheerful and action-packed serial adventures with rather merry and daring characters in the publication(s), whose traditional serial installments in weekly or daily publications ensured reassuring repetition. The figure of Tintin’s avatar crying in Kannemyer’s albums sharply contrasts with these generic and publication markers. So does the title of the second anthology, Pappa in Doubt. The latter indeed suggests that Tintin’s avatar and who he can stand for – at times a white everyman in postcolonial Africa, an alternative reporting figure to Tintin, or sometimes possibly the artist himself – is overwhelmed by the weight of colonial history and its postcolonial legacies. Both the covers of Pappa in Afrika and Pappa in Doubt thus foreshadow painful and difficult narrative episodes that are at odds with the general tone and the rather linear and non-evolving model of seriality characterizing The Adventures of Tintin, that is a series with characters whose established age, psychology, and background are not much developed over time so as to create a deep sense of reader familiarity and a quasi-canonical heritage that is hard to shake off. This challenging of serial and generic markers becomes especially obvious upon closer examination of what Kannemeyer’s albums actually contain. Most album editions of The Adventures of Tintin usually offer extended narratives of approximately 48 colored A4 pages – the historical album standard in FrancoBelgian bande dessinée. Though similar to this format in size and shape, 28

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Figure 2.2 The cover of Pappa in Doubt (2015). © Anton Kannemeyer

Kannemeyer’s albums are in fact collections of single-page cartoons and short graphic narratives. Tintin’s avatar remains a central figure in many of Kannemeyer’s comics, but many of them focus on different characters, historical moments, and settings, including traumatic episodes of colonial history and reflections on contemporary South African politics and multiracial society. Thus, Kannemeyer’s albums do not follow a clear chronological organization, 29

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neither do they reflect on or shape one specific socio-cultural reality. Rather, taken together, his comics offer a multitude of perspectives on a variety of topics, all of this in various drawing styles that range from clear line aesthetic – the dominant style – to more realist- or expressionist-like drawing modes.1 This eclecticism in terms of form, subject matter, and aesthetic clearly subverts the coherence and cohesion underlying the storyworld and flat serial model of The Adventures of Tintin; they present everything but reassuring repetition or compulsive pleasure. Even if a sense of redundancy is present when Kannemeyer reuses the figure of Tintin’s avatar and/or Hergé’s clear line aesthetic, uncanny feelings transpire from these episodes rather than a nostalgic or comforting familiarity. Various elements further destabilize the serial and generic markers underlying The Adventures of Tintin. First, attentive viewers will have noticed from the covers of Pappa in Afrika and Pappa in Doubt that Tintin’s avatar has become bald, which suggests aging. This calls into question how Hergé’s character, just like countless superheroes, was never affected by the ravages of time. Moreover, the aging of Tintin’s avatar suggests that the politics of storytelling of The Adventures of Tintin and their underlying ideologies may have literally “gotten old.” The outmoded character of Hergé’s politics of storytelling, including its generic aspects, is reinforced by how Kannemeyer’s comics suggest a “questioning mode” rather than an “answering one,” with introvert characters rather than assertive persona. This is notably the case of “Nsala, of the District of Wala” (Figure 2.3) and “Extinction” (Figure 2.4), both of which challenge the merry-go-happy adventure tone of The Adventures of Tintin and even Tintin’s detective skills and ability to solve mysteries. “Nsala, of the District of Wala” (Figure 2.3) is a double-page spread cartoon which replicates a historical photograph of a Congolese man, Nsala, looking at the severed hand and foot of his daughter, a victim of the AngloBelgian India Rubber Company militia in the early twentieth century. According to the biographer of Alice Seeley Harris, the English missionary who took the original photograph, Nsala “hadn’t made his rubber quota for the day so the Belgian-appointed overseers had cut off his daughter’s hand and foot,” whose “leftovers” they then “presented” to Nsala (Smith 2014, 54). Just like Nsala, who lingers on this shocking atrocity in the frozen clear line cartoon, the reader cannot pause at this image without being able to fully comprehend the trauma that it registers, which by definition “brings us to the limits of our understanding” (Caruth 1995, 4). Another example of a pausing, self-absorbed, and doubting character is found in “Extinction” (Figure 2.4). In this image, Tintin’s avatar – who strikingly resembles the artist, as can be seen in various autobiographical narratives in both albums – is trying to make sense of his childhood. This is indicated in the intertextual relation with the reference to Thomas Bernhard’s novel Extinction (1986), which the character is absorbed in. Quite 30

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Figure 2.3 “Nsala, of the District of Wala”, Pappa in Doubt (2015), pp. 70–71. © Anton Kannemeyer

similarly to the character in this picture, the protagonist of Bernhard’s Extinction is forced to deal and reconnect with the undesired legacy and troubling values that his family has championed but that he abhors: fascism and conservative Christian traditions. Like Bernhard’s protagonist, Tintin’s avatar struggles to deal with his own troubling past, which is also tied to trauma and discrimination as is indicated in the figures and toys on the floor, among them gollywog dolls with severed limbs. The legacies of colonialism in this cartoon also indirectly transpire in the background out of the window, a beautifully manicured garden, whose tending is still often mainly done by black people in South Africa, or by other “others” elsewhere.2 The troubling questioning mode that the cartoon presents, then, lies in its ironic and paradoxical juxtaposition of conflicting ideas. On the one hand, the cartoon points to the possible and needed extinction of “old” white Afrikaner culture and values with its reference to Bernhard’s novel. On the other, the persistence of the legacies of colonialism, and its residual elements such as gollywog dolls or manicured gardens, conveys the need and importance to acknowledge and remember this traumatic past. After all, as a note hanging in the artist’s studio represented in the “Black” storyline stipulates: “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (Kannemeyer 2015, 57). 31

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Figure 2.4 “Extinction”, Pappa in Doubt (2015), p. 29. © Anton Kannemeyer

If Kannemeyer’s albums subvert many of the generic codes of The Adventures of Tintin, there is nonetheless another staple genre practice from Hergé’s series that Kannemeyer does not entirely discard, namely the figure of the reporter. In The Adventures of Tintin, the protagonist is a reporter. But, just like Superman or Spider-Man, his reporting skills are but a pretext for his adventures. Tintin is rarely shown actually writing or reading. Nor does he really cover stories; rather the places and people he visits form the background for stories which are never reported, but happen before the readers’ eyes as the events of the narration unfold. In contrast, the eclecticism of Kannemeyer’s albums suggests more “authentic” reporting. His narratives do describe events, and the ways in which these events are presented express views and opinions, admittedly sometimes very controversial ones. In fact, despite Kannemeyer’s use of gollywog iconography, many of his narratives still appeal to a certain sense of postcolonial justice – albeit a difficult

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and complex one that exposes human rights abuses and racial injustice while simultaneously digging up and reusing colonial history and iconography. In so doing, Kannemeyer engages in a type of memory work that criticizes Tintin’s inability to use and mirror “true” and contemporary reporting techniques. Moreover, it could be said that Kannemeyer uses an avatar of Tintin to challenge, as Vanessa Russell would put it in her discussion of the “mild-mannered” reporter in American comics, the “superhero’s vision of omniscience” (Russell 2009, 229). In this sense, Kannemeyer’s use of an aged avatar of Tintin in a “replacement capacity for the superhero” and the original Tintin brings him closer to the likes of comics artists using “alternative” reporting figures such as the ones that Russell discusses, namely Joes Sacco and Art Spiegelman (Russell 2009, 229). Interestingly enough, however, Kannemeyer employs a very different voiceprint from that of these artists. According to Gwen Tarbox, Sacco, Spiegelman, and Jacques Tardi have championed a dominant voiceprint for the representation of geopolitical conflicts, human suffering, and traumatic experiences in comics (Tarbox 2016, 145). The characteristics of these artists’ voiceprint include “the use of tightly drawn, often jagged lines, crowded panels, and extensive shading within a black, white, and gray palette to present hyper-realized examples of human suffering under oppressive political regimes” (Tarbox 2016, 145). In contrast, Hergé’s clear line aesthetic is anything but scratchy, dirty, or frenetic. Rather, its core principle is that of neatly black contoured shapes, whose visual “smoothness” is reinforced by the use of flat and pastel-like colors. According to Hergé’s critics, this particular visual style emphasizes readability insofar as it allows readers to focus on text and therefore immerse themselves in the fictional world (see Peeters 2011). By extension, clear line aesthetic has been associated with a lack of narrative/visual complexity (see Tarbox 2016, 146). Obviously, Kannemeyer reuses this clear line style and its underlying ideas of readability and simplicity to represent highly controversial and traumatic experiences, which are rather “hard” to read. In so doing, he can be said to draw back to, or rather beyond, the dominant Western voiceprint practiced by Sacco, Tardi, and Spiegelman. Kanneyer’s use of clear line aesthetic forces readers to contemplate and pause on his comics precisely because of the uncanny effect that they produce in juxtaposing “easy and readable” visuals with “difficult” and politically charged subject matters, which range from colonial history and its devastating legacy to interracial rape, political corruption, and (un)political correctness. In the cover of Pappa in Doubt (Figure 2.2), Kannemeyer even goes one step further in ironically twisting this poetics of clear line aesthetic. Black characters are amalgamated with apes as they appear in trees only and are still racially stereotyped with clear line aesthetic and golliwog iconography. In contrast, the animals in the same jungle as the black characters are drawn in a slightly more realistic aesthetic, as is indicated in the use of some crosshatching and more graphic details. By highlighting this difference in visual treatment, Kannemeyer 33

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writes and draws back to how colonial explorers and zoologists accounted for new animal species in very detailed ways in their logbooks or sketchbooks, whereas they failed to do so with indigenous populations.

Conclusion The expanded writing back agenda that transpires from Kannemeyer’s Pappa in Afrika and Pappa in Doubt takes different forms. This chapter has examined how some of these forms – including genre revision, a recontextualization of voiceprint, and a challenging of linear seriality – participate in the challenging of narrative, cultural, and ideological issues yoked to colonial historiography, its legacy, as well as comics-specific traditions. This multilayered contesting goes well beyond bilateral textual revisions dealing with the narratives and processes of decolonization or the English literary canon, which used to be central in what could be called the first phase of the writing back paradigm. Kannemeyer’s expanded writing back agenda could further be examined in other comics and cartoons whose poetics and politics of storytelling further complicate and subvert yet other narrative, visual, and cultural traditions than the ones explored in this chapter.

Notes 1 In Pappa in Doubt, these last two drawing styles are, for instance, respectively represented in his portraits of filmmaker David Lynch (see Kannemeyer 2015, 35) and writer Chimanda Ngozi Adichie (see Kannemeyer 2015, 61), and in a parody of Edward Munch’s painting The Scream, which shows a stereotypical gollywog character in distress on the Nelson Mandela bridge. 2 A very similar cartoon to Kannemeyer’s “Extinction” was first published as the cover of a special issue of Le Monde Diplomatique (October 2010). In this cover, quasi identical to the painting “Extinction”, Kannemeyer had placed a gollywog figure in the garden. In a personal communication with the artist (Kannemeyer 2018), Kannemeyer claims that he was dissatisfied with the quality of the printing of this painting and that he therefore created a new one, from which he removed the gollywog figure because of censorship and controversy with art galleries. More generally speaking, manual and housekeeping labor done by black people in South Africa is also the topic of Kannemeyer’s series of cartoons “Splendid Dwelling” (Kannemeyer 2015, 10: 76–77).

Selected Bibliography Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, eds. 2002. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. 2nd ed. London; New York: Routledge. Caruth, Cathy. 1995. “Introduction.” In Trauma: Explorations in Memory, edited by Cathy Caruth, 3–8. Baltimore; London: John Hopkins University Press. Denson, Shane, Christina Meyer, and Daniel Stein, eds. 2013. Transnational Perspectives on Graphic Narratives: Comics at the Crossroads. London; New Delhi; New York; Sydney: Bloomsbury Academic.

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Doležel, Lubomír. 1998. Heterocosmica: Fiction and Possible Worlds. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Dony, Christophe. 2014. “What Is a Postcolonial Comic?” Mixed Zone, Chronique de Littérature Internationale 7: 12–13. Fasselt, Rebecca. 2016. “(Post)Colonial We-Narratives and the ‘Writing Back’ Paradigm: Joseph Conrad’s The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’ and Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o’s A Grain of Wheat.” Poetics Today 37 (1): 155–179. Gardner, Jared. 2012. Projections: Comics and the History of Twenty-First-Century Storytelling. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Ghazoul, Ferial. 2013. “Folktales in(to) Postcolonial Narratives and Aesthetics.” In Locating Postcolonial Narrative Genres, edited by Walter Goebel and Saskia Schabio, 127–140. New York, NY: Routledge. Goebel, Walter, and Saskia Schabio, eds. 2013. Locating Postcolonial Narrative Genres. London; New York: Routledge. Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. 2001. Empire. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press. Huggan, Graham. 1989. “Decolonizing the Map: Post-Colonialism, Post-Structuralism and the Cartographic Connection.” ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature 20 (4): 115–131. Huggan, Graham, and Helen Tiffin. 2015. Postcolonial Ecocriticism: Literature, Animals, Environment. 2nd ed. Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge. Kannemeyer, Anton. 2010. Pappa in Afrika. Auckland Park. Auckland Park: Jacana. ———. 2015. Pappa in Doubt. Auckland Park: Jacana. ———. 2018. “Pappa in Afrika & Doubt.” Message to Christophe Dony. 16 October 2018. E-mail. Kelleter, Frank, ed. 2017. “Introduction.” In Media of Serial Narrative, edited by Frank Kelleter, 1–6. Ohio State University Press. Mehta, Binita, and Pia Mukherji, eds. 2015. Postcolonial Comics: Texts, Events, Identities. London; New York: Routledge. Mongia, Padmini. 2016. “Geography Fabulous: Conrad and Gosh.” In Postcolonial Gateways and Walls: Under Construction, edited by Daria Tunca and Janet Wilson, 59–67. Leiden; Boston: BRILL. Munos, Delphine, and Bénédicte Ledent. 2018. “‘Minor’ Genres in Postcolonial Literatures: New Webs of Meaning.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing 54 (1): 1–5. https:// doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2017.1419840. Mwangi, Evan. 2010. Africa Writes Back to Self: Metafiction, Gender, Sexuality. New York: SUNY Press. Nayar, Pramod K. 2015. The Postcolonial Studies Dictionary. Chichester, England: Wiley Blackwell. Peeters, Benoît. 2011. Hergé, fils de Tintin. Revised edition. Paris: Flammarion. Pilgrim, David. 2000. “The Golliwog Caricature – Anti-Black Imagery – Jim Crow Museum – Ferris State University.” Jim Corw Museum of Racist Memorablia. https://ferris.edu/JIMCROW/golliwog/. Rifas, Leonard. 2012. “Ideology: The Construction of Race and History in Tintin in the Congo.” In Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods, edited by Matthew J. Smith and Randy Duncan, 221–234. New York; London: Taylor and Francis.

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Rushdie, Salman. 1982. “The Empire Writes Back with a Vengeance.” The Times, July 3, 1982. Russell, Vanessa. 2009. “The Mild-Mannered Reporter: How Clark Kent Surpassed Superman.” In The Contemporary Comic Book Superhero, edited by Angela Ndalianis, 216–232. London; New York: Routledge. Said, Edward W. 1985. Orientalism. Peregrine Books. Harmondsworth; New York; Victoria: Penguin Books. Saint-Gelais, Richard. 2011. Fictions Transfuges: La Transfictionnalité et ses Enjeux. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. Smith, Judy Pollard. 2014. Don’t Call Me Lady: The Journey of Lady Alice Seeley Harris. Bloomington: Abbott Press. Tarbox, Gwen Athene. 2016. “Violence and the Tableau Vivant Effect in the Clear Line Comics of Hergé and Gene Luen Yang.” In The Comics of Hergé: When the Lines Are Not So Clear, edited by Joe Sutliff Sanders, 143–156. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. Thieme, John. 2001. Post-Colonial Contexts: Writing Back to the Canon. Literature, Culture and Identity. New York, NY: Continuum. Wilson, Janet, Cristina Sandru, and Sarah L. Welsh, eds. 2010. Rerouting the Postcolonial: New Directions for the New Millennium. London; New York: Routledge.

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3 CRITICAL RACE THEORY Applying Critical Race Theory to Black Panther: World of Wakanda Phillip Lamarr Cunningham

Introduction Prior to an apparent backlash from comic book retailers, Marvel had been engaged in a fairly overt campaign of diversity and inclusion for several years.1 Hallmarks of this campaign included not only publishing more titles featuring protagonists of color but also hiring writers of color to script these titles. Among those hires were prominent African American writers Ta-Nehisi Coates and Roxane Gay. Coates had risen in prominence as a correspondent for The Atlantic and began scripting a new volume of the previously defunct Black Panther in April 2016 on the heels of Between the World and Me (2015), his critically acclaimed treatise on being black in America. Shortly thereafter, Gay—English professor, essayist, and novelist—became the first black woman to write for Marvel when she assumed writing duties on Black Panther: World of Wakanda, the prequel series to Coates’ Black Panther.2 Gay’s scripting of Black Panther: World of Wakanda drew much warranted attention because of her status as the first black woman to do so. However, it is also significant because Gay is an openly queer feminist who has espoused the importance of intersectionality. When asked about making feminism more inclusive, for instance, she stated, Feminism has to [realize] it’s really about intersectionality … That just means that we inhabit more than one identity. I’m not just a woman. I’m Haitian American. I’m Catholic. I’m from Nebraska. I have a body. I have tattoos. I mean not all of these identity markers matter as much as others. (Schachner 2015) Gay’s use of the term intersectionality evidences her awareness of critical race theory (CRT), as it essentially was coined by civil rights advocate Kimberle 37

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Williams Crenshaw, one of CRT’s preeminent scholars. Moreover, her commitment to exploring the intricacies of intersectionality is evident in works such as Bad Feminist, her collection of essays, and in Black Panther: World of Wakanda, a story featuring two queer black women protagonists. As such, applying critical race theory to a textual analysis of Black Panther: World of Wakanda seems apropos. Reading Black Panther: World of Wakanda as counter-story reveals how, through revision, authors of color can deliver transcendent narratives that not only subvert majoritarian norms but also reveal new possibilities in the otherwise predominantly white, hypermasculine, heteronormative superhero genre.

Underlying Assumptions of the Approach Historically, comics—particularly superhero comics—have either avoided depicting characters of color or, more perniciously, relied heavily on stereotypes. As evidence of the former, Black Panther—the first black superhero— would not make his debut until 1966, over thirty years after the comic book format was introduced; furthermore, nearly another decade would pass before he or any other superhero of color received an eponymous title. Regarding the latter point, though he notes that recent superhero comics have allowed for nuanced depictions of non-white characters, Marc Singer nonetheless contends that they “have proven fertile ground for stereotyped depictions of race” (Singer 2002, 17). Moreover, superhero comics also tend to reflect a hypermasculine, heteronormative ethos. As scholars such as Norma Pecora have suggested, superheroes tend to be powerful white men while women tend to be young and attractive or old and frail (Pecora 1992, 61). Superhero comics also tend to tamp any expressions of gender nonconformity or alternative sexualities (Shyminsky 2011, 289). As a result, queer characters are rarities, with queer characters of color perhaps being even rarer. Critical race theory, which emerged from the interactions between and findings of activists, attorneys, and legal scholars, proffers that race and racism are salient in American society, that counter-storytelling is a primary means by which writers of color can combat racism, and that racial advances are tolerated only to the degree to which they serve white selfinterest (Delgado and Stefancic 2012, 17). In literature, scholars and writers have utilized CRT both to highlight how narratives open up space for change and reform and to create those narratives themselves. For instance, Toni Morrison uses CRT to examine how literary constructions of blackness have helped to shape concepts of whiteness in Playing in the Dark: Whiteness in the Literary Imagination (1992) while also engaging with CRT in her novel Paradise (1997). Increasingly, CRT is concerned with intersectionality, or the ways in which other social categories—gender and sexuality, for instance—overlap and intersect with race. 38

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Along with an interest in examining intersectionality in the text, scholars are interested in the ways in which narratives—both fictional and nonfictional—function as counter-stories. Theorists assert that stories are majoritarian, as they tend to favor white, heterosexual men of means (Delgado and Stefancic 2012, 17). Therefore, counter-storytelling involves subverting these majoritarian norms, oftentimes through reconstruction or reimagination in literary texts. Critical race theorist Richard Delgado notes that counter-stories play a role in challenging preconceptions, showing new possibilities, stirring the imagination, and deconstructing or destroying beliefs (Delgado 1989, 2414–2415).

Appropriate Artifacts for Analysis Most texts are suitable for reading through a critical race theory lens. As mentioned above, since counter-storytelling is an aspect of CRT, those texts written by people of color are well suited. However, one should not assume that the absence of overt racial themes or a lack of characters of color means that CRT cannot be applied. Critical race theory is an oppositional theory, which means that it primarily is interested in highlighting and critiquing the ways in which whiteness is assumed as normal or default. Absence often can tell us a great deal about authorial intent, genre and industrial practices, and the like. For example, as literary scholar Gregory Rutledge suggests, systemic racism—coupled with the notion that it is selfindulgent—has limited the amount of black science fiction and fantasy stories in publication (Rutledge 2001, 236). Such also has been the case with comics until recent years.

Procedure for Analysis As one reads a text or series, he or she should keep the following questions in mind. First, with some notable exceptions, most comic books ostensibly are not about race or racial issues. However, even the absence of characters of color or racial themes speaks volumes. One might be inclined to ask, why are there no characters of color present in the narrative? Are they being symbolically annihilated? The term symbolic annihilation, originally coined by theorist George Gerbner, means “the way cultural production and media representations ignore, exclude, marginalize, or trivialize a particular group” (Klein and Shiffman 2009, 56). Is the genre of the text or series typically averse to including characters of color (such as fantasy or science fiction, as previously mentioned)? Second, in what way does the narrative reinforce or challenge prevailing notions about race? For instance, do characters conform to established archetypes or stereotypes (e.g. black characters are strong or physically imposing, Asian characters are highly intelligent, etc.)? If not, 39

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how do these characters undermine or challenge these preconceived notions? Third, how do other aspects of the characters’ identities impact their portrayal and actions? For example, if a character is a person of color who also is queer and/or has a disability, how do these other characteristics shape his or her role in the narrative? Fourth, if the text is mainstream and/or predominantly white, what function do the characters of color perform in the narrative? Do they valorize or otherwise shape the actions, behaviors, or outcomes of the white protagonist(s)? If so, in what ways? Finally, if the text is written by a writer of color or a writer known to address race or racial issues, is he or she intentionally doing so in the text? Does the writer have a history of doing so in his or her other works? If so, are there any consistent threads that run through his or her work, and do any of those threads appear in the text being analyzed?

Artifact Selected for Sample Analysis This analysis will focus on the first five (of six total) issues of Black Panther: World of Wakanda. These five issues represent a complete story arc and all are written by Roxane Gay. Gay was purposeful in crafting a narrative about two black queer women, as she notes in a Huffington Post interview: “I’m focusing on black women and the two lead characters are in a relationship … That’s never been done before. So that’s definitely going to be a hallmark, of writing black queer women into the Marvel canon” (Brooks 2016). In works prior to and following Black Panther: World of Wakanda, Roxane Gay has shown a penchant for counter-storytelling. For instance, in her review of Gay’s short story collection Difficult Women, Megan Mayhew Bergman highlights how frequently Gay subverts traditional tropes through narratives featuring women who are sexually liberated or who have fighting prowess and men who lack these qualities (Mayhew Bergman 2017). Along with an interest in examining intersectionality in the text, this chapter is concerned with the ways in which Black Panther: World of Wakanda functions as a counter-story. As a result, this chapter also aims to highlight how Gay herself should be viewed as a critical race theorist.

Sample Analysis Gay, Roxane. Black Panther: World of Wakanda #1–5. New York: Marvel, 2017. To understand completely how Roxane Gay constructs Black Panther: World of Wakanda as counter-story by engaging in reconstruction and reimagination, 40

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one must understand some aspects of the Black Panther mythos. Black Panther made his debut in Fantastic Four #52 (1966), in which the eponymous superhero is brought to the fictional African kingdom of Wakanda so that T’Challa —the nation’s king and totemic guardian Black Panther—can test his might in preparation for his battle against his primary antagonist, Klaw. Wakanda is a technologically advanced yet isolated kingdom that T’Challa rules justly and wisely throughout much of his history. The Wakandan desire to protect its vibranium—a metal upon which Wakanda’s technology is based—often clashes with Black Panther’s globetrotting adventures with The Avengers, however. Nonetheless, despite the occasional tension between T’Challa and his citizenry, he generally is depicted as noble. Much of the Black Panther mythos was established by his co-creator Jack Kirby and writer Don McGregor, who helmed Jungle Action featuring Black Panther (1973–1976) and the first volume of Black Panther (1977–1979). However, writer Christopher Priest (1998–2003) and filmmaker Reginald Hudlin (2005–2010)—both of whom are African American—are primarily responsible for further developing the character and Wakanda’s history. Priest’s run included the creation of the Dora Milaje, T’Challa’s bodyguards and potential consorts. The first Dora Milaje that readers encounter are Nakia and Okoye, both of whom are teenagers and based on popular black supermodels Tyra Banks and Naomi Campbell (Joyner 2018). Hudlin altered the depiction of the Dora Milaje, making them more warriorlike and completely bald, yet they still remain subservient to and potential brides for T’Challa. The current iteration of Black Panther interrogates T’Challa’s rule of Wakanda. According to Ta-Nehisi Coates, The question about race is ultimately just a question about power … It’s how human beings organize themselves around power, how they exploit, how they use it … The dude’s in this mythical country Wakanda where everybody’s black. So obviously you don’t have the same context of race. But certainly the issues of power, of organizing power, are still there. (Peters 2018) T’Challa’s reign has come under fire after Wakanda had been invaded and nearly destroyed by the intergalatic tyrant Thanos, whose attention was drawn to Wakanda partly due to Black Panther’s interactions with foreign supergroups. The opening arc of Coates’ Black Panther involves T’Challa wrestling with civil unrest fueled by the powerful psychic Zenzi and her partner, rebel leader and shaman Tetu. In Black Panther #1, within the midst of this unrest, former Dora Milaje captain Aneka—who had been imprisoned for assassinating a chieftain who had been sexually assaulting young women in his village—is rescued by her lover and former Dora 41

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Milaje Ayo. Aneka and Ayo abscond with stolen prototype Midnight Angel armor and vow to liberate women throughout Wakanda. Aneka and Ayo play a significant role in Black Panther; however, as one might expect, the narrative revolves around the titular character (though Coates does partly decenter him). Roxane Gay’s portion of Black Panther: World of Wakanda, however, primarily focuses on Aneka and Ayo’s relationship prior to the events of Black Panther #1.3 Indeed, Black Panther: World of Wakanda takes Coates’ project of decentering Black Panther even further by limiting his—and men’s in general—appearance, which serves not only to heighten his absence from Wakanda in the grander narrative but also to develop the protagonists and other women characters. To be certain, women have not been marginalized throughout the publication history of Black Panther; indeed, from characters like Shuri—T’Challa’s sister who also has served as Black Panther—to Storm—the powerful X-Men leader who controls the weather and T’Challa’s ex-wife, women certainly have received their due. However, the Dora Milaje typically have been depicted as loyal and subservient with two exceptions. Nakia, one of the first Dora Milaje, becomes obsessed with T’Challa after he kisses her while under the influence of the demon Mephisto’s sorcery; later, Queen Divine Justice—a Wakandan girl raised in America—often proved to be quite rebellious against authority (although she remained loyal to Black Panther). Gay establishes the Dora Milaje’s subservience in the first issue of Black Panther: World of Wakanda. The issue begins with the latest Dora Milaje recruits appearing before head trainer Mistress Zola and Aneka during an induction ceremony. Among those recruits is Ayo, who immediately raises Aneka’s ire by proving to be somewhat of a stubborn braggart. Ayo—who boasts that she was raised in the same manner as her brothers—is an immediate foil to Aneka, who is measured and dutiful. To humble Ayo, Aneka defeats her in a sparring session but, afterwards, laments that Ayo and the rest of the recruits “must be broken before they can be built into what Wakanda needs them to be.” The use of the term broken here is significant, for it suggests that becoming Dora Milaje requires being forced into service and molded into potential wives for T’Challa. It reminds readers that, though they may be fierce warriors who serve an importance purpose, Dora Milaje lack agency and, much to the chagrin of some of them, do not wish to serve. Indeed, Dora Milaje are conscripted from the various Wakandan tribes in order to maintain peace. Prior to Black Panther: World of Wakanda, there had been relatively little consideration of what this obligation has meant for the women chosen to serve. Nonetheless, despite their contentious interactions, Aneka and Ayo develop amorous feelings towards each other. However, Aneka’s commitment to her captaincy, and her status as a potential consort, force her to repress and hide her feelings towards her trainee. Ayo, however, has no qualms about pursuing the relationship.

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Ayo embodies Gay’s penchant for telling stories of “difficult women,” about which she has stated, I think women are oftentimes termed “difficult” when we want too much, when we ask for too much, when we think too highly of ourselves, or have any kind of standards … I wanted to play with this idea that women are difficult, when in reality it’s generally the people around them who are the difficult ones. (Fesenthal 2017) Ayo’s unwillingness to capitulate fully to the demands of her position and to hide her admiration for Aneka certainly qualify as “difficult.” In the second issue, for example, Aneka and Ayo bicker over Ayo’s harsh interrogation of a protester who feigned an assassination attempt on Shuri, who serves as queen and Black Panther in T’Challa’s absence, to draw attention to how T’Challa’s involvement with The Avengers leaves Wakanda vulnerable. Aneka retains her allegiance to patriarchal rule by reminding Ayo, “We are here to serve. We are women T’Challa could marry. We do not question his decision.” Ayo harshly replies, “I am many things, but I am not foolish. And I will serve, Captain, but I will never marry the king. What antiquated nonsense. And … frankly, I am surprised you would consider such a thing.” Afterwards, the two finally consummate their relationship. Though Aneka and Ayo are the main protagonists, they are not the only examples of powerful black women or black women exercising agency in Black Panther: World of Wakanda. Readers see other black women authority figures throughout the series, including Shuri and Ramonda, the Queen Mother of Wakanda and widow of T’Challa’s father T’Chaka. However, the two other women of importance are the aforementioned Mistress Zola and Folami, another Dora Milaje recruit who finds that her role is too confining. To the degree that Aneka and Ayo are the overt realization of some of the Dora Milaje’s desire for agency, Mistress Zola is the suggestion that this desire always had existed. She immediately recognizes that Aneka and Ayo are in love. Whenever Aneka rebuffs the notion, Mistress Zola calmly advises her to confront her feelings. Rather than prevent Aneka and Ayo’s coupling, Mistress Zola seems to encourage it by pairing them together on assignments. Her wisdom either comes from years of observation of and allowing other Dora Milaje to couple or comes from her own experience. After all, at least three generations have passed since a reigning Black Panther has taken a Dora Milaje for his bride, leaving them to either remain chaste or engage in clandestine affairs. Folami, on the other hand, is another brash Dora Milaje recruit who finds it difficult to adjust to her new life. Unlike Ayo, Folami is fiercely loyal to the throne, but her lack of strength and fighting prowess cause her to lag behind in her training. Mistress Zola discovers that Folami is quite 43

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perceptive and secretive, so she assigns her to remain close. However, when the Dora Milaje decide to sever ties with T’Challa after Thanos upends Wakanda and Black Panther strikes a secret pact with Namor, Folami immediately informs Shuri and Romanda of the Dora Milaje’s dissent. Folami is disappointed when Shuri and Romanda announce that they still trust the Dora Milaje and chide Folami for informing them. As she leaves the court, she is approached by a man with a note from someone named Aoko, who later injects Folami with nanites that increase her strength and agility. Folami finally shows Mistress Zola her newfound abilities and tells her that she—like her mysterious benefactor Aoko—wishes to avenge Wakanda. Thus, like Aneka and Ayo, Folami no longer is confined by her own limitations. To the degree that T’Challa is Aneka and Ayo’s foil in absentia, Folami proves to be the ever-present threat in Black Panther: World of Wakanda. Their individual pursuits of agency come into conflict when Lesedi, a woman from Folami’s village of Kagara, begs the Dora Milaje to protect the women villagers from Chieftain Diya, who has been forcing himself upon them with impunity as the men of the village will not intervene for fear of ostracization. Chieftain Diya also is Folami’s father, so she rushes to warn her father of the Dora Milaje’s plans to intervene. Meanwhile, Aneka—who laments letting her feelings for Ayo distract her after Queen Shuri’s apparent death—rushes off to Kagara to investigate. There, she witnesses Chieftain Diya bringing in another young woman and discovers the other women he has locked in cages. When he refuses to surrender, Aneka kills him and frees his captives. She subsequently is imprisoned and charged with murder, as an enraged Folami threatens to kill Ayo in retaliation. Though they are in opposition to each other, Aneka, Ayo, and Folami function as vessels for Roxane Gay to explore black women’s anger. As Gay notes in a New York Times op-ed, When women are angry, we are wanting too much or complaining or wasting time or focusing on the wrong things or we are petty or shrill or strident or unbalanced or crazy or overly emotional. Race complicates anger. Black women are often characterized as angry simply for existing, as if anger is woven into our breath and our skin. (Gay 2016) However, in the same article, Gay argues that anger can be useful, particularly the kind that can “stir revolutions,” and distinguishes it from rage (Gay 2016). In doing so, Gay draws from writer, activist, and critical race theory stalwart Audre Lorde’s “The Uses of Anger,” Lorde’s 1981 keynote presentation at the National Women’s Studies Association Conference. In the presentation, Lorde suggests that women’s anger—especially in the face 44

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of racism—is “the anger of exclusion, of unquestioned privilege, of racial distortions, of silence, ill-use, stereotyping, defensiveness, misnaming, betrayal, and coopting” (Lorde 1997, 278). Moreover, Lorde distinguishes between masculine conception of anger—brute force and destruction—and the feminine realization of anger, which she views as transformative and indicative of growth (Lorde 1997, 274). Aneka—eventually—and Ayo epitomize the form of righteous anger to which Gay and Lorde refer whereas Folami is consumed by the rage against which Gay cautions. As word arises that more Wakandan womens’ lives are in peril, the three former Dora Milaje find themselves at cross purposes. Folami plots to kill Ayo as an imprisoned Aneka pleads with the guards to save Ayo. Meanwhile, Ayo consults Mistress Zola to find a way to rescue Aneka. Mistress Zola gives Ayo a key to an armory containing prototype Midnight Angel armor, which she steals and utilizes to rescue Aneka. Later, Mistress Zola searches for Folami to prevent her from seeking out further vengeance and obtaining more of the nanites that appear to have corrupted her. As Mistress Zola implores Folami to overcome her lust for vengeance, Folami slays her as she vows that she will not be stopped. As such, Black Panther: World of Wakanda juxtaposes justifiable anger used for the service of others and unbridled rage that proves self-serving. Roxane Gay’s Black Panther: World of Wakanda arc concludes on an uplifting note. The newly freed and empowered—both by armor and through love—Aneka and Ayo retreat to a secret cave where they vow to live freely and to liberate oppressed women throughout Wakanda. Readers of Black Panther learn that the duo eventually lead a group of women to take over territory in the Jabari Lands, where they establish law and order in the midst of open rebellion against T’Challa. As literary scholar andré carrington indicates, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ reconception of the Dora Milaje in Black Panther emerged from his discomfort with Christopher Priest’s original portrayal (carrington 2018, 227). However, carrington is not wholly dismissive of Priest’s run, as he notes that the aforementioned Nakia storyline is Priest’s attempt to reflect upon power differentials by highlighting the taboo nature of T’Challa and Nakia’s kissing. But he argues that both Priest and Coates “position black women’s empowerment as the staging ground for a conflict between value systems” (carrington 2018, 233). However, Roxane Gay’s positioning as a queer women of color and her utilization of CRT in Black Panther: World of Wakanda allow her to deliver a powerful counter-story, one that further reconstructs the Dora Milaje and the Black Panther mythos. Black Panther: World of Wakanda reflects Gay’s inclination to tell stories of “difficult women” and to examine how intersecting identities shape one’s experiences. Thus, like Toni Morrison and Audre Lorde before her, Roxane Gay should be conceived as not only a powerful literary figure but also an effective critical race theorist in her own right. 45

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Notes 1 In an interview with ICv2 following the March 2017 Marvel Retailer Summit, Marvel Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing David Gabriel stated, “What we heard [from retailers] was that people didn’t want any more diversity. They didn’t want female characters out there. That’s what we heard, whether we believe that or not. I don’t know that that’s really true, but that’s what we saw in sales” (Griepp 2017). These comments attempted to rationalize Marvel’s cancellation of a slew of its titles, many of which featured people of color and women. 2 Poet Yona Harvey—who wrote a back-up story in Black Panther: World of Wakanda—became the second black woman ever to write for Marvel. The series also featured the art of black women artists Afua Richardson and Alitha E. Martinez, both of whom had drawn for Marvel previously. 3 Black Panther: World of Wakanda was intended to be a companion series to Black Panther; however, it was canceled after six issues. The final issue was written by Rembert Browne.

Selected Bibliography Brooks, Katherine. 2016. “Real-Life Superhero Roxane Gay Is Writing Queer Black Women Into Comics.” Huffington Post (blog). October 3, 2016 (2:19 p.m.). www.huf fingtonpost.com/entry/roxane-gay-world-of-wakanda_us_57f28b98e4b082aad9bc66ac. carrington, André. 2018. “Desiring Blackness: A Queer Orientation to Marvel’s Black Panther, 1998–2016.” American Literature 90 (2): 221–250. https://read.dukeupress. edu/american-literature/article/90/2/221/134537/Desiring-Blackness-A-QueerOrientation-to-Marvel-s. Delgado, Richard. 1989. “Storytelling for Oppositionists and Others: A Plea for Narrative.” Michigan Law Review 87 (8): 2411–2441. JSTOR. Delgado, Richard and Jean Stefancic. 2012. Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, Second edition. New York: New York University Press. Fesenthal, Julia. 2017. “Roxane Gay on Writing Difficult Women and Her Outlook on 2017.” Vogue. January 3, 2017. www.vogue.com/article/difficult-women-roxane-gayinterview. Gay, Roxane. 2016. “Who Gets to Be Angry?” New York Times. June 10, 2016. www. nytimes.com/2016/06/12/opinion/sunday/who-gets-to-be-angry.html. ———. 2017. Black Panther: World of Wakanda #1–5. New York: Marvel. Griepp, Milton. 2017. “Marvel’s David Gabriel on the 2016 Market Shift.” ICV2. March 31, 2017. https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/37152/marvels-david-gabriel2016-market-shift. Joyner, Jazmine. 2018. “Who Are the Dora Milaje? What You Need To Know About the Badass Women of ‘Black Panther’.” Slashfilm. February 15, 2018. www.slashfilm. com/who-are-the-dora-milaje/. Klein, Hugh and Kenneth S. Shiffman. 2009. “Underrepresentation and Symbolic Annihilation of Socially Disenfranchised Groups (‘Out Groups’) in Animated Cartoons.” Howard Journal of Communication 20: 55–72. Lorde, Audre. 1997. “The Uses of Anger.” Women’s Studies Quarterly 25 (1/2): 278–285. JSTOR. Mayhew Bergman, Megan. 2017. “Roxane Gay, Rescuing Women from the Margins.” The Washington Post (Washington, DC), January 10, 2017.

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Pecora, Norma. 1992. “Superman/Superboys/Supermen: The Comic Book Hero as Socializing Agent.” In Men, Masculinity, and the Media, edited by Steve Craig, 61–77. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Peters, Micah. 2018. “The Evolution of Marvel’s ‘Black Panther’.” The Ringer. February 14, 2018. www.theringer.com/pop-culture/2018/2/14/17012374/marvel-blackpanther-comics-history. Rutledge, Gregory. 2001. “Futurist Fiction & Fantasy: The Racial Establishment.” Callaloo 24 (1): 236–252. Schachner, Anna. 2015. “Roxane Gay and Erica Jong Discuss Feminism and It Instantly Gets Awkward.” The Guardian (London, UK), September 7, 2015. www.theguardian. com/books/2015/sep/07/roxane-gay-erica-jong-feminism-racism-culture-decaturbook-festival. Shyminsky, Neil. 2011. “‘Gay’ Sidekicks: Queer Anxiety and the Narrative Straightening of the Superhero.” Men and Masculinities 14 (3): 288–308. http://journals.sagepub. com.libraryproxy.quinnipiac.edu/doi/pdf/10.1177/1097184X10368787. Singer, Marc. 2002. “‘Black Skins’ and White Masks: Comic Books and the Secret of Race.” African American Review 36 (2): 107–119. JSTOR. Solórzano, Daniel G. and Tara J. Yosso. 2002. “Critical Race Methodology: CounterStorytelling as an Analytical Framework for Education Research.” Qualitative Inquiry 8 (1): 23–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/107780040200800103.

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4 QUEER THEORY Queer Comics Queering Continuity: The Unstoppable Wasp and the Fight for a Queer Future Valentino L. Zullo

Introduction With the publication of Gay Comix #1 in 1980, Howard Cruse wrote in the foreword: [i]n drawing this book, we gay cartoonists would like to affirm that we are here, and that we live lives as strewn with India-Inked pratfalls, flawed heroics, quizzical word balloons and surreptitious truths as the rest of the human race and even a few talking animals. (Cruse, 1980, foreword) Cruse’s declaration captures a defining characteristic of the gay and lesbian liberation movement and similar threads that would inform early queer theory: the need to assert one’s presence through universalization and sameness to the rest of humanity. A comix anthology by gay and lesbian cartoonists queered what could be portrayed in the medium. However, Cruse’s description of the sameness of gay experience with the rest of humankind (and even a few talking animals) would be challenged today, along with many early theorists of gay and lesbian identity and the gay liberation movement. Such groups often had no place for queerness beyond gay, often male, white, and able-bodied persons as their representatives. I open with Cruse’s announcement, a courageous clarion call for gay and lesbian cartoonists in 1980 because it captures a shift in understanding queerness. Cruse’s anthology series and declaration forever changed comics, but asserting gay and lesbian identities in comics is somewhat of a less queer event today as such identities have become established categories unto themselves. Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and its success on Broadway, or Sina Grace’s Iceman are examples of this shift. As Hillary Chute remarks, referring to the critique of Batman and Robin and Wonder Woman as gay 48

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by Fredric Wertham, “[c]omics used to be read paranoically as gay code; in contemporary comics queer identity is openly announced” (2017, 350). As the position of queerness in comics and the larger culture has shifted, so has our ability to both learn from it and critique it. Thus, once established as experiences unto themselves, the queer categories that were once hidden from view, repressed, and denigrated continue to be explored and expanded to consider other forms of queerness and lived experience without a need of justification or the narrative of sameness. If queerness is that which is not seen or rather obfuscated through structures of power—as the personal lives of these cartoonists had been—then what is queer shifts. Queer theory, ever transforming by definition, finds energy in this fluidity and explores established categories and norms to reveal the faultiness of binary thinking and the violence engendered by accepting norms without question, thus fostering new possibilities. Cartoonists like Cruse, including Trina Robbins, Mary Wings, Alison Bechdel, and others queered comics so that future creators could continue to challenge the form and the stories that might be told.

Underlying Assumptions of the Approach Queer theory by definition is difficult to capture, as the very concept resists classification, but for the purposes of this introduction, it is best to understand queer theory as the theoretical discourse that upends our assumptions that serve to undergird oppressive structures of power. Namely, those assumptions that reinforce heteronormativity and harmful gender norms. As Donald Hall articulates, “if there is one thing for which ‘queer theory’ generally has little respect, it is hidden agendas with their unspoken, unintegrated norms and assumptions” (2002, 1). For example, J. Jack Halberstam captures this use of queer theory in The Queer Art of Failure. Halberstam asks, “what kind of reward can failure offer us?” Because in a patriarchal society, “feminine success is always measured by male standards” (3–4). Thus, failing may only mean to not achieve based on male standards and traditions that have typically excluded women. It may appear at first like an odd question to someone not familiar with queer theory, why we are questioning ideas such as success, but it is not success that is being interrogated here but its definition and thus what it excludes. Queer theory queries that which is established—traditions and belief systems that are taken for granted and cause harm to others. Queer theory’s interest in questioning categories and tradition is reflected in its history of not having one particular origin story, but rather many. The theoretical assumptions that define “queer theory” emerged from many different forms of thought and activism. The origin story of queer theory in the academy includes the increased investment in the study of lesbian and gay identity and the gay and lesbian liberation movement, as well as the feminist movements and the many splinter feminist groups that emerged in 49

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the second half of the twentieth-century. As Heather Love argues, though, the main difference between the earlier discourses on lesbian and gay identity and queer theory today is that “[e]arly gay and lesbian criticism tended to ignore the difficulties of the past in order to construct a positive history; queer criticism by contrast has focused on negative aspects of the past in order to use them” (2009, 18). It is difficult to identify all the threads that led to queer theory, the rise of critical theory in the academy being one of them, though it seems to have been coined as a term by Teresa de Lauretis, when she held a conference on the subject in 1990 (Halperin, 2003, 339). With its origins in the study of sexuality and feminism, queer theory is often used to explore identity categories, including those that were previously imagined as stable such as heterosexuality. For example, why did we have to see homosexuality and heterosexuality as a binary for so long? They are unique experiences not reliant upon one another. It is not that queer theory wants to be rid of heterosexuality, but rather asks, is this a sufficient category to describe people? Once we have accepted that there is no need for the binary of these two categories, we also begin to recognize other identities that are excluded, pansexuality or asexuality being two of those. This simple explanation captures what happens when the binary is broken down. The purpose is not always to deconstruct, though it can be useful if the aim is to open up, make more inclusive, or democratize. Queer theory has further been used to explore subjects including the working class, childhood, structures of time, disability and many more ideas and debates far too expansive for this introduction. Early theorists whose work would define queer thought—though they may not have identified as queer theorists—include Michel Foucault and Judith Butler. Foucault’s contributions in The History of Sexuality (1978) identified the construction of the homosexual (and thus the heterosexual) as an identity category in the nineteenth century. Foucault argued that in that period, contemporary identity politics were born as we became individuals whose actions defined the categories we would use to label ourselves. Thus, a homosexual was someone who had sex with members of the same sex. Butler, building on the work of Foucault and surveying the ideas of the many feminist groups of the 1970s and 80s in Gender Trouble (1990), explored how our genders are not stable, but rather performances contingent upon social and historical moments. Many early theorists were critiqued for not acknowledging the lived experience of other intersecting categories such as race, religion, class, ability, and other factors that affect gender and sexuality. This critique is captured in the debates between Lee Edelman and Jose Muñoz. In his work on the “future,” Edelman advocates linking queer theory to Freud’s conception of the “death drive,” embracing negativity, in short, to suggest that the future is constructed in heteronormative terms and we should reject the idea of the future (2004). Edelman believes that the idea of the 50

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future is tied up with reproduction and fantasy of a world that will never come to pass. We are in a sense held down by a belief that we are fighting for the future, though Edelman would suggest it does not exist. In response, he believes we might embrace negativity in an effort to challenge the establishment, focusing on the present and recognizing the death and pain that surrounds us. However, Muñoz declares that this rejection of hope linked to the future is only applicable to people who have power in queer theory, meaning white gay men. Furthermore, Muñoz brings the “future” back into the conversation of lived experiences as he states, arguing that the fact that this version of futurity is currently winning is all the more reason to call on a utopian political imagination that will enable us to glimpse another time and place: a “not-yet” where queer youths of color actually get to grow up. (2009, 95–96) A common critique of queer theory is that those theorists that elevate antinormativity are often privileged enough to be speaking of such an idea. While there are strains of queer theory that privilege antinormativity as a destabilizing force, this is only one way to use queer theory; there is also a way to look at empowering disenfranchised subjects by taking apart the structures of power, or creating new avenues. It is the latter side of queer theory I will focus on in my chapter, which at times may appear feminist, even psychoanalytic. If it does, this is for the following two reasons. First, queer theory is indebted to these theoretical models and thus often looks like them. Second, I want to stress that this is my version of queer theory, but it is only one version and furthermore inflected by my experience as a social worker. Thus, my queer theory takes a relational, practical approach, sometimes even utopian like Muñoz rather than antisocial like Edelman. Queer theory is multivalent and always inflected by our own standpoints and experiences.

Appropriate Artifacts/Subjects/Phenomena for Analysis Nearly all aspects of comics form and culture can be explored using queer theory. This includes the comics medium proper and analyses of the content, fan culture, readership practices, convention culture, communities formed through comics both online and in person, and more. Utilizing Eve Sedgwick’s (1990) thought about “queerness as both a universalizing and a minoritizing discourse,” Dariek Scott and Ramzi Fawaz declare “anyone and everyone can be queer, but actual queers are a minority group in the larger culture; similarly, comics end up in the hands of nearly everybody, but comic book readers are a niche (read: queer, nerd, outcast, weirdo) 51

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group” (2018, 198). The comics form as a hybrid already establishes itself as queer, lending itself to this study. Furthermore, queer theory can be used to question and disassemble the established dynamics of comics culture, much of which has excluded women, people of color, queers, and other minority groups.

Procedures for Analysis Queer theory can be useful in the study of comics to explore the form and culture related to the medium. For the purposes of the study of comics, a reader may consider the ways that a text “queers” (that is, upends the established norms in a way that challenges underlying hierarchies and assumptions) established narratives in comics including the representation of bodies, the types of stories told or how a character might challenge the very form. Paul Petrovic (2011), for example, writes an essay about Kate Kane, Batwoman, queering the panel borders of Detective Comics when she is introduced through the art of J.H. Williams III. An analysis should focus on the ways that established norms including identity categories, the form of comics, or other assumptions related to the larger field of comics such as fan engagement are queered. Queer theory should be utilized not to recategorize comics but to offer new opportunities to rethink comics, and the assumptions that corporations, creators, and consumers may participate in or reinforce unconsciously. The procedure that the reader is enacting is not merely in exposing the problem but rather exploring an idea that might offer new understanding of comics and more significantly, possibility for the future of comics. Reading with queer theory does not mean imposing a queer reading onto the text, but asking what is queer about the text or what it is queering.

Artifact Selected for Sample Analysis In the sample analysis, I will explore Justin Whitley and Elsa Charretier’s The Unstoppable Wasp, which offers a queer feminist critique of a convention of mainstream comics: continuity. As with literature, there is a canon of stories and continuity is the mainstream comics’ version, which determines what is and is not part of a character’s (or even a universe’s) agreed-upon history. Continuity can be used to reinforce the assumptions, stereotypes, and structures of power that have built and maintained the masculinist nature of the Marvel Universe. The series questions one use of continuity and captures how this towering tenant of comics has swallowed up and obscured the lives of women and other members of minority communities. Offering an important critique, The Unstoppable Wasp creates an opportunity to rewrite the history of erasure that continuity has facilitated. Whitley and Charretier proffer questions that allow us to think about the 52

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culture of comics and fandom that misuses continuity to police comics. For example, when a character’s identity changes, as with the introduction of a female Thor or a female African-American “Iron Man,” there has been resistance and even threats against creators from the so-called “fan community.” This resistance and violence is often wrongly couched in the idea of continuity. Sexist and racist fans declare some version of “it ruined my childhood.” The critiques offered in this series reveal how continuity can be used at times to limit the possibilities of comics, and, in its place, the series imagines a vision of a queer future. The first arc of The Unstoppable Wasp details the story of Nadia Pym (later van Dyne), the long-lost daughter of Hank Pym with his first wife Maria Trovaya and her entrance into the Marvel Universe. Prior to her appearance in the Avengers only months before the publication of the series, Nadia’s existence was unknown: she had been locked up for many years performing research for a Russian black ops agency—the Red Room—but she had recently escaped and immigrated to the United States. She recounts all of this in a flashback, providing the reader with an introduction to her life, so the story can be read as standalone. Nadia begins her life in the United States and quickly establishes a plan to seek out the female geniuses of the Marvel Universe. Upon entering continuity, she begins to queer it and question the establishment of the Marvel Universe as she asks, in this first issue, where are all the female geniuses? Because of limited space, I will focus primarily on the first issue of the series, exploring how The Unstoppable Wasp sets up a narrative to queer continuity in Marvel comics and how we can use what is learned from this story to think about comic book culture.

Sample Analysis Whitley, Jeremy, and Elsa Charretier. The Unstoppable Wasp. New York, NY: Marvel, 2017. The first issue of the series opens with Nadia Pym following Kamala Khan, Ms. Marvel into a bakery (Figure 4.1). Because Nadia has spent her entire life locked up, she is only beginning to be introduced to the customs and practices of U.S. American culture. This first page queers the very core of American superhero comics: Superman’s origin story. Instead of landing in Kansas, raised by white parents in the “heart of America,” Nadia’s story begins with her walking through Manhattan into a bakery that serves Pakistani desserts. The creators queer the narrative of what is “American” by introducing a “foreigner” to Pakistani donuts as one of her first endeavors into the culture of the United States. Nadia’s guide is a Pakistani-American, which opens her up to a non-traditional experience of U.S. American society. That is to say, by non-traditional, it queers the assumption that when entering the U.S., the first introduction to cultural practices is always going 53

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to be an interaction with white, middle-class America: the Kansas of Superman or the diner of Archie comics. While this is not Nadia’s origin story, this is the first issue of her series and this opening scene offers one of many different paths that a person entering the United States and participating in its cultures may experience. The queering of traditions, history, and continuity will define The Unstoppable Wasp’s run. The text is queer in that it asks readers to rethink the history and tenants of the superhero story, offering a new vision of the future, rejecting a universal path, and instead opening new ones. The creative team, however, does not offer this alternative simply to upend the typical story of the superhero or what one might look like without purpose. By including Kamala, the comic utilizes the visual to set up a false binary that it will deconstruct. Nadia, who is white, may immediately be seen as the character who is introducing Kamala to American culture in this initial scene. That binary is quickly disassembled, however, as Kamala is in fact Nadia’s guide. The creative team does not offer one singular definition of Pakistani-American culture either. Nadia asks Kamala, “Are those the most delicious ones?” assuming that she knows all about Southeast Asian foods, but Kamala remarks, “I don’t know. I haven’t tried everything” (Figure 4.1). The series does not reject all knowledge, though, as the baker does have answers, as one would expect. His status as baker is not torn down, but expectation that a Pakistani-American should know everything about that culture is broken down. The purpose here is to ask the reader to question the assumptions of what someone’s introduction to “American” culture might be, and to rethink our own expectations, establishing the model for the type of questions that Nadia will ask in the series. After leaving the bakery, Nadia crosses the street without looking both ways. Ms. Marvel makes light of knowledge differences when she says, “You never know where the gaps in the knowledge might be” (Whitley and Charretier, 2017a). But as we will see in this comic, it’s the gaps in knowledge that allow Nadia to be creative and challenge the norms that others have accepted. In forgoing these restrictions even of stereotypes, we open up new creative possibilities for the future. The story, then, takes on the superhero genre as masculinist, maledriven, and exclusionary. Following this scene in the bakery, a short battle takes place holding to the tenets of the superhero comic; however, this fight scene does not set up an ongoing narrative for a villain, but will establish the queering of comics continuity. A female scientist piloting a giant robot attacks the city. During the battle Nadia recognizes her as Monica Rappaccini, but not as a villain, rather as a great scientist whose work she knows well. Rappaccini states that part of her reason for attacking the city is that women are not valued, she could not find work in science, so she became a super villain. The conversation critiques the fact that the superhero narrative is dominated by men, as Nadia says to Rappaccini: “Wait! You became a super villain? That’s super disappointing. Your biochemistry work was 54

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Figure 4.1 The Unstoppable Wasp #1 (2018), p. 1. Justin Whitley and Elsa Charretier. © Marvel

revolutionary.” And Rappaccini responds, “And it still is! But all the world hears about are male blowhards like Bruce Banner and Hank Pym” (Whitley and Charretier, 2017a). Many of the female villains in this series share 55

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a similar narrative. The isolation that is felt by some of these women leads them to become villainous. Rappaccini’s remark during the battle is the impetus for the rest of the story arc: the search for female geniuses and the fight against the structures of power that have isolated them. Nadia begins to question why women scientists are not valued; she asks, where are they? Having been locked up in a black ops facility her entire life working with the papers of women scientists she imagines that they must all be respected based solely on their work. This is not true. Then, Bobbi Morse, Mockingbird, informs Nadia about “the list,” which she describes in the following way: “S.H.I.E.L.D. has this list of the smartest people in the world. It’s been the same for years until just recently. It always bothered me.” She continues, “And it got me thinking about who made these lists, right? Other guys, other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, other superheroes. All these guys have known each other forever. They don’t seek new people out” (Whitley and Charretier, 2017a). Explicit in her questioning is how the list serves as a metaphor for male supremacy. The “list” is part of hegemonic structures of power, made by men for men, to preserve the status of men. There is an important feature in naming “the list” because for a new reader to Marvel comics, it serves as a metaphor for male power and control of the future of knowledge development in comics. But for readers who know what “the list” is, the names reveal that not only is it masculinist but it is mired in violence, and in a history of power and destruction in the Marvel Universe. Included on that list are many villains such as Doctor Doom and Doctor Octopus. Of course, there are heroes on “the list” such as Reed Richards, Mister Fantastic, and Tony Stark, Iron Man, but even they have participated in acts of violence and dark groups, such as the Illuminati, that have led to much destruction in the Marvel Universe. One has to wonder what the list does other than identify geniuses. It serves to exclude. This leaves characters like Bobbi Morse locked out of what has become a boys’ club. A boys’ club that protects even abusers and villains for the sake of sustaining male supremacy. Notably, only recently have men and women of color joined the ranks including T’Challa, the Black Panther, or Amadeus Cho, the Hulk, and now Lunella Lafayette, Moon Girl. In a genre where power seems to be of utmost importance, we easily forget that that in making the story world more democratic and inclusive, we must also uncover the women scientists of the world and other positions beyond being a superhero, and recognize how continuity has locked them out. In questioning the concept of “the list,” Nadia exposes the accepted truth that despite all the women in the Marvel Universe only one has ever made “the list,” at “no. 27” according to Bobbi Morse (Whitley and Charretier, 2017a). And it has only recently been questioned that there might be people smarter than Reed Richards or Tony Stark. Placing pressure on our assumed truths offers opportunity to question the idea of continuity, a part of comics that often goes unchecked. In an interview, comics writer Chuck Dixon states, 56

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Continuity is a framework. I always find it more instructive than restrictive. Continuity is just the readership’s perceived reality for whatever comic you’re writing. You get into the feel of it and build on it rather than constantly looking for ways to tear it down. Sometimes there are stories you can’t tell. But generally these are stories that shouldn’t be told in any case. (Klaehn, 2014, 120) What Dixon’s statement reveals, unintentionally, is the idea that continuity has been used to exclude. For example, no creative team has taken on the challenge of “the list” in any significant way because it just is a part of the Marvel Universe. Continuity is instructive, but it can also be limiting and excluding. Continuity has been used as an argument against the inclusion of characters of different genders, races, ability, and sexualities as fans claim their narratives are being lost. Unlike continuity, Muñoz states, “Queerness is essentially about the rejection of a here and now and an insistence on potentiality or concrete possibility for another world” (2009, 1). Nadia rejects this moment, this list, and instead creates a new space for women, disobeying the structures of power. The creators understand the power of the categories that we establish, and know that they exclude and in doing so do harm to others including female scientists such as Rappaccini, whose isolation led to her villainy. Thus, Nadia aims to queer the list of geniuses in the Marvel Universe. The final page of the first issue depicts Nadia Pym declaring that she will uncover the archive of the Marvel Universe’s history and in doing so she challenges the idea of the list. She declares: “I’m going to make them rethink that whole list.” Her intention is not to simply uncover these women, but to restructure the very model that has left women out. Nadia is in many ways like another favorite figure of queer theory, Antigone, who refused to submit to the law and defied Creon in order to give her brother Polyneices a proper burial. As Mari Ruti has articulated, “Antigone’s act is antisocial but it is not antirelational; it opposes hegemonic forms of sociality” (2017, 108). Ruti captures an important distinction: in refusing to submit to the established law, Antigone leaves behind the society as she knows it, but she does it for the sake of her family. Nadia refuses to submit to the establishment—continuity—but does not become a reclusive genius, nor does she take the path of the villain. Rappaccini’s response is antisocial; Nadia’s is relational. Nadia intends to start a new community as she declares that she lost part of her life, so she intends to use the rest of her life to make a difference. Nadia imagines a queer, inclusive future. Furthermore, in naming her group “G.I.R.L.” Nadia recovers the part of her that was lost—her girlhood, and the lives of many others that would be lost. Her work will honor the girl who was captured and forced to work for the Red Room. Nadia remarks later that the Red Room chose girls because 57

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they appear less dangerous (Whitley and Charretier, 2017b). By showing that they are powerful and smart she reverses the commonly held belief that girls are not dangerous or rather cannot be dangerous. In this image Nadia is seen standing in front of papers and other files—an uncovered archive— and her shadow is that of her super suit suggesting that this is a mission for a superhero. It will be a new era of superheroics. There are images of faceless women behind Nadia on this final page, suggesting they exist but have not been named, identified, or perhaps they have been erased. Thus, Nadia upends the archive of Marvel Comics history in order to uncover those characters and stories that have been locked out or forgotten. Whitley and Charretier create a comic book that pays respect to the wishes of Virginia Woolf to uncover the lives of female geniuses. And in the final issue, in homage to Woolf, one of the newly discovered female geniuses remarks, “I’ve never had a room of my own before” (2017c). Despite queer theory finding its origins in feminist theory, there has been “a presumption that queer and feminist writings are theoretically incompatible in their modes of reference, their priorities and their calls for action” (Richardson, McLaughlin, and Casey, 2006, 3). The two were positioned in a binary where queer theory focused too much on sexuality and feminist theory too much on gender. However, as The Unstoppable Wasp makes clear, the two cannot be separated, as the queering of the categories that exclude these women also shares a priority with feminism. The empowerment of women is central to the deconstruction of structures of power that protect the boys’ club that something like “the list” sustained. The queering of the superhero comic is integrally connected to a feminist awakening of all women, women of color, women with different abilities, and women with different identification of gender and sexuality seen in this series. There is no separation. The kinship narrative between women is further underscored as a queer response to the harms of continuity that has isolated women and sustained the boys’ club. Once Nadia becomes a naturalized citizen, she rejects the violence passed down to her from her father, who she learns was a domestic abuser, and she takes the last name of van Dyne, the second wife of her father, Hank Pym, as, she says, “it’s the only name I really know” (Whitley and Charretier, 2017c). Janet van Dyne has been Nadia’s mentor throughout the series and the creative team once again queers the legacy of comics because women in superhero stories rarely pass on a mantle and, when they do, it is because the previous character is dead or depowered. Janet van Dyne, the original Wasp, is still around; she is a mentor and, in the end, she creates a space for Nadia to continue her research where they work together with the other female geniuses. Further queering stereotypes, Nadia’s stepmother is not the villain in the story but rather is her support system. In the end, this story deconstructs the structures of power that have locked women out 58

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and gives them a new avenue through Nadia’s G.I.R.L. program with the help of her newfound team. “The list” embodies the toxicity of some parts of mainstream comics culture: the rabid fandom that does not enjoy the history of comics and continuity, but rather aims to use it as a way to lock others out. This may range from policing who can be a fan to proclaiming that comics culture is being destroyed by the inclusion and representation of members of minority communities. The Unstoppable Wasp reveals the artificiality of these categories that serve to sustain a past led by male supremacy. The series also reveals how easy it was to accept without question the basis of this idea— that all of the men in the Marvel Universe were smarter than the women. This is a reality that the comics community must also address—that for too long it has been a boys’ club. Adding women to “the list,” including at the top of “the list,” queers structures of power and the underlying assumptions and stereotypes, but it does not change past continuity. Sexist fans who use the term “continuity” as part of their argument against change are misusing the concept. Nadia and G.I.R.L. don’t change the past, rather they queer the future narrative of comics continuity when they reject the structures that have locked them out and begin producing knowledge on their own terms in their own model that is more inclusive. Rather than being forced to negotiate with the system that has locked them out, Nadia and the other women create a new one. Comics such as The Unstoppable Wasp, thus, renew the queerness of comics exhibited in stories such as the early Wonder Woman of William Moulton Marston and H.G. Peter because, I believe, if comics is queer, this becomes most visible in their fight for the future.

Selected Bibliography Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York, NY: Routledge. Chute, Hillary. 2017. Why Comics? From Underground to Everywhere. New York, NY: HarperCollins. Cruse, Howard, ed. 1980. Gay Comix #1. Northampton, MA: Kitchen Sink Press. Edelman, Lee. 2004. No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Foucault, Michel. 1978. The History of Sexuality Vol. 1: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York, NY: Pantheon. Halberstam, Jack. 2011. The Queer Art of Failure. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Hall, Donald E. 2002. Queer Theories. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Halperin, David M. 2003. “The Normalization of Queer theory.” Journal of Homosexuality 45.2–4: 339–343. Klaehn, Jeffery. 2014. “‘Batman Is All about Contingency Planning’: An Interview with American Comic-Book Writer Chuck Dixon.” Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 5.1: 118–122.

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Love, Heather. 2009. Feeling Backward. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Muñoz, José Esteban. 2009. Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. New York, NY: NYU Press. Petrovic, Paul. 2011. “Queer Resistance, Gender Performance, and ‘Coming Out’ of the Panel Borders in Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III’s Batwoman: Elegy.” Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 2.1: 67–76. Richardson, Diane, Janice McLaughlin, and Mark E. Casey, eds. 2006. Intersections between Feminist and Queer Theory. Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan. Ruti, Mari. 2017. The Ethics of Opting Out: Queer Theory’s Defiant Subjects. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Scott, Darieck and Ramzi Fawaz. 2018. “Introduction: Queer about Comics.” American Literature 90.2: 197–219. Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. 1990. Epistemology of the Closet. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Whitley, Justin and Elsa Charretier. 2017a. The Unstoppable Wasp #1. New York, NY: Marvel Comics. Whitley, Justin and Elsa Charretier. 2017b. The Unstoppable Wasp #3. New York, NY: Marvel Comics. Whitley, Justin and Elsa Charretier. 2017c. The Unstoppable Wasp #8. New York, NY: Marvel Comics.

Suggested Reading Berlatsky, Noah. 2015. Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter Comics, 1941–1948. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. carrington, André. 2018. “Desiring Blackness: A Queer Orientation to Marvel’s Black Panther, 1998–2016.” American Literature 90.2: 221–250. Cvetkovich, Ann. 2008. “Drawing the Archive in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.” Women’s Studies Quarterly 36.1/2: 111–128. D’Agostino, Anthony Michael. 2018. “‘Flesh-to-Flesh Contact’: Marvel Comics’ Rogue and the Queer Feminist Imagination.” American Literature 90.2: 251–281. Sammond, Nicholas. 2018. “Meeting in the Archive: Comix and Collecting as Community.” Feminist Media Histories 4.3: 96–118.

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5 D ISAB ILITY STUD I ES Disrupting Representation, Representing Disruption Krista Quesenberry

Introduction Disability is a convenient, though complicated, term. It is both precise and generic; it is an identity category but one so large that its boundaries are contested. Simi Linton describes disability as “a medically derived term that assigns predominantly medical significance and meaning to certain types of human variation” (Linton 2010, 224). Linton’s phrasing highlights that what we call disabilities are simply variations, not aberrations or distinct categories, and that the term gains its authority primarily from its medical uses. Though the history of the term dates back centuries, its contemporary usage was in many ways crystallized by the disability rights activists of the late twentieth century. In 1975, the British advocacy group the Union of Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS) established that: “it is society which disables physically impaired people. Disability is something imposed on top of our impairments, by the way we are unnecessarily isolated and excluded from full participation in society. Disabled people are therefore an oppressed group in society” (qtd. in Shakespeare 2010, 267). This social construction theory connects the term disability with other categories of identity and with opportunities for social and political mobilization. Indeed, from the term disability, we can define ableism as analogous to the forms of discrimination we call sexism and racism (Linton 2010, 223), and we can distinguish the opposite of disabled with the terms able-bodied or nondisabled (along with dis/ability), which recognize human variations without privileging norms, similar to the interplay between transgender and cisgender. However, in contrast with most identity categories, disability is a grouping that includes everyone. Even if we may not currently identify as having a disability, we have all been in the past or will be in the future a part of the disability community—because we may break an arm, develop a chronic illness, or experience age-related vision and hearing loss. According to Tobin Siebers, society “prefers to think of people with disabilities as a small population, a stable

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population,” consisting of recognizable and congenital physical conditions, such as dwarfism, blindness, or a missing limb. But, in fact, Siebers writes, “[o]nly 15% of people with disabilities are born with their impairments,” and except in cases of illness or major accidents, most people experience disability as a cycle “from disability to temporary ability back to disability” (Siebers 2001, 742). Of course, it is important not to think of every difficulty as a disability, even as we recognize that disabilities cover such a wide variety of conditions—diagnosed or undiagnosed; predictable or unpredictable; completely or partially disruptive to daily living—and the term “disabled” may be largely unhelpful as a blanket category for personal identification. Instead we can think of the term disability as codifying shared experiences of exclusion, stigma, pathologization, and discrimination in our analyses of social norms and cultural objects—like comics.

Underlying Assumptions of the Approach Disability studies is an interdisciplinary field that intertwines scholarship, education, and activism relevant to embodied experiences of impairment and disability. Though it shares a great deal of common ground with methodologies rooted in feminism, critical race studies, and queer theory, disability studies further underscores the significance of individual experiences relating to built environments, embodiment, and participation in daily activities. Like other identity-based critical methods, disability studies generally aims to undermine targeted social standards of normalcy in ways that have broad implications. Literary disability studies, particularly when paired with Comics Studies, reveals the common perception of “a normal body” and “a normal life” to be fictions that can fuel discrimination and disenfranchisement. Disability studies recognizes two major frameworks for analyzing this distinction between “normal” and “disabled” bodies: First, the medical model or individual model situates a disability as a dysfunction or abnormality in the body and treats it as a problem to solve through medical intervention. Second, the social model or social construction theory situates the root of the problem in a culture’s pervasive negative attitudes, as well as in inaccessible structures and spaces—these are problems that can be solved through awareness, consideration, and institutional design, rather than medical treatment. As noted in the UPIAS statement, above, the social model distinguishes an impairment (a condition) from a disability (the social experience of non-inclusive responses to impairments). It is this social model that has brought about landmark legal protections, such as the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in the United States and the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) in the United Kingdom, which offer protections against inequality in employment, transportation, voting, and housing, as well as legal requirements for accessibility tools like barrier-free entrances. According to G. Thomas Couser, the primary benefit of the social model is that it “acknowledges that disability is everybody’s business 62

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and that disability may be addressed more effectively and universally by accommodation than by rehabilitation,” an acknowledgement that effectively “challenge[s] the very norms that marginalize and stigmatize disabled people” (2009, 30). Even so, disability studies scholars, including Siebers and Couser, continue to resist the dominance of the social model, particularly in so much as it emphasizes social, structural, and systemic concerns over more individual, embodied, and emotional experiences of disability (see also Snyder and Mitchell 2001; Clare 2004; Shakespeare 2010; Donaldson and Prendergast 2011). Comics is a medium that can accomplish what social construction theories cannot—the recognition of disability experiences in their rich singularity, physicality, affect, and social construction, all at the same time. According to Susan Merrill Squier, “comics can convey the complex social impact of a physical or mental impairment, as well as the way the body registers social and institutional constraints” (2008, 74). Squier further emphasizes that the verbal-visual conjunction of comics makes disability narratives “most fully possible” by incorporating “pre-verbal components: the gestural, embodied physicality of disabled alterity in its precise and valuable specificity” (86). As such, disability narratives use comics to entangle the structural and systemic concerns of the social model with the personal, individualized, interpersonal, embodied, and emotional experiences that the social model leaves out.

Appropriate Artifacts for Analysis The comics that attract the most scholarly attention regarding disability tend to fall into two categories—superhero comics and graphic memoirs. Serial comics, zines, underground comics, and web comics offer significant material for further disability studies analysis, but they have not yet garnered the same levels of attention that superhero comics and graphic memoirs have. In superhero comics, disability studies scholars have found fantastically exaggerated bodies and a long history of diverse texts through which to track changes in social attitudes about disabilities. The most immediate and obvious examples of disability in comics are characters such as Professor Charles Xavier, who uses a wheelchair, or Daredevil, who is blind. These characters carry their realistic disabilities into the fantastic world of the Marvel Universe, offering a type of disability representation on a par with the contributions that other Marvel characters like Black Panther and more recently Ms. Marvel (Kamala Kahn) and Miss America (America Chavez) have made for racial/ethnic, gender, age, and sexuality diversity in superhero comics. Beyond these examples, even just within the Marvel Universe, we can yet observe many additional representations of impairments—in the prostheses used by Wolverine and Thor, the physical traumas of Doctor Strange and Iron Man, and the monstrous transformations of The Hulk and 63

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The Thing, for instance. These characters illustrate hyperactive social concerns over bodies, human limitations, and mortality, which scholars such as José Alaniz and Ramzi Fawaz have tracked through the characters’ representations over time and across media. In recent years, scholars have also begun shifting the critical discussion of superhero comics away from historically sexist, racist, anti-Semitic, ableist, and other prejudicial examples toward praise for the ways that the superhero comic may also enable visions of embodiment and relationality not possible in more realist comics (see, especially, Fingeroth 2004; Jeffery 2016; Chute 2017). On the other end of the comics spectrum, graphic memoirs have offered scholars a level of realism that balances out the fantasy elements of superhero comics, along with the detailed personal narratives that are often lacking in sociological, legal, and political discussions of disability. Deeply personal and literary narratives such as Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2006) and David Small’s Stitches: A Memoir (2010) often appear in these analyses (see, for instance, El Refaie 2012; Chute 2017; Kunka 2018). At the same time as life-writing scholars have begun to devote more attention to comics, graphic medicine has emerged as a field of study associated with the health humanities and medical education. Graphic medicine scholars generally identify as the field’s earliest text Justin Green’s 1972 Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary and carry that forward to memoirs like Ken Dahl’s Monsters (2009), Sarah Leavitt’s Tangles: A Story about Alzheimer’s, My Mother and Me (2010), and webcomics like Allie Brosh’s “Adventures in Depression” (2011) and “Depression Part Two” (2013) series for Hyperbole and a Half. Additionally, graphic medicine incorporates narratives by family members, caretakers, and medical practitioners, such as Brian Fies’s Mom’s Cancer (2006), Dana Walrath’s Aliceheimer’s: Alzheimer’s through the Looking Glass (2016), and MK Czerwiec’s Taking Turns: Stories from HIV/AIDS Care Unit 371 (2017).

Procedures for Analysis Disability theories—like disability experiences themselves—are varied and inconsistent. There is no singular, simple way to apply disability theory, and the methods themselves may vary widely depending on the medium, time period, and subject of the disability narratives under examination. Instead, there are questions that we can ask of a text with the goal of increasing our sensitivity to disability-studies themes—namely, identity and identification, built environments, and challenges to social norms. These themes are, of course, far from exhaustive, but they will offer a baseline to reveal the contributions a text makes to cultural attitudes about disability and awareness of disability’s effects on individual lives. With the questions relevant to identity and identification, we center the experiences of the characters with disabilities, and 64

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we allow those characters to determine the language we use in scholarly analysis. And with the questions about built environments and challenging social norms, we can begin to address the ways disability narratives convey forms of discrimination and disadvantage that are unique to disability experiences, along with the ways that comics creators provoke us to consider what a more just and accommodating world might offer to people with disabilities. Identity and identification questions: How do the characters refer to themselves; how do they self-identify? How do they refer to their conditions or impairments? Do the characters use formal, medical language, or do they prefer inventing descriptions for their experiences in ways that are unique to the individual? If the latter, how does the language of that experience differ from how the impairment might be described medically, legally, or in slang terms? How do the characters refer to their bodies, and do their bodies influence their self-identifications? Do the characters self-identify in terms that suggest “shame, blame, and fear” (Charon 2006, 30–33), or do they use language that suggests pride, community, and autonomy? Are the characters represented as fitting in with or existing outside of “normal” society? Do the characters use any particular metaphors (visual or verbal) for helping others understand their impairment(s)? How do the characters visualize their experiences? And in what ways do intersecting identity categories—such as race, gender, socioeconomic class, sexuality, and religion—affect their experiences of disability? If we agree that disabilities are socially constructed, then we must also pay attention to the ways that characters with disabilities interact with nondisabled characters by asking questions such as the following: Do other characters treat characters with disabilities compassionately and grant them autonomy? Or are the characters with disabilities treated with pity and offered unsolicited advice or assistance? Do nondisabled characters treat the characters with disabilities as childlike, unruly, helpless, tragic, or delicate— if so, when, where, how, and why does this happen? When the characters with disabilities describe or discuss their conditions, do other characters accept and believe their accounts, or are the characters with disabilities subjected to questioning, disbelief, denial, erasure, or an unfair burden of proof? Do able-bodied characters stare or gawk at the characters with disabilities, and do they avoid eye contact or speak directly to them and maintain eye contact? Are the characters with disabilities generally able to speak for themselves, or do other characters speak for them? Are characters represented as independent or as interdependent (relying on one another for care, support, and survival)? Built environment questions: What day-to-day activities—especially moving, working, going to school, meeting up with friends, eating, sleeping, and enjoying leisure activities—are made especially difficult because of environmental challenges for characters with disabilities? In other words, how are characters with disabilities participating in or being excluded from society? What specific 65

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obstacles are encountered, and what specific accommodations exist or are invented for these obstacles? From what aspects of a “normal” or full life are the characters with disabilities restricted? And how are those restrictions overcome or worked around, if they are? What emotional responses do such obstacles or restrictions elicit in the characters with disabilities; how do the challenges or exclusions make these characters feel? Otherwise, how do the characters with disabilities feel when they have access and are fully able to participate in social spaces and activities? Are there unique, imagined solutions to environmental challenges suggested by the characters with disabilities? Challenges to social norms: How does the comic contribute to upending social norms? How does the story dispel fear or challenge stereotypes? What historical and social wrongs does it aim to rectify? How do the individual experiences in the story resist a reader’s inclination for generalization, stereotyping, or assumption? How does the comic offer readers fresh or alternative ways of understanding the world? How does the comic or how do the characters develop a sense of community around a particular viewpoint, which is informed by the experience of disability? What new knowledge or perspective does the narrative reveal? How does the narrative disrupt or reorient readers’ expectations about life, society, or the very act of reading? And how does the comic introduce new ways of describing, imagining, or envisioning disabilities and people who have them? This final set of questions is the most complex but also may be the most important. In comics, the author depicts not only the person with a disability but often the impairment itself, and the ways that impairments are drawn can establish or reinvent the iconography of the condition. Ian Williams argues that personal storytelling in comics produces an “unofficial” iconography that contrasts with normalizing medical visualizations and creates new ways of representing disease, whether or not the author necessarily means to challenge the official knowledge (2015, 129). For instance, when a doctor discusses an eating disorder, that doctor may provide a diagram of brain neurons or a chart of eating habits, but for Katie Green in her comic Lighter than My Shadow (2013), that eating disorder takes the form of a scribble shape that hovers over, around, and inside her, influencing her every daily choice and her entire view of the world. In this way, Green offers a new visual language for understanding the non-visual experiences of her impairment, which in turn may create or redirect public perceptions of the impairment, including both its causes and its effects. Comics that are visually innovative may, in fact, teach us new things about the impairments they depict, and they may further influence both social and medical norms relevant to the impairment. Ultimately, these epistemological and ontological questions are the most likely path to upending standards of normalcy and are an important merge point between the academic and activist arms of disability studies. 66

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Artifact Selected for Sample Analysis Karrie Fransman summarizes her 2012 graphic novel The House that Groaned as: set in a converted Victorian building with six one-bedroom apartments housing six lonely individuals. […] The inhabitants of 141 Rottin Road could only have stepped out of the pages of a comic book. There’s our heroine, Barbara, the man-made Barbie; Matt, the retoucher who cannot touch; Janet, the tormented dietician; Marion, the hedonistic matriarch of the Midnight Feast Front; Demi Durbach, a grandmother who literally blends into the background; and Brian, the twenty-something bloke who’s sexually attracted to diseased and dying women. Yet as we learn the stories behind these extreme characters, it becomes apparent we may share similar issues as individuals and as a society. (“The Body” 2012, emphasis mine) Immediately in this description, we can see that these diverse humans are at once odd and normal, complex and yet utterly ordinary. I’ve selected this novel because it resists some of the standard approaches of disability studies, while reinforcing others. First and foremost, this is a novel. Like Chris Ware’s Building Stories (2012), which has already attracted some attention in both disability and Comics Studies, Fransman’s novel merges the humdrum everyday experience of the individual that we see in graphic memoirs with the extreme circumstances and physical exaggeration that are more commonly associated with superhero comics. Novels that engage with disability in both realistic and fantastical ways offer opportunities to push against the commonplaces of disability studies and even to expand its territories of analysis. Additionally, this novel is not about disability—or ability—in a way that distills into a clear and direct message; the characters are radically intersectional, which engages disability but is not centered on it. With Fransman’s at once realistic and “extreme” melting pot of identities, readers come across disability in its many varied and mundane forms, much as we do in real life. Finally, it is important to note that The House that Groaned is not a perfect narrative about disability experiences. Rather, it is messy and sometimes offensive: people with disabilities are both normalized and treated as “freaks,” and the characters can be both kind and unkind to one another. And the good guys don’t even necessarily win in the end. On the whole, Fransman’s novel asks us not only to watch how characters offer positive and negative models of thinking about disability but also to monitor how we, ourselves, react to the characters—are we outraged when they face prejudice? Do we share their frustration when environments

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are inaccessible? Are we approving or disapproving of this diversity of human bodies? Do we find ourselves on the side of acceptance or the side of discomfort when we evaluate Fransman’s reorientation of what is “normal” versus “abnormal”? And why?

Sample Analysis Fransman, Karrie. 2012. The House That Groaned. London: Square Peg. We begin by taking stock of how the characters self-identify and how they are identified by others. In general, the characters do not make use of social or medical labels, aloud or even in their own thoughts: Janet never names her restricted eating as anything more than a “diet,” and Matt’s constant use of gloves discloses his anxiety about human touch without ever directly naming a condition. Demi Durbach does not comment on her depression or reclusiveness, and she refers to her debilitating physical condition as simply a case of “bad lungs.” The characters resist pathologizing their conditions with technical jargon—in fact, they probably do not view their impairments as medical conditions at all. Instead, they understand their identities in terms of worries and choices, habits and preferences, or simply personality quirks. They do not represent themselves as victims or even as “disabled,” which allows them the freedom of identification as individuals, rather than examples of a diagnosis. The “diseased and dying” women, in Fransman’s terms, who are pursued by the tenant Brian do not have the opportunity to self-identify—in fact, they hardly speak at all. On one hand, Fransman’s novel is accepting of Brian’s sexual objectification of these women, which contributes to the treatment of them as abnormal and as unappealing sexual objects outside of the context of Brian’s fetish. But on the other hand the novel does offer a reprimand when Brian and his neighbors engage with these women in ways that demonstrate intolerance. Brian’s first scene in the book is a conversation in his apartment with one such woman, who remains unseen while Brian fumbles and is trying to demonstrate his interest in her. The reader sits in the position of Brian’s guest when he leans sideways on the couch and looks her straight in the eyes to deliver what he seems to think is a compliment: “I thought to myself: Now there’s a girl who understands the importance of having some fun … living each day … like it’s her last.” Her hand enters the next panel with a “SLAP” before Fransman cuts to a full-page image of the emaciated woman, wearing a hospital band and a Band-Aid where an IV likely was. She leaves immediately. Not only do we see Brian’s genuine and well-meaning desire to impress and compliment the woman, but we also see that she does not appreciate his objectification or his tasteless joke. Fransman allows Brian to make this cringeworthy comment, but she also shows him suffering the repercussions. 68

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Later, with a woman he has picked up at the “Supporters of Women with Facial Disfigurement” meeting, Brian and his guest meet Barbara and Matt in the hallway during a power outage. Fransman again highlights the woman’s impairment with a full-page close-up lit only by a candle, and the character's face almost appears to be melting. But then, when Barbara utters a “Gasp!” and Matt exclaims “AARGH,” the woman snipes back, “Jesus! Calm down” (Figure 5.1). Again, Fransman makes a spectacle of the woman’s face, but when another character in the book responds accordingly, the character with a disability stands up for herself. The world is not kind to these women, but they are strong and capable of resisting the prejudice they meet in these encounters. Shifting our attention to the built environment of the tenement house, we find characters whose weight is a barrier to access and easy movement. When Brian meets Marion on the stairs, she has fallen outside his door, which he blames on the “rising damp” in the uneven floorboards. Marion admits that she is more prone to falls at this weight, “now that [she] can’t see [her] feet!” but Brian’s attention to the building shifts the blame from her body to the floor—a tripping hazard that would cause problems for anyone, not only those who are overweight. Additionally, when the members of Janet’s “Do or Diet Group” fill the hallway, Barbara and Brian have difficulty navigating past them. Brian’s and Barbara’s small frames are contrasted against the much larger, rounded figures of the diet group members (Figure 5.2). While the reader’s attention is on Brian or Barbara, however, Fransman also depicts the discomfort and excessive intimacy of these toolarge bodies being squished into a too-small space. They hold their bodies

Figure 5.1 Woman with facial disfigurement by cell-phone light in The House That Groaned by Karrie Fransman (Jonathan Cape, 2012) © Square Peg

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Figure 5.2 “Do or Diet Group” members in The House That Groaned by Karrie Fransman (Jonathan Cape, 2012). © Square Peg

tight, lean to avoid crowding each other, and eventually perch on Janet’s tiny chairs, each touching someone on all sides—they do not have enough space to exist, and their discomfort is evident. In these scenes, Fransman gives readers an opportunity to examine our own responses: are we concerned with the discomfort of the overweight people, or do we blame them for taking up space and making movement in the hallway difficult for the characters with more socially accepted body types? We also see the importance of environment in this novel with the character Demi Durbach, the widow with “bad lungs” who lives on the top floor. In one scene, Barbara visits Demi’s apartment to complain about a leak in the roof, and the two get to talking: Barbara’s bright white hair and dress, as well as her bare arms and legs, stand out against the blue, patterned upholstery, while Demi’s figure melts into her furniture. From a distance, Barbara appears to be talking to an empty chair (Figure 5.3). In another scene, Demi moves around the apartment while a hired woman cleans every room without seeing Demi’s figure in the lampshade, the bookshelf, or the curtains. Demi’s invisibility is a visual metaphor for her insignificance—she does not leave her apartment, and as a result she becomes part of it. Later, Demi attempts to leave the apartment by slinking along the banister, but she reaches only a few steps past her door before wheezing so badly that she decides to turn back. Although she can move with ease around the apartment, her lung condition makes it impossible for her to leave—and even if she made it downstairs, she surely would never make it back up. Demi is confined to her apartment not only by her lung condition but also by the stairs themselves. Although Fransman offers no iconography of the specific impairment Demi has, this blending of Demi Durbach into the background constitutes an iconography for her experience of isolation, which is the result of her illness and immobility. The more she blends into her surroundings, the less her family, neighbors, and even her hired help 70

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Figure 5.3 Demi Durbach blends into the upholstery in The House That Groaned by Karrie Fransman (Jonathan Cape, 2012). © Square Peg

will acknowledge her; she is present but not a participant, which is an experience often described by people with disabilities. Even so, Demi remains cheerful and interested in the people living in and around the apartment building. She may not be able to fully participate in the social life of the neighborhood, but she is also not asking to be treated as a victim or a charity case. Demi’s situation highlights the fact that she might be capable of living a fuller or more “normal” life if she had better advocates to speak up for her needs. For instance, her life would be significantly different if the apartment had an accessible entrance and an elevator or, instead, if she lived in a street-level apartment. Demi, nonetheless, seems content living within her private space. Her story is a narrative of imprisonment—a confinement in which she is somewhat complicit—at the same time as it questions our normative social impulse of pitying the

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widow for what might be seen as her missing out on a “normal” life. At the end of the novel, Demi finally does make her way to the ground level when the building collapses, and just as she blended into her walls and furniture, she seeps into the ground, wearing a giant grin and breaking free of her confinement. One of the major destabilizing accomplishments of the novel as a disability studies text is the way that Fransman nearly evaporates the distinction between body and environment, as in Demi Durbach’s story. These characters are part of this leaking, creaking building, and the building itself draws them into contact with one another so that they seem to have interwoven (rather than independent) lives. From this understanding, the novel offers a powerful argument that bodies—like buildings—have stories. For each character, the novel includes at least one flashback to explain the particular circumstances that have led the character to this point, and before most of these flashbacks Fransman provides splash pages featuring photographs captioned “The Building of Rottin Road, 1865.” These photos draw the reader’s attention to the backstory of the building as parallel to the backstory of the characters, revealing a history not always apparent on the surface—their bodies, like the dilapidated house, represent their cumulative responses to wear, tear, and trauma. Janet’s disordered eating comes from years of abuse by her mother and a husband who was cheating on her with another man; Marion’s unrelenting hedonism and carelessness about death is the result of her parents’ neglect; Matt’s fear of being touched derives from his father’s physical abuse while blaming Matt for his own mother’s death in childbirth; and even Barbara, whose body is repeatedly described as “perfect,” turns out to have been assigned male at birth and to have obtained her “Barbie” body through a lifetime of transitioning. Fransman makes clear that the bodies we see in the novel represent the culmination of many years of the characters managing, mitigating, and masking their personal challenges in an effort to appear “normal” to strangers, including their neighbors. Fransman’s characters build their bodies and personalities as the construction workers built their home, in layers and over time. Although Fransman does not provide a particularly fresh iconography for the impairments her characters experience, this comparison of the building to her characters nonetheless represents their unique individuality—they resist any stereotyping or categorization as “people like that.” Indeed, the novel is so committed to intersectionality that we, as readers, have in this book an opportunity to encounter a range of our own prejudices and presumptions as soon as we pass over the threshold at 141 Rottin Road. Though there is much more to say about The House That Groaned, this reading suggests that we should approach our fellow humans with caution and compassion. Importantly, that attitude is not based on pity or sympathy for Fransman’s characters but on the basis of each character’s individuality. The world is not always kind to these characters, and they face it. The 72

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characters may not be able to overcome their impairments, but they nonetheless carve out a life and a form of happiness that suits them, individually. We might take from Fransman’s novel the message that all bodies contain these kinds of backstories, even the “perfect” ones. And, as such, knowing that these forms of human variation are universal, we should enter relationships and interactions with one another as though we are crossing the creaky floorboards in the attic of an old converted Victorian home—taking careful, gentle, compassionate steps lest we cause the entire enterprise to tumble to the ground.

Selected Bibliography Alaniz, José. 2014. Death, Disability, and the Superhero: The Silver Age and Beyond. Oxford, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi. Charon, Rita. 2006. Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness. New York: Oxford. Chute, Hillary. 2017. Why Comics? From Underground to Everywhere. New York: HarperCollins. Clare, Eli. 2004. “Excerpt from ‘Stolen Bodies, Reclaimed Bodies.” Excerpt of a talk delivered at Michigan State. https://eliclare.com/what-eli-offers/lectures/stolen-bodies. Couser, G. Thomas. 2009. Signifying Bodies: Disability in Contemporary Life Writing. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press. Donaldson, Elizabeth J., and Catherine Prendergast. 2011. “Introduction: Disability and Emotion: ‘There’s No Crying in Disability Studies!’” Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, 5, no. 2: 129–135. El Refaie, Elisabeth. 2012. Autobiographical Comics: Life Writing in Pictures. Oxford, Missisippi: University Press of Mississippi. Fawaz, Ramzi. 2016. The New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics. New York: New York University Press. Fingeroth, Danny. 2004. Superman On The Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society. New York: Continuum. Foss, Chris, Jonathan W. Gray, and Zach Whalen, eds. 2016. Disability in Comic Books and Graphic Narratives. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Fransman, Karrie. 2012. The House That Groaned. London: Square Peg. ———. 2012. “The Body as a Canvas in Comics, Part 1.” Posted 24 February 2012. Video, 13: 31. https://comicsforum.org/2012/02/24/the-body-as-a-canvas-in-comicskarrie-fransman-explores-the-influence-of-corporal-studies-in-the-creation-of-hergraphic-novel-the-house-that-groaned/ Garland-Thompson, Rosemarie. 1997. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature. New York: Columbia UP. Jeffery, Scott. 2016. The Posthuman Body in Superhero Comics: Human, Superhuman, Transhuman, Post/Human. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Kunka, Andrew J. 2018. Autobiographical Comics, Bloomsbury Comics Studies series. London and New York: Bloomsbury. Linton, Simi. 2010. “Reassigning Meaning,” in The Disability Studies Reader, 3e, edited by Lennard J. Davis, 223–236. New York: Routledge.

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Shakespeare, Tom. 2010. “The Social Model of Disability,” in The Disability Studies Reader, 3e, edited by Lennard J. Davis, 266–273. New York: Routledge. Siebers, Tobin. 2001. “Disability in Theory: From Social Constructionism to the New Realism of the Body.” American Literary History, 13, no. 4 (Winter): 737–754. Snyder, Sharon L., and David T. Mitchell. 2001. “Re-engaging the Body: Disability Studies and the Resistance to Embodiment.” Public Culture, 13, no. 3 (Fall): 367–389. Squier, Susan Merrill. 2008. “So Long as They Grow Out of It: Comics, The Discourse of Developmental Normalcy, and Disability.” Journal of Medical Humanities, 29: 71–88. Williams, Ian. 2015. “Comics and the Iconography of Illness,” in Graphic Medicine Manifesto, by M.K. Czerwiec, Ian Williams, Susan Merrill Squier, Michael J. Green, Kimberly R Meyers, and Scott T. Smith, 115–142. University Park, PA: Penn State Press.

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6 CRITICAL GEOGRAPHY Brotherman and Big City: A Commentary on Superhero Geography Julian C. Chambliss

Underlying Assumptions of the Approach The critical geography approach to reading comics emphasizes that the spatial relationships depicted in comics correspond to material, conceptual, and experiential questions about how we define space. Informed by humanities scholars steeped in textual analysis, Comics Studies has become a dynamic space to discuss how comic pages express the way spatial concerns reflect socio-cultural concerns in the United States. From Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, where he defines the mechanics of how comics panels work, to recent works such as Comic Book Geographies, which place comics within a geohumanities framework, the idea of space and its depiction within comics has drawn considerable attention (Lefebvre 1992; McCloud 1994; Dittmer 2014a). In terms of the superhero comic book genre, a relationship between the city and hero has informed how we understand the genre. As Jörn Ahrens and Arno Meteling write in the introduction to Comics and the City: Urban Space in Print, Picture and Sequence, “comics are inseparably tied to the notion of the ‘city’” (Ahrens and Meteling 2010). What they mean is the rise of modern comics, especially in the United States, is linked to themes of anti-urbanism, immigration fears, racial anxiety, technophobia, and “apocalyptic” religious belief (Page 2010, 4). Comics then stand at the intersection of a broader transformation in urban culture. As Ian Gordon writes in Comics Strips and Consumer Culture, 1890–1945, comics can be seen as an “outcome of the process of modernization” and as a “humor-based response to the problem of representation faced by a society in transition” (Gordon 2002, 6). Thus, the comics such as Richard F. Outcault’s Yellow Kid provided a window on the congested landscape created by mass urbanization. In this space, white ethnic immigrants and their experiences informed the commercialized visual culture that transmitted values about American society and 75

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prompted urban residents to read social standing through consumer action (Lears 1995, 19). Outcault, who would go on to create Buster Brown, used the “jug ears, two buck teeth, beady blue eyes, and yellow nightdress” character to present “theater of the city” stories that captured class, race, and consumer impulses in urban America (Meyer 2019). The multiracial urban landscape was not equal even though artists and publishers came from many identities. Instead, these publishers defined their identity in opposition to African-Americans (Gordon 2002, 60). The visual template created by early comics highlight the limitation of the form in terms of diversity as racial caricatures persisted (Mahar 1999). The earliest newspaper strips to feature black characters, Little Black Sambo and Poor Lil Mose, offered the distortive physicality and comedic adventure white readers expected. The evolution of the medium brought limited transformation as the expectation around race and space continued to shape the appearance and placement of black characters. The creation of the superhero genre allowed Metropolis (1938) and Gotham (1939) to graft a binary between triumph and failure already associated with the modern city onto superhero stories. Alex Boney grounds the superhero within the modernist framework. As he explains, the origins of the medium “can be tied directly to development in various print and visual media” while the genre is “rooted deeply in wider cultural forces of the modern age” (Boney 2013, 43). A popular medium with millions of adult and adolescent readers in the 1930s and 1940s, the characters created in the formative years of the genre are a model that continues to shape the contemporary cultural landscape. These characters map a process of identity formation, community participation, and civilizing dedication that denies the complexities of urban life in favor of the mythology of American experience. The black comic book characters that emerged in the 1940s continued to operate within the racist subtext of the broader society. While characters such as Ebony White, created by Will Eisner in The Spirit (1940), and Whitewash Jones, created by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon in the pages of Young Allies (1941), appeared in sidekick roles, these characters could never be seen as full heroes in the same way as their white counterparts (Eisner 2000; Lee et al. 2009). Indeed, Eisner defended himself in 1978 against the accusation of racism by saying he drew Ebony White as a “creature or pattern of the time.” In his mind, Ebony was a caricature of blackness, and such caricature persists in popular culture (Eisner 2011, 76). As Bradford Wright explains in Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America, the depiction of African-American characters in comic books evolved to reflect liberal expectations about racism and the struggle for civil rights in the 1960s (Wright 2003, 237). Thus, as the civil discourse about racism evolved, comic book characters reflect these changes in their origins, adventures, and personas. In 1966 Black Panther debuted, offering a black character that shattered racial barriers, but who offered 76

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little in the way of commentary about racism in the United States. Here too, T’Challa/Black Panther is depicted as an African King and Wakanda is a futuristic African nation untouched by slavery. Thus, while the character broke from the stereotype, the geography that informed his story was firmly outside the United States and externalized concerns about race and racism to Africa. By the 1970s the critique of Black Power politics, which became identified with groups such as Oakland’s Black Panther Party for SelfDefense, gave rise to characters dedicated to black neighborhoods and black concerns such as Luke Cage. Based in Harlem and focused on black villains and urban crime, Cage was a blaxploitation superhero, borrowing from a cinematic genre that used black space, music, and aesthetic to define itself (Guerrero 2012). While reactive to the black political experience, concerns about urban crime and poverty defined these characters. As superhero comics continue to evolve, the geography of action reflects the culturally informed logic. Superheroes with cosmic concerns and “street-level” heroes inhabit a shared universe, but their narrative adventures come together in special events and publication tie-ins.

Appropriate Artifacts for Analysis The critical geography framework offers the opportunity to consider how this spatial isolation reflected a cultural narrative about the dangers posed by urban space. In describing Batman’s Gotham City, William Uricchio highlights how the interdependence of the hero and the city sustain the logic of the comic book narrative (Uricchio 2010, 120). This narrative structure, however, is unstable, as the serial continuity in superhero stories exist in a hierarchical structure built across time by multiple authors (Reynolds 1994). The consistency of the fictional universe in comics series incorporates elements of the real world, and as comics scholar Martin Lund points out, “potential aspects that are not yet recorded” to create the reader’s experience (Lund 2013). We understand these elements as part of a malleable generative landscape shaped and re-shaped to consider every possible kind of urban experience. The comics page offers an “amplification through simplification” to create a compelling backdrop for considering common concerns about urban problems (McCloud 1994). While the superhero genre provides a means to translate social and cultural narrative about urban spaces and imagine potential solutions, often Alternative Comics provide a space for realism that challenges the conformity of the mainstream understanding of the urban experience. Thus, depending on the genre, the critical geography reading of the comics page allows us to consider societal concerns about community stability, power dynamic within the community, and the effect on identity on shaping experience. This reading of comics geography acknowledges that creators offer another avenue to understand the field of experience that defines the city (King et al. 2007). 77

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Procedure for Analysis By utilizing a critical geography framework to examine space in comics, we engage an interdisciplinary framework that considers how comics provide a dualistic understanding of space. Jason Dittmer suggests that understanding the relationship between comics and space might best be understood as tensions between place/space and context/content (Dittmer 2014b, 17). The “place” in comics refers to how comic book representations of space contribute to and reinforce identity attached to placemaking. The evolution of the city and comics, especially in the U.S. context, gives rise to a spatial relationship linked to the transformation of the urban landscape. The comic strip and later the comic book rely on what Jens Balzer described as “semiotic shift” linked to urbanization. The signification found in the urban space, from consumer advertising to visualized landscapes defined by billboards, signage, and people created the context to understand comics in the United States (Balzer 2010, 25). The urban aesthetic offered by early comic strips captures this process and offers a visual and textual archive of the urban experience. Writing about the comics form, Anthony Enns offers a unique means to understand the modern city by providing an archive of urban experience that is referential to both the history and feeling associated with the urban experience (Enns 2010, 45–46). The centrality of the city persists in the superhero comic book stories. Growing from a “geographic imagination” informed by the aggregation of publishers in New York City, the superhero relies heavily on concerns about crime and societal instability linked to urbanization (Dittmer 2014b). Understanding context and urban experience in superhero comics ask us to consider how the medium has struggled to define itself. As we have seen, while the notion of comics linked to the urbanization and modernity is clear, the scholarship on comics has sought to push beyond the juvenile limitation associated with the superhero genre. As the literary narrative around comics has developed, more complex readings of the comic page have emerged. Thierry Groensteen’s “spatio-topical parameters” offer theoretical framing of visual narrative from a European perspective and Charles Hatfield emphasizes that Alternative Comics provide multiple tensions that provide “interpretative options and potentialities” that force comics readers to employ different “reading strategies, or interpretive schema” to draw meaning (Hatfield 2005, 36; Groensteen 2007, 27–34). Hilary Chute points out that the superhero story remains central to the public narrative about comics in part because they provide storylines motivated by failure and the specter of civil disorder that is always attached to the city (Chute 2017, 75). The questions about urban stability and the creation of community are associated with the many urban imaginaries that define contemporary culture. The concerns about urbanization, immigration, and industrialization that defined the early twentieth century have been displaced by tension

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about the transformations linked to smart cities and surveillance, infrastructure and the resilient city, and diversity and the multicultural city. The social, spatial, and material characteristic are linked to design, planning, and policy, yet scholars increasingly recognize how imagination informs how we see the contemporary landscape (Lindner and Meissner 2018). Building on Henri Lefebvre’s emphasis on space as a social product that reinforces capitalist concepts and Michel Foucault’s critical assessment of space in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Prison (1975), which argues that space can be used to exert control over bodies in space, the link between people, space, and state has been a preoccupation of scholars (Foucault 1995). The concept of urban imaginary and power these authors suggest is expanded upon in the literature on planning and urbanization. Scholars such as M. Christine Boyle highlight how planning discourses, which grew from multiple concerns about the physical city and its social makeup, were melded together into a practice that imagined better urban spaces (Boyer 1983). The juxtaposition of real and imagined spaces informs critical geography discussion about the impact of “critical geographic imagination” and its effect on the spatiality of human life (Soja 1996, 2). It is in this context that we can examine the interaction around locality, environment, and community that define the geography of the superhero comic. Place questions: How do superhero characters relate to their space? How much does the city provide justification and motivation for the character and his action? While the setting for superhero stories is always urban, the relationship between hero and place differs among superheroes. The emphasis on protecting the community and defending space is one way we can read the relationship between the superhero and the city. In writing about the relationship between New York City and Marvel Comics, Jason Bainbridge argues that the key to understanding the difference between Marvel and DC superheroes is to understand that “Marvel superheroes are very much these ‘extraordinary’ figures ‘in an ordinary world’” as opposed to DC superheroes—including Batman—who function more as archetypes in “heightened and exaggerated” cities, kept removed from our own (Bainbridge 2010, 166). By examining how comics depict this relationship we can discern how the long tradition of urban anxiety that gave rise to the superhero continues to shape the genre. Context questions: How do the relationships within the city shape the hero and generate narrative? To what extent are they used to create a story world and how do these anxieties manifest in characters and actions within the story? While characters such as Superman and Batman fight crime, over time a distinction between “street-level” heroes and those facing cosmic threats developed with Marvel Comics’ Silver Age renaissance. The central tenet that New York “grounds the fantasy” in the real world is a guiding principle as Stan Lee, the legendary editor for Marvel, explained. An effective hero needs to be in “the real world, or if the story is set in an imaginary 79

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world, I have to try to make that imaginary world as realistic-seeming as possible” (Lee 2013). Joe Quesada, Marvel editor from 2000 to 2011, explained, “We don’t have Metropolis. We don’t have Gotham City. It’s important to us to keep the real world real” (Jennings 2003). This emphasis on New York as a “character” in superhero stories calls attention to how the city provides a vehicle to support the fantastic. Indeed, Lee explains that it is the contrast between the hero and the normal world that creates the engagement for the reader (Lee 2013). The stereotypical depiction of Harlem as a site of urban crime in Marvel’s Luke Cage: Hero for Hire in the early 1970s, or DC Comics’ decision to place Black Lightning, their first black superhero, in Metropolis’ “Suicide Slum” relied on established awareness about crime in black communities to create a justification and motivation for the heroes. The geography within the story relies on a context of urban disorder to facilitate the story.

Artifact Selected for Analysis Brotherman: Dictator of Discipline, written by Guy A. Sims and drawn by Dawud Anyabwile (credited initially as David J.A. Sims) was one the first significant successes of the independent black comic book market. The two brothers began the project in 1989. The series starred a black hero named Antonio Valor, who worked to combat social apathy in “Big City.” As Adilifu Nama noted in Super Black: American Pop Culture and the Black Superhero, the meaning of a black superhero goes beyond the formula of the genre because black superheroes “symbolize American racial morality and ethics” by providing visual signifiers of the social discourse around race (Nama 2011, 4). Thus, while the black hero’s goal may fit the form of the genre, the functions, such as addressing crime, fighting corruption, and promoting community betterment are hampered by the reality of black urban experience. As part of the explosion of independent comics published in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the publication shares characteristics of the independent comics that emerged in the 1970s. Charles Hatfield describes the emergence of what he defined as “Alternative Comics” from “Underground Comix” as the deliberate cultivation of a unique artistic practice, ambitious alternative narratives, and rejection of mainstream dependency on formulas (Hatfield 2005, 4–6). Hatfield argues that the original promise of U.S. comic art lay with the “unique subculture” associated with Alternative Comics. From this space came work that challenged “formal and cultural boundaries of comic art.” Hatfield’s definition and analysis of Alternative Comics are meaningful for his focus on a subculture that sought to seek readers beyond the youth-oriented narratives that had defined comics since the 1950s. With this shift came a more nuanced engagement with urban experience. Channeling a popular culture increasingly shaped by an emphasis on multicultural awareness, minority-owned comic publishers such as ANIA and 80

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Milestone Media place black creative voices in the position to produce stories that sought to address the black experience (“Featuring ‘Black American Comic Artists’ focus; Grass Green Sketchbook” 1993). This distinction aptly described Brotherman, one of a group of black-created comics that emerged in the early 1990s. Brotherman was a standout success. First sold by the creators at black-oriented comics trade shows such as New York Black Expo, the publication exploded in popularity, finding a black audience that felt underserved by the major comic book publishers (Gayles 2009). The series ran from 1992 to 1996 and sold 750,000 copies without support from a major comic book publisher or access to the direct market distribution system (Howard, Priest, and Gates 2017).

Sample Analysis Sims, Guy A., and Dawud Anyabwile. 2009. Brotherman: Dictator of Discipline. Edited by Sascha Sims. Volume 1 edition. Big City Entertainment, Inc. In “My Interest is in Your Account,” the first issue of Brotherman, a context of urban anxiety is established in the introductory text: Welcome to the last place on Earth … Overrun by the crime and vermin determined to keep it that way … where the light of hope has been snuffed out by the musty blanket of despair … where every tomorrow is every yesterday’s nightmare from which you cannot awake … welcome to Big City … abandon all hope … until now … for upon the horizon stands the visage of Justice … one who has seen the evil and accepted the challenge … the last place on Earth has a new resident … Brotherman: Dictator of Discipline. He’s here and … Everything’s gonna be alright. (Sims and Anyabwile 2009) Building on the established trope of urban distress associated with the superhero cities, panels in Brotherman quickly establish that “Big City, USA” is a congested urban environment struggling with the consequences of systemic failure. Like Gotham City for Batman, the distressed conditions in Big City signal to the reader why the hero is needed. Moreover, like Gotham and Batman, Big City offers a space for the creator’s imagination about urban problems to be manifest. Panels juxtapose a teeming cityscape with scenes of social, political, and economic breakdown throughout the story to heighten the sense of institutional failure. The creators use narration to embellish how the system does not work; as one panel explains, “Big City Food Inspectors say that it is illegal to sell milk over five weeks old. They’re lookin out for our better health, huh?” (Sims and Anyabwile 2009). In Brotherman, the collective imagination about a troubled urban landscape shapes the story.

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Figure 6.1 Brotherman: Dictator of Discipline # 1, p. 5, panel 1 (2008) © Guy A. Sims

Into this landscape enters Assistant District Attorney Antonio (Tony) Valor, who will adopt this superhero persona in the course of the story, but is first introduced standing outside the “Big City Courthouse” (Figure 6.1). The first adventure in Brotherman #1 revolves around a mysterious bank robber called the Seductress. The story serves to establish Valor as an altruistic hero who seeks to challenge the apathy at the core of the systemic failure on display in the city. The creators use the looming façade of the courthouse to establish his character’s mission and a broader debate about the “system” of justice. Thus, longrunning debates about crime, poverty, and ghettoization connected to the urban experience are given form in “Big City.” As the conversation continues, Valor explains to his colleague: “When you begin to look at yourself as part of the solution, you join the ranks in the battle against the slime of society” (Sims and Anyabwile 2009). Such a pronouncement signals to the reader that the “system” will be a central element examined in the series. While the justification that the legal system is weak is traditionally used to frame vigilante narratives, this story also questions the citizen’s apathy. Valor’s dedication to justice places him at odds with the system that will not help people in Big City, but it also sets him apart from urban residents that, through inaction, allow crime. As he opts to face the challenge from the story’s villain, his decision to create a heroic persona is framed in relation to the city (Figure 6.2). As he looks out on the iconic skyline, he states, “Destiny is born of one who secures a purpose” (Sims and Anyabwile 2009). Thus, Brotherman’s origin is bound to the challenge of the city and its failed system. In this way, Big City is a character, much the same as Marvel’s New York. The city’s environment provides justification and inspiration for the hero’s actions. While elements of the first issue correspond to classic superhero tropes around crafting a secret identity and fighting crime, a distinct aesthetic 82

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Figure 6.2 Brotherman: Dictator of Discipline # 1, p. 14, panel 2, partial panel 1 (2008) © Guy A. Sims

shaped by black urban culture informs the structure of Brotherman. The extradiegetic element such as panel narration allows writer Guy A. Sims to emphasize that “Big City, USA” is a culmination of narratives about the failed “inner city” and the dangers found there. While on the surface this mimics characters such as Batman, Valor/Brotherman does not have resources, gadgets, or powers, merely a concern for the community and a desire to fight the apathy that allows for the ineffective status quo. Big City’s problems call attention to debates about the causes of urban disorder and the role of culture (Gayles 2009). These narrative points are heightened by the art of Dawud Anyabwile (credited as David J.A. Sims). As an artist, Anyabwile described his art as growing from hip-hop culture in Philadelphia. This culture, however, borrowed heavily from the superhero forms. From the persona the rappers 83

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create to the lyrics steeped in tales from everyday life, hip-hop and comics are connected. Darryl McDaniels, the DMC of Run–DMC, cites characters such as Black Panther and Falcon as inspirations for his creativity and often articulates his DMC persona as one half of a dual identity (Fields 2017). The very first commercially successful rap record, “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugarhill Gang, name drops Lois Lane and Superman, starting a tradition of comic-inspired lyrical acrobatics. Thus, the aesthetic of hip-hop signals not only an urban experience, but also a superhero geography. Articulating an urban experience and providing a critical perspective on the “socio-political conditions” affecting the black community, the fusion of hip-hop aesthetic into Brotherman does not distract from the superhero element, but serves to highlight the similarity between the forms. (Forman 2011, 1–2). With a core element of the culture tied to urban graffiti culture in New York, the visual aesthetic in Brotherman also links to the recognizable geography. Anyabwile’s art reflects an emerging hip-hop culture cognizant of the perils facing the black community. Initially working as an airbrush artist, he also cites African-American artists such as Ernie Barnes, whose style of body elongation is on display throughout the comic, and Overton Lloyd, who gained fame creating art for George Clinton’s Parliament Funkadelic (Chambliss and Cullen 2016). Combining these black artistic influences allowed Anyabwile to create a vivid cast of characters. While mainstream comics continue to reflect expectations defined by 1960s and 70s public debates, Brotherman and other black creator-created comics from the 1990s provide a sense of authenticity. While Brotherman’s characters, setting, and narrative resonated with a mostly black reading public, the comic as a whole provided a window on the urban experience that examined questions of cultural, political, and economic development typical of public debate about urbanization in

Figure 6.3 Brotherman: Dictator of Discipline # 1, p. 15, panel 1 (2008) © Guy A. Sims

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the United States. In creating Brotherman, the authors leveraged the assumptions about city life to provide justification and motivation for their hero. Within the critical geography, the diegetic space provides an example of the possibilities and limitation associated with urbanization. The characters’ placement within the story world and the environment they inhabit rely heavily on extradiegetic understanding of long-debated concerns about inner-city decline. Indeed, “Big City, USA” is a suggestion that the extremes of urbanism have been realized, and the consequences for the residents are clear. The panels in Brotherman offer a cityscape with abandoned buildings mixed in with billboards and commercial extremes that signal to the audience they have entered a different world, but with a hero that at once is unique, but fulfills the tropes of the genre (Figure 6.3). Valor’s costumed persona is a simple coat and mask. He has no superpower beyond his dedication to making a difference in the city. The mission and place align as villains in the story never exceed the bounds of the story world. Viewing Brotherman through a critical geography framework that highlights the setting justifies the story world and provides the creators with the opportunity to craft stories that act as meditative vignettes to consider the challenges offered by the modern city. In the process, they craft a genre story that corresponds to longestablished debates about the effect of urbanization on the American city while acknowledging the tropes of superhero.

Selected Bibliography Ahrens, Jörn, and Arno Meteling. 2010. Comics and the City Urban Space in Print, Picture, and Sequence. New York: Continuum. Bainbridge, Jason. 2010. “‘I Am New York’ Spider-Man, New York City and the Marvel Universe.” In Comics and the City Urban Space in Print, Picture, and Sequence, edited by Jörn Ahrens and Arno Meteling, 163–179. New York: Continuum. Balzer, Jens. 2010. “‘Hully Gee, I’m a Hieoglyphe’–Mobilizing the Gaze and the Invention of Comics in New York City, 1895.” In Comics and the City Urban Space in Print, Picture, and Sequence, edited by Jörn Ahrens and Arno Meteling, 19–31. New York: Continuum. Boney, Alex. 2013. “Superheroes and the Modern(Ist) Age.” In What Is a Superhero?, edited by Robin S. Rosenberg and Peter Coogan, 1st edition, 43–50. New York: Oxford University Press. Boyer, M. Christine. 1983. Dreaming the Rational City: The Myth of American City Planning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Chambliss, Julian C., and Ian Cullen. 2016. “SciFiPulse Radio : SFP-NOW Featuring Comics Artist And ‘Brotherman’ Co-Creator Dawud Anyabwile.” ScifiPulse Radio. April 15, 2016. http://scifipulseradio.libsyn.com/sfp-now-featuring-comics-artistand-brotherman-co-creator-dawud-anyabwile. Chute, Hillary. 2017. Why Comics?: From Underground to Everywhere. New York, NY: Harper.

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Dittmer, Jason, ed. 2014a. Comic Book Geographies. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. ———. 2014b. “Introduction to Comic Book Geographies: The Divides of Interdisciplinarity.” In Comic Book Geographies, edited by Jason Dittmer, 13–24. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Eisner, Will. 2000. The Spirit Archives, Vol. 1: June 2—December 29, 1940. DC Comics. ———. 2011. Will Eisner: Conversations. Univ. Press of Mississippi. Enns, Anthony. 2010. “The City as Archive in Jason Lutes’s Berlin.” In Comics and the City Urban Space in Print, Picture, and Sequence, edited by Jörn Ahrens and Arno Meteling, 45–59. New York: Continuum. “Featuring ‘Black American Comic Artists’ focus; Grass Green Sketchbook.” 1993. The Comics Journal (blog). June 1993. www.tcj.com/the-comics-journal-no-160-june-1993/. Fields, Curt. 2017. “Superhero MC: Darryl ‘D.M.C.’ McDaniels Returns to the Comics that Helped Mutate a Catholic Schoolkid Into a Hip-Hop Legend.” INDY Week. March 15, 2017. https://indyweek.com/api/content/3a2ca286-007d-58be-adca6a3943f26558/. Forman, Murray. 2011. “General Introduction.” In That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader, edited by Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal, 2nd edition, 1–9. New York: Routledge. Foucault, Michel. 1995. Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books. Gayles, Jonathan. 2009. Brotherman Forever. Atlanta, GA. www.youtube.com/watch? time_continue=2&v=qWKqollX5gA. Gordon, Ian. 2002. Comic Strips and Consumer Culture, 1890–1945. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Groensteen, Thierry. 2007. The System of Comics. Univ. Press of Mississippi. Guerrero, Ed. 2012. Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film. Philadeplhia, PA: Temple University Press. Hatfield, Charles. 2005. Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. Howard, Sheena C., Christopher Priest, and Henry Louis Gates Jr. 2017. Encyclopedia of Black Comics. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing. Jennings, Dana. 2003. “New York Action Hero.” The New York Times, November 23, 2003, sec. N.Y./Region/Thecity. www.nytimes.com/2003/11/23/nyregion/thecity/ 23feat.html. King, Anthony D., Deniz Yukesker, Camilla Fojas, Margaret Cohen, AbdouMaliq Simone, Beatriz Jaguaribe, Mark LeVine, and Seteney Shami. 2007. Urban Imaginaries: Locating the Modern City, edited by Alev Cinar and Thomas Bender. 1st edition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lears, Jackson. 1995. Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America. New York, NY: Basic Books. Lee. 2013. “Stan Lee on What Is a Superhero.” OUPblog. November 17, 2013. https:// blog.oup.com/2013/11/stan-lee-on-what-is-a-superhero/. Lee, Stan, Otto Binder, Al Gabriele, and Charles Nicholas. 2009. Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Young Allies—Volume 1. New York: Marvel. Lefebvre, Henri. 1992. The Production of Space. Translated by Donald NicholsonSmith. 1st edition. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

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Lindner, Christoph, and Miriam Meissner. 2018. The Routledge Companion to Urban Imaginaries. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge. Lund, Martin. 2013. “Gotham City, Once and Sometime New York.” Redrawing the New York-Comics Relationship (blog). December 9, 2013. http://redrawingnewyork. com/2013/12/09/gotham-city-once-and-sometime-new-york/. Mahar, William John. 1999. Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. McCloud, Scott. 1994. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Reprint. William Morrow Paperbacks. Meyer, Christina. 2019. “Urban America in the Newspaper Comic Strips of the Nineteenth Century: Introducing the Yellow Kid.” ImageText: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies. January 18, 2019. http://imagetext.english.ufl.edu/archives/v6_2/meyer/. Nama, Adilifu. 2011. Super Black: American Pop Culture and Black Superheroes. Austin: University of Texas Press. Page, Max. 2010. The City’s End: Two Centuries of Fantasies, Fears, and Premonitions of New York’s Destruction. New Haven: Yale University Press. Reynolds, Richard. 1994. Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi. Sims, Guy A., and Dawud Anyabwile. 2009. Brotherman: Dictator of Discipline, edited by Sascha Sims. Volume 1 edition. Atlanta, GA: Big City Entertainment, Inc. Soja, Edward W. 1996. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-andImagined Places. 1st edition. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. Uricchio, William. 2010. “The Batman’s Gotham City: Story, Ideology, Performance.” In Comics and the City Urban Space in Print, Picture, and Sequence, edited by Jörn Ahrens and Arno Meteling, 119–132. New York: Continuum. Wright, Bradford W. 2003. Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America. Baltimore, MD; London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

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7 UTOPIANISM The Utopia Conundrum in Matt Hawkins and Raffaele Ienco’s Symmetry Graham J. Murphy

Introduction The inspiration for this chapter is Mark Gruenwald’s Squadron Supreme (1985–1986), a largely undervalued twelve-issue limited series published by Marvel Comics during that watershed period in the eighties when superhero narratives grew increasingly darker and more self-reflexive. In Squadron Supreme, the Earth’s super-powered defenders are facing a crisis: after having defeated an alien invasion, the Squadron’s Earth is on the verge of socio-economic and ecological collapse. Power Princess (modeled after Wonder Woman) suggests the Squadroners take a more active role in repairing the world: “I could never make anyone—not even you—believe Utopia was attainable. Maybe now in the wake of mass chaos, people will want to believe me” (#1.25). Hyperion (modeled after Superman) shares this vision and convinces the rest of the Squadron that “[w]e should actively pursue solutions to all the world’s problems—abolish war and crime, eliminate poverty and hunger, establish equality among all peoples, clean up the environment, cure disease and even cure death itself” (#1.27). A key dissenting voice is Nighthawk (modeled after Batman), who cannot abide by his teammate’s new direction: “How meaningful will a utopia be if it is a gift and not something man has earned by his own labors? What if the people will not accept this utopia you give them? Will you force them to take it?” (#1.27). Overruled by the Squadron and its members’ embrace of the Utopia Project, Nighthawk quits the Squadron and begins forming a resistance group organized around stopping the Squadron. The final issue culminates in an all-out battle between the Squadron and Nighthawk’s forces, and at one point Nighthawk has the opportunity to lecture a (temporarily) defeated Hyperion: “Your utopian system is a failure because it requires beings as powerful and good as you to prevent its abuse. Today’s utopia could be tomorrow’s totalitarian state” (#12.346). Although 88

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Nighthawk (and others) is killed in the melee, his logic proves victorious: the Squadron realizes it must not continue forcing utopia upon the people and, indeed, the violence and trampling of civil rights in the name of security and good intentions force the Squadron to dismantle the Utopia Project altogether. It is this tension between Hyperion and Nighthawk that articulates the internal tensions facing Utopianism and some of the central questions that are raised when thinking or dreaming about a better future; namely, how will an improved world be achieved and function? Who implements the policies and procedures designed to usher forth a better future? Where does individualism fit within the broader goal of the common wealth? Or what is the cost of achieving the world of tomorrow (for better or worse)? These questions—i.e., what I’ll call the utopia conundrum—sometimes fuel fictional depictions of alternate futures, including such English-language comic books as Judge Dredd (1977—), Watchmen (1986–1987), The Dark Knight Returns (1986), V for Vendetta (1982–1985; 1988–1989), American Flagg! (1983–1988), Irredeemable (2009–2012), Bitch Planet (2014—hiatus), Tokyo Ghost (2015—hiatus), and such long-running series as X-Men, The Avengers, and so forth. Comic books can therefore offer occasions for exploring the utopia conundrum, even if such opportunities may be few and far between and represent a relatively small corner of Utopian studies; nevertheless, as comic books continue to gain increased critical traction, this art form can prove fruitful for a broader understanding of the utopia conundrum.

Underlying Assumptions of the Approach Pre-eminent Utopia scholar Lyman Tower Sargent defines Utopianism as “the dreams and nightmares that concern the ways in which groups of people arrange their lives and which usually envision a radically different society than the one in which the dreamers live” (“Three” 3). Utopianism is therefore a process of social dreaming that “focuses on everyday life as well as matters concerned with economic, political, and social questions” (Sargent, Utopianism 5). In much the same fashion, Fátima Vieira writes, “[u]topists depart from the observation of the society they live in, note down the aspects that need to be changed and imagine a place where those problems have been solved” (8). Utopianism is therefore a critical vehicle that can take many different shapes and forms, including such intentional societies as communes and cooperative communities, social theory or critical discourse, and literary utopias, arguably the most well-known “face” of Utopianism (Sargent, “Three”).1 Most western readers are likely very familiar with the negative utopia, a. k.a. dystopia, thanks in no small part to the consistent inclusion of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We (1924), Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (1953), or Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) on high school and 89

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“Best Of” reading lists. Sargent defines the negative utopia as a “non-existent society described in considerable detail and normally located in time and space that the author intended a contemporaneous reader to view as considerably worse than the society in which that reader lived” (“Utopian”). The negative utopia is often viewed as the opposite to the positive utopia, a.k.a. eutopia, a “non-existent society described in considerable detail and normally located in time and space that the author intended a contemporaneous reader to view as considerably better than the society in which that reader lived” (Sargent, “Utopian”). Although it is tempting to see them as antinomies, the eutopia and dystopia are more akin to a fluctuating continuum than diametrically opposed terms, a point I’ll return to later. A central assumption underlying popular (mis)understandings of Utopianism is that the eutopia must refer to a perfect world, a perfection whose unobtainability is often the grounds for rejecting Utopianism as fanciful wish-fulfillment. Utopianism and literary utopias in general, however, are not about perfection. Sargent has explored this common error of utopian perfection and has shown that some of the earliest literary utopias, including Thomas More’s foundational text Utopia (1516), depict positive utopias that are far from perfect (“A Note”). In a similar fashion, Vieira is succinct: “the idea of utopia should not be confused with the idea of perfection” (7); nevertheless, this equation—i.e., “utopia = perfection”—is pervasive, a by-product of poor assumptions and innumerable (and insufferable) websites on the subject matter. For example, in her New Yorker article “A Golden Age for Dystopian Fiction,” Jill Lepore writes of President Barack Obama evoking a utopian sentiment in a January 2008 speech: “That was the lightning, the flash of hope, the promise of perfectibility. The argument of dystopianism is that perfection comes at the cost of freedom.” Lepore repeats the error when she later reports that Raphael Hythloday, the protagonist of More’s Utopia, ventures to the isle of Utopia “where he found a perfect republic.” The fictional Utopia in More’s treatise, however, is not a perfect republic at all, but these are the types of comments about Utopianism and perfection that malign the positive utopia by equating it to an impossible perfectibility and subsequently position the dystopia as the seemingly inevitable consequence of failing to achieve perfection. The shortcomings of the “utopia = perfection” equation are particularly notable in more recent incarnations of social dreaming. For example, Utopia scholars have repeatedly shown Utopianism is much more complicated than inaccurate binary configurations. As a result, we now speak of the critical utopia, which is a non-existent society described in considerable detail and normally located in time and space that the author intended a contemporaneous reader to view as better than contemporary society but with difficult problems that the described society may or may not be able to solve. (Sargent, “Utopian”) 90

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It is the imperfect critical utopia that negates the darkness of the dystopia without nostalgically embracing the positive utopias of yesteryear; instead, we find utopian societies in critical utopias keeping the flame of Utopia alight by valuing hopeful futures without ignoring the difficulties of achieving and sustaining social transformations, even at the risk of failure or collapse. Nevertheless, the desire for a positive utopia, the desire for a positive social transformation, continues to fuel these narratives. Similarly, the critical dystopia is also a more recent development, a non-existent society described in considerable detail and normally located in time and space that the author intended a contemporaneous reader to view as worse than contemporary society but that normally includes at least one eutopian enclave or holds out hope that the dystopia can be overcome and replaced with a eutopia. (Sargent, “Utopian”) In these texts, hope emerges that the society can awaken from its social nightmare and embrace a brighter future, perhaps even pushing the dystopia to collapse. Possibly the most popular examples of the critical dystopia are Young Adult (YA) dystopias that typically feature teenaged protagonists whose coming of age is enmeshed with a rebelliousness directed against often authoritarian institutions and governments. Popular examples include Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games trilogy [The Hunger Games (2008), Catching Fire (2009), and Mockingjay (2010)], Veronica Roth’s Divergent series [Divergent (2011), Insurgent (2012), and Allegiant (2013)], Ambelin Kwaymullina’s Tribe series [The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf (2012), The Disappearance of Ember Crow (2013), and The Foretelling of Georgie Spider (2015)], Ally Condie’s Matched trilogy [Matched (2010), Crossed (2011), and Reached (2012)], and Adam Rapp and Mike Cavallaro’s graphic novel Decelerate Blue (First Second, 2017), to name only a few of what is otherwise a heavily populated YA dystopia market. In any event, both critical utopias and critical dystopias are more nuanced, more challenging, and more provocative in their handlings of social dreaming than traditional eutopias and dystopias and it is the critical utopia and critical dystopia that are largely fueling our current social dreamings, even if the terminology isn’t as well known to the general public.

Procedures for Analysis While there are no definitive procedures or steps to follow when it comes to exploring Utopianism in literary utopias—except, perhaps, abandoning the “utopia = perfection” equation—there are some tactics that provide a useful handle on the critical subject matter. A first step, perhaps the key step, when it comes to a close reading of a text is to pay careful attention to the character arc 91

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of the protagonist(s) as they come to greater terms with the surrounding sociopolitical world. For example, the character arc in the eutopia has been tied to an external traveler typically arriving in the foreign society and being given a tour of the eutopia by a native citizen. This traveler is our real-world proxy and often carries or embodies our own socio-political assumptions and expectations; the native citizen offers our proxy contrasting points of view on everything from economic policies to familial arrangements, from gender relations to food preparation. The traveler will often initially bristle at the eutopia’s socio-political arrangements, but will typically end up a believer or convert by the end of the tour, perhaps returning to the “real” world to proselytize on the virtues and wonders of the eutopia. In the end, just as the traveler comes to believe in eutopia and recognize the failings of home, so too does the author implicitly expect the reader to accrue a similar degree of critical self-reflection and awareness; as a result, the tour is a key vehicle for the author to unpack the eutopia and its often significant social differences and, by extension, advance the social critique(s) that underwrites the text in the first place. As the dystopia came to prominence in the early twentieth century, the narrative pattern of an external traveler on a tour of eutopia was revised accordingly: our proxy was transformed from a tourist into a citizen living in the nightmare society, eliminating the need for a tour guide. Therefore, as we watch the protagonist awaken to the society’s horrifying conditions— i.e., dehumanization, lack of free thought, profound censorship, etc.—their internal and external struggles define their awakening and social growth which, in turn, fuel the socio-political critique. This revised pattern of the native citizen engaging in some fashion with the surrounding utopia is also a mainstay of both critical utopias and critical dystopias, so character arc is a vitally important tool to a better understanding of the social critique that is the lifeblood of literary utopias. While our focus is typically anchored to the protagonist(s), the importance of broader social configurations cannot be understated. In other words, it is important to consider that simply because a utopia favors the common wealth at the expense of individuality doesn’t by default turn it into a nightmare. Alternate societies can successfully privilege the good of the common wealth over individual aspirations or goals, even celebrating the utopian citizen’s ability to put the will of the people ahead of individual needs and desires. Granted, this is a difficult position to reconcile: given the dominant influence of both the dystopia and critical dystopia in popular culture, it is common to equate the common wealth to some Orwellian or Huxleyan vision of robotic monotony. The audience can be forgiven for supporting the protagonist’s defiant struggle to assert (typically) his individuality against the collectivity, even if that collectivity may benefit the individual and the larger community. After all, ideal utopias often resist an all-too-familiar global neoliberalism whose celebrating and rewarding of individual wealth and personal growth at the expense of communal prosperity are hallmarks of westernized nations. It is therefore not uncommon 92

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for an audience to have significant difficulties buying into the notion that the common wealth in literary utopias can actually foster individual happiness and social growth because accepting this notion means rejecting some (or all!) of what capitalism values and rewards out here in our “real” world. In sum, a focus on the common wealth, the de-emphasis on individualism, and depictions of post-capitalist societies are often staples of both ideal and nightmare societies and these staples can be used to show positive visions of alternative societies just as readily as negative visions. Finally, we must always avoid the inclination to jump to premature conclusions about the literary utopia and Utopianism in general. In this vein, while character arc and social configurations are valuable keys when it comes to critical reading, unearthing authorial intent can also be instrumental; after all, while an audience isn’t beholden to what the author necessarily intends in a literary work, Sargent does remark that it is vitally important to “try to understand to the best of our ability both the work the author intended and the work the reader creates” (“Three Faces,” 6). There are no easy or foolproof ways to determine authorial intent, but the internet makes it increasingly easy to find interview material and other related documents that provide insight into authorial intention that can help bolster our reading and interpretation of literary utopias. In sum, social dreaming is complex: it features complementary and conflicting drives, oppositional and appositional desires, and a wealth of possibilities when it comes to alternative futures and societies; therefore, dispelling the “utopia = perfection” equation, tracking character arcs, paying close attention to social configurations, and conducting research into the author and subject matter should go a long way to helping avoid pre-determined sets of assumptions or hasty judgments that can overly (or inaccurately) influence our critical reception of the content.

Appropriate Artifacts for Analysis Comic books are problematic when it comes to Utopianism for a number of reasons. Chief among them is the monthly or semi-monthly production cycle, which means a successful comic must entice readers to come back for each installment. As a result, depictions of nightmare societies typically hold more narrative traction because it is comparatively easier to pile nightmare upon nightmare to generate narrative tension—i.e., to keep selling issues— than to build a successful franchise around ideal and fully realized alternative societies. The prevalence of dystopian locales in comic books is evident in such aforementioned titles as Judge Dredd, V for Vendetta, Bitch Planet, or Tokyo Ghost, as well as in the exploits of Spider Jerusalem in Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson’s Transmetropolitan (DC, 1997–2002), Major Motoko Kusanagi in Masamune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell (1989–1990), and Alcide Nikopol in Enki Bila’s The Nikopol Trilogy (La Foire aux immortels (1980); La Femme piège (1986); Froid Équateur (1992)), to name only a handful of titles. 93

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The preponderance of comic book dystopias is particularly notable in mainstream superhero comics where the super-powered protagonists often travel into the future to find nightmares of unparalleled horrors, evidenced most famously in Chris Claremont, John Byrne, and Terry Austin’s “Days of Future Past” in X-Men #141–142 (Marvel, 1981) or more recently in Brian Azzarello, Keith Giffen, Dan Jurgens, and Jeff Lemire’s The New 52: Futures End (DC, 2014–2015), Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s Old Man Logan (Marvel, 2008–2009), or Ethan Sacks and Marcco Checchetto/Francesco Mobil’s Old Man Hawkeye (Marvel, 2018). In such cases, exploring the utopia conundrum isn’t the driving force of the plot, which means the depth of critical analysis into Utopianism is typically quite shallow as the nightmarish future is often simply the background for the larger narrative, not the point of the story itself. In fact, Matthew Wolf-Meyer argues mainstream superhero narratives are largely antithetical to constructive explorations of Utopianism. Writing specifically about the prototypical superhero, Superman, Wolf-Meyer notes that the super-powered Kryptonian (and the wealth of superheroes that followed him) is unable to “uphold the philosophical responsibility that Friedrich Nietzsche thought so vital to the position of the übermensch, whose purpose was to ‘go under,’ to bring humanity the lessons learned, metaphysical or otherwise, as post-humans, in an attempt to affect utopia” (Wolf-Meyer 501). American superheroes may flirt with Utopianism, but any revolutionary energy or alternative ideals these stories might embody are sacrificed by their creators because such super-powered beings often act “against humanity, rather than for it, retaining the hegemonic capitalism, rather than promoting utopia” (WolfMeyer 501). There are, of course, exceptions, including Mark Gruenwald’s Squadron Supreme, but superhero narratives overall are quite vacuous when it comes to thinking through the complexities of Utopian social dreaming.

Artifact Selected for Sample Analysis Matt Hawkins and Raffaele Ienco’s creator-owned Symmetry (Top Cow/ Image, 2015–2016) eschews the predilection for dystopias in its decidedly non-superhero take on Utopianism. Matt Hawkins is a comics veteran thanks to his work with Top Cow Productions/Image Comics; as a result, he arguably has more latitude in his creator-owned work than writers’ output from such mainstream publishers as Marvel (Disney) and DC (Warner Bros.) that are part of larger corporate empires. Ienco, meanwhile, has been an industry mainstay for two decades. Matthew Box describes Ienco’s artwork as resembling “that of an oil painter with a full grasp of darkness and light, producing very bold, very supple, and incredibly realistic characters and objects.” Although Box is reviewing Ienco’s Mechanism (Image, 2016), the same assessment can be applied to Symmetry as the artwork for both series is practically identical. Utopianism is also a central 94

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focus for Symmetry, not merely background material. As Hawkins makes clear, he has written “Dystopian science fiction (Aphrodite IX) and there is SO much of it out there in Young Adult (YA) books and film adaptations that I’ve gotten a bit sick of it” (#1, n.p.).2 This comment is from extradiegetic material Hawkins provides at the end of each issue (and collated at the end of each of the two volumes). He calls this material “Sociology Class” and it provides details into his approach to the topic, including a series of websites to elaborate upon his musings on the subject matter. This content gives readers added insight into authorial intent and eliminates quite a bit of ambiguity; in other words, it is hard to disagree with Hawkins’s goals when he explicitly states them in the “Sociology Class” commentary. Finally, Symmetry does have its weaknesses, including some underdevelopment of this alternative society, chiefly a result of limiting the narrative to four-issue arcs that easily accommodate bundling into trade paperbacks; nevertheless, in spite of its flaws, the series remains a useful exercise in how comic books can explicitly address the utopia conundrum.

Sample Analysis Hawkins, Matt and Raffaele Ienco. Symmetry #1–#8. Los Angeles: Top Cow Productions/Image Comics, 2015–2016. Symmetry currently consists of eight issues divided into two narrative arcs (Volume One and Volume Two), with a third arc promised should the first two volumes sell enough units. Symmetry’s first four issues focus on the characters Michael, Matthew, Maricela, and, to a lesser extent, Elder Sharon, a representative of the Council of Elders, while the second volume, set twenty years after the events of Volume One, narrows its focus to Julia, Matthew and Maricela’s daughter, although secondary characters are awkwardly introduced later. As befits a literary utopia, both volumes give a range of details about this far-future society, known only as the Society. For example, the Society emerged following a period of warfare and socio-economic inequity, but war, violence, sickness, and starvation have all been eliminated on a global scale. There is also a greater life expectancy and citizens voluntarily choose their own gender, which suggests gender equality has been achieved, even if this aspect of the narrative is disappointingly underdeveloped. The proliferation of robot labor also means the Society is postcapitalist with no discernible currency, no social class divisions, and no exploitation of labor. Finally, the Responsive Artificial Intelligence Network Archetypes (RAINA) is an implant providing every citizen access to the System Optimizer for Longevity (SOL), an elaborate online network that permeates the entirety of the Society. It is RAINA that ensures connectivity to SOL and is part of the broader enterprise that allows the Society to function for the betterment of all its citizens. 95

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Symmetry, however, doesn’t open with a celebration of the Society; instead, it begins with the death of Matthew, Michael’s brother, who is accidentally chased off a roof by robot Pacifiers. With his dying breath, Matthew asks of a trio of Pacifiers, “Why … why were we never told the truth?” (#1, n.p.). Matthew’s death and his final utterance are the result of events that started three days earlier. Michael and Matthew had joined other travelers on a floating luxury liner headed to Wolf Creek mountain resort when a solar flare triggered an electromagnetic pulse that crashed the liner. The survivors quickly discovered they were cut off from RAINA: “Imagine never having to do anything for yourself,” Michael explains. “Everything being provided for you without any effort of your own. You felt safe, with a sense of belonging to the community through RAINA. And then suddenly it was gone” (#2, n.p.). At the same time, Michael meets Maricela, the Latina daughter of a political diplomat, and they are immediately smitten with one another. Although Michael, Maricela, Matthew, and Elder Sharon are rescued only a few days after everyone else, their return to the Society is cold comfort: the Council of Elders decided to permanently quarantine all survivors in a “Containment Returnee Center” (#3, n.p.) lest their short-lived offline experiences corrupt the Society as a whole. Fearing what it means to live without RAINA, Elder Sharon tries to poison Michael and Maricela in a “mercy killing” because she believes “[i]t’s a kindness. All the others affected are being sent apart. Separation is worse than death” (#4, n.p.). Matthew’s death at the start of the issue, having fallen from the rooftop with Pacifiers in hot pursuit, was a foregone conclusion since he had already been poisoned, but his final distraction of the Pacifiers helps Michael and Maricela escape the quarantine. Interspersed in this first narrative arc are also scenes that depict the survivors’ general condition three, four, and five years after the Wolf Creek incident and the subsequent quarantine: the survivors have split into factions and in some cases fomented rebellion against the Council of Elders. The survivors are not only fighting against the Pacifiers but also against themselves in civil conflict, and both Michael and Maricela emerge as dominant voices for the rebellion, which sets up the narrative conditions for the second arc’s depiction of Julia’s problematic interactions with the Society. Julia has no RAINA and has lived off-the-grid on a tropical island with a dog, some robots, and a reprogrammed Pacifier named RAM to act as parent, teacher, and friend. Unfortunately, she must flee her tropical sanctuary and visit the complex Archives in each of the Society’s four nations to learn about the Society’s secret history, thereby giving Hawkins and Ienco the opportunity to flesh out more details about their future utopia. Julia’s tour of the four nations’ respective Archives prompts resistance from each nation, including prejudicial attitudes and assassination attempts. Nevertheless, every obstacle Julia faces, coupled with the knowledge she gains, are all 96

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for the greater good: SOL reveals it needs Julia to help alter humanity’s evolution beyond the static Society and usher forth an even brighter future, all as part of its programming to service humanity’s needs. Although Julia cannot join this evolving Society, the second arc ends on a hopeful note as a new Society is poised to emerge and SOL begins to reveal to Julia the entire secret history of the Society, presumably the content for an as-yetunreleased third arc. Symmetry’s narrative arc highlights the utopian conundrum: the elimination of warfare, starvation and social inequities show the Society has clear benefits; yet, Michael learns that everyone in the Society is being drugged in some fashion to keep them happy and amenable. This is an appalling revelation and one we’d expect to find in an oppressive government trying to keep its citizens complacent. Similarly, while the Council of Elders truly believes quarantining the Wolf Creek survivors is for both their own protection and the safety of the Society, the Council also begins discussing forced chemical sterilization so the survivors won’t breed RAINA-less children. Finally, the Society’s reliance upon symmetry is embodied by four social pillars—Community, Peace, Harmony, Equality—achieved at the cost of diversity: the global population is evenly divided into four ethnic factions (White, Latin, Africa, and Asia) that are largely separated from one another. This is one of the key reasons Michael, Maricela, and, later, Julia are pursued by the Elders of Society of all four nations: they embody ethnic diversity in a society (or Society) that values ethnic homogeneity as a synonym for symmetry. The Society is clearly designed around racial purity, segregation, and compliance, which are largely unsavory notions to most readers, particularly when it comes to the Society’s antiquated notions of blood and soil that echo today’s alt-right, white nationalism, and recent resurgences of populism across the globe. At the same time, this four-faction system of racial separation has produced thousands of years of peace and is not to be too easily discarded, as evident in the first arc’s narrative voice. Michael is narrating the events of the first four issues after they have already occurred. The first four issues are therefore a series of interconnected flashbacks that Michael is recording for Julia, beginning with the solar flare and spanning the subsequent five years. Interestingly, Michael characterizes to Julia the post-flare years as “[a] dark age [that] was about to return” (#1, n.p.). This dark age was therefore not before the solar flare, when the utopia was functioning optimally; the dark age is after the solar flare when Michael and others are freed from RAINA and disconnected from SOL and the Society. If the Society is supposed to be a nightmarish society, it would be more logical for Michael to have described the five-year period after the solar flare as some kind of awakening or blossoming of new awareness, not a dark age.

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Even with the benefit of hindsight and having lived through five years of events, Michael still laments to Julia, “I wish I could make everything the way it used to be. It was better. We lived long lives of leisure and happiness” (#1, n.p.). Granted, Michael acknowledges when speaking of Maricela that in the Society “love and independence are incompatible to that world. Once tasted they’re impossible to repress” (#1, n.p.); at the same time, he admits to Julia that “I don’t know if I would have made the same choices if I knew what I know now” (#4, n.p.). The Society therefore cannot be a complete nightmare, otherwise Michael would surely have expressed his fervent support for throwing off the yoke of oppression; instead, despite becoming a leader in the rebellion, Michael still begrudgingly admits to positive features of the Society. The utopian conundrum that is the central focus of Symmetry’s plot is visually reinforced by Raffaele Ienco’s illustrations. For example, Ienco suffuses the comic book with bright primary colors and panels that show no evidence of destitution or decay in the cities, which all lend credence to the Society as a positive utopia. The panel borders and gutter work reinforce an openness in the Society rather than enclosed, bordered, or claustrophobic panels that might typically accompany a negative utopia. Splash pages and double-page spreads—i.e., landscape layouts—also provide beautiful visuals of each of the four nations. For example, a large, ivy-encrusted pyramid (albeit fortified by weaponry) dominates Julia’s (and our) field of vision in her first exposure to the Africa nation’s capital in Zanzibar (#6, n.p.); similarly, white birds are prominently flying through the sky in the landscape layout depicting the Asia capital in Shanghai (#5, n.p.; Figure 7.1). The Latin capital in Orlando is suffused with ornately domed buildings with reddish-copper spires, while pink petals are blowing through the greenery and sailboats in the background float on blue ocean water (#7, n.p.; Figure 7.2); in a comparative fashion, trees are growing near the buildings and green leaves are blowing through the landscape layout depicting the White capital of Los Angeles. The pages therefore depict the Society with seemingly never-ending vistas of beautiful architecture, clean skies and water, and natural greenery amidst technological advances that collectively reinforce the positivity and grandeur of this global utopia. Interestingly, the White capital of Los Angeles is the only one illustrated in the evening, as if Ienco is paralleling this darker setting with the more openly hostile response by the White Council of Elders to Julia’s arrival. Tellingly, the dominance of neon and the cityscape evokes a coldness to Los Angeles that contrasts with the obvious warmth of Julia’s other capital visits, even if these visits have stoked resentment and triggered violent responses. It is only upon Julia’s arrival at the warmthless White capital (where she is isolated from all outside contact) that the details she has been assembling from the other Archives finally begin to click into place. The White Council of Elders destroys its Archive and tries to kill Julia and her 98

Figure 7.1 The Asia capital in Shanghai. Symmetry #5 (2016) Matt Hawkins and Raffaele Ienco. © Courtesy of Top Cow Productions, Inc

Figure 7.2 The Latin capital in Orlando. Symmetry #7 (2016) Matt Hawkins and Raffaele Ienco. © Courtesy of Top Cow Productions, Inc

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compatriots from the other nations with an age-old rationalization: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and we did nothing to enrich ourselves” (#8, n.p.). And, of course, the civil violence and bloodshed that accompany the Society are similarly depicted using splash pages and landscape layouts: the crash of the luxury liner; a burnt Maricela struggling to live; civil unrest and rebellion, etc. These violence-imbued images stand in apposition to the images of utopian beauty; in other words, Ienco’s splash pages and landscape layouts position the grandeurs of the utopian Society alongside the bloody cost(s) of utopia, the promise of a bright future fueled by the secrecy, bloodshed, and violence that underpin the utopian Society. Symmetry also shies away from the cliché of robotic maleficence, or the tired story of an Artificial Intelligence threating to wipe out humanity. Visually, SOL, with its glowing green eyes and seemingly menacing tentacles, is a monolithic device that towers over its human operators, evoking a mechanical threat to humanity that is common to science fiction narratives. In addition, the Pacifiers are monotonic robots adorned in impeccable suits and blue faceplates, linking this Society to an emotionless bureaucracy that is mirrored in the cold rationalizations of an Elder Council willing to engage in incarceration, sterilization, and murder, all for the greater good. What becomes clear is that despite the temptation to view SOL and the Pacifiers as antagonistic forces, this techno-utopia’s greatest threat is the people who are running the system: as Hawkins writes in “Sociology Class,” “[t]he idea with SOL and our A.I. is that it has humanity’s best interests at heart, but humans screw everything up. We’re the problem” (#6, n.p.). While SOL may be a monolithic computer system that is the lifeblood of the Society, in the end it must follow human commands and its manipulations of socio-political conditions and individuals are all ultimately designed to fulfill its programming to better the human condition. By the end of Volume Two, the Society has not been overthrown and replaced with some robot-driven dystopia or collapsed under the weight of its internal conflicts; instead, Julia has helped the Society to evolve and embrace diversity with the promise of a better life on Earth. At the same time, the utopian fundamentals of the evolving Society, including the four-faction system, remain largely unchanged and are the foundation for an even more ideal future (barring any course corrections in a possible third volume). Symmetry provides its readers with the utopia conundrum writ large, which Hawkins clearly articulates in the “Sociology Class” material when he asks his readers, “Would you be willing to sacrifice what makes you ‘you,’ in order to make a world free of hunger, sickness, violence and poverty?” (#1, n.p.). The series therefore defies easy encapsulation and shows the limitations, if not uselessness, of thinking about Utopianism in binary terms, or eutopia vs. dystopia. As a result, how to classify Symmetry—is it a critical utopia? is it a critical dystopia? is it something else?—proves an ongoing 100

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source of energetic debate for my students and should remain so for readers (although I strongly contend it is a critical utopia). In the end, however, coming up with a firm designation for Symmetry misses the broader point: Symmetry shows Utopianism is not a noun, but a verb. It is an act of social dreaming (verb), not a social dream (noun). Or, as Fátima Vieira puts it, Utopianism and utopias are “thus to be seen as a strategy. By imagining another reality, in a virtual present or in a hypothetical future, utopia is set as a strategy for the questioning of reality and of the present” (23). Utopianism is therefore not about reaching or fortifying the destination, something the Elder of Councils of all four nations in Symmetry fail to realize; instead, as SOL realizes and, in turn, tries to effect through its subtle manipulations of Michael, Maricela, and Julia, Utopianism is about perpetually progressing or moving towards utopia, always preferring the symmetry of movement over the stagnation of stillness.

Notes 1 For a full exploration, see Sargent’s “The Three Faces of Utopianism Revisited.” 2 In order to accommodate an absence of page numbers in either Symmetry’s individual issues or the collected volumes, the citation can only include the issue/ chapter number and the “no page” (n.p.) designation.

Selected Bibliography Box, Matthew. “Mechanism #1 —‘A.I. Think, Therefore A.I. Am’; Analysing Raffaele Ienco’s New Image Series.” Broken Frontier. 16 August, 2017. Accessed 26 November 2018. www.brokenfrontier.com/mechanism-raffaele-ienco-image-comics/ Gruenwald, Mark, John Buscema, Bob Hall, Paul Ryan, and Paul Neary. Squadron Supreme. 1985–1986. Marvel Comics, 2003. Hawkins, Matt and Raffaele Ienco. Symmetry #1–#8. Los Angeles: Top Cow Productions/Image Comics, 2015–2016. Lepore, Jill. “A Golden Age for Dystopian Fiction.” The New Yorker. 5 and 12 June, 2017. Accessed 20 August 2018. www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/06/05/ a-golden-age-for-dystopian-fiction Moylan, Tom. Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction and the Utopian Imagination. London and New York: Methuen, 1986. Murphy, Graham J. “Gotham (K)Nights: Utopianism, American Mythology, and Frank Miller’s Bat(-topia).” ImageText: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies 4.2 (Winter 2008). www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/ ———. “‘On a More Meaningful Scale’: Marketing Utopia in Watchmen.” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 28.1 (2017): 70–85. Ndalianis, Angela. “Comic Book Superheroes: An Introduction.” The Contemporary Comic Book Superhero., edited by Angela Ndalianis. New York: Routledge, 2009, 3–15. Sargent, Lyman Tower. “A Note on the Other Side of Human Nature in the Utopian Novel.” Political Theory 3.1 (February 1975): 88–97. ———. “The Three Faces of Utopianism Revisited.” Utopian Studies 5.1 (1994): 1–37.

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———. Utopianism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. ———. “Utopian Literature in English: An Annotated Bibliography from 1516 to the Present.” Penn State Libraries Open Publishing. n.d. Accessed 04 August 2018. https://openpublishing.psu.edu/utopia/home Vieira, Fátima. “The concept of utopia.” The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature. Ed. Gregory Clayes. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010, 3–27. Wolf-Meyer, Matthew. “The World Ozymandias Made: Utopias in the Superhero Comic, Subculture, and the Conservation of Difference.” Journal of Popular Culture 36.3 (January 2003): 497–517. Yockey, Matt. “Somewhere in Time: Utopia and the Return of Superman.” The Velvet Light Trap 61 (2008): 26–37. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/vlt.2008.0007

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8 N E W CR I T I C I S M Ordered Disorder in Jaime Hernandez’ “Flies on the Ceiling” Rocco Versaci

Introduction An inherent irony awaits any movement that features the word “new” in its name. The prefix suggests that the movement is fresh and unique, but the irony is that freshness has an expiration date. Such has been the fate of New Criticism, which is generally regarded with quaintness by contemporary literary scholars. Nevertheless, the related interpretive approaches that were collectively referred to as New Criticism were “the dominant form [of literary criticism] from the late 1930s until about 1970” (Barnet 1996, 122) and had a lasting impact on literary study in two major ways. First, during their nearly half-century heyday, New Criticism and its proponents essentially created the literary canon—those works deemed to be “exemplary” and therefore most worthy of study in classrooms of all levels. And second, arriving with these works were the New Critical methods by which to study them, chief among them being “close reading” or explication de texte. The New Critics read works closely by paying particular attention to certain elements—discussed below—and this methodology largely framed how literature was understood and taught by generations of students, including those who would become literature professors themselves. The roots of New Criticism emerged as early as the 1920s, but the movement itself was not given a name until 1941, when one of its most prominent practitioners—John Crowe Ransom—published The New Criticism. This book, along with Cleanth Brooks’ The Well Wrought Urn (1947) and the work of various scholars that appeared in The Southern Review, The Kenyon Review, and The Sewanee Review are among the key works of New Criticism. Some of these scholars include I.A. Richards, Allen Tate, and Robert Penn Warren, who co-authored with Brooks the popular textbook, Understanding Poetry.

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New Criticism is not without its faults, the most significant relating to its impact on the canon and best articulated by Paul Lauter, who contends that the movement “represented an elitist … mode of critical dissection and worked with a narrow set of texts amenable to its analytic methods,” which meant that meaningful canonical debate “receded ever further toward the margins” (Lauter 1991, 137). Despite this and despite the fact that New Criticism per se is not typically taught in literature classes today, its legacy is that its basic method of close reading continues to be important to students and scholars because it forms the first step of most analytical methods.

Underlying Assumptions of the Approach Although the New Critics were “far from unified” (Wellek 1978, 613), they nevertheless shared key assumptions. First, the “New” in New Criticism signaled its break from previous methods of literary analysis, most notably historical criticism (which examined literary works in their cultural contexts) and biographical criticism (which examined literary works in the context of their author’s life and other writings). In the estimation of Brooks—the movement’s de facto spokesperson (Brooks 1979, 592)—analyzing a literary work in relation to larger contexts denies the “essential nature of poetry” and leads to a grim reduction whereby “the poetry of the past becomes significant merely as cultural anthropology, and the poetry of the present, merely as a political, or religious, or moral instrument” (Brooks 1947, x–xi). Thus, a key assumption of New Criticism is that “a work of literature is complex, unified, and free-standing” (Barnet 1996, 121). This last descriptor—“free-standing”— is perhaps the defining feature of New Criticism, whose practitioners focus exclusively on the work itself. It should also be noted here that while Brooks and many other New Critics focused their analyses on poetry, they used that word as synonymous with “work of art” when speaking of criticism generally (Bressler 2007, 59). Two other important assumptions are expressed by Brooks when he writes, “in a successful work, form and content cannot be separated” (Brooks 1951, 72). First, the critic’s role is not simply—or even primarily— to uncover a work’s “meaning,” but to focus on how that meaning (content) is fused to presentation (form). The word “successful” reveals a second assumption: some works are simply better than others, and one goal of the critic is to identify and celebrate those superior examples. While many methods of literary analysis make judgments about the merit of a text, this objective is explicit for New Critics. But what makes an artistic work “successful”? For one thing, all of its parts are interrelated and function together to support the “whole” (Brooks 1951, 72). For another, it “contains oppositions, ambiguities, ironies, [and] tensions” (Lynn 2001, 14) which then must be resolved (Brooks 1947, 207). 106

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It becomes the responsibility of the critic to “unravel the various apparent conflicts and tensions within each poem and ultimately to show that the poem has organic unity” (Bressler 2007, 63). The title of Brooks’ The Well Wrought Urn—a reference to Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” one of Brooks’ favorite works—is, in fact, his metaphor for a successful poem: a supremely crafted, self-contained art object.

Appropriate Artifacts for Analysis One reason the New Critics chose poetry was that this form provides a generally smaller “canvas” that allows sustained, precise attention to content, form, and the complex relationship between them. For at least two main reasons, therefore, comics are ideal artifacts on which to practice New Critical methods. First, comics’ visual elements invite readers to read closely; one must engage with the complicated interplay of images within a panel, panels within a page, and pages within the entire story. Second, this blending of word and images makes manifest the inseparability of form and content that the New Critics championed. In his book Adult Comics, Roger Sabin writes that a comic “does not ‘happen’ in the words, or the pictures, but somewhere in-between, in what is sometimes known as ‘the marriage of text and image’” (Sabin 1993, 9). This conception that comics operate through a complicated interdependence of word and image is echoed by many comics scholars, most notably Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics (1993) and Charles Hatfield in Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature (2005). Virtually any work in this medium would be an appropriate, if not ideal, object on which to perform a New Critical reading, though its techniques would work best on smaller pieces, such as short stories (as opposed to longer graphic novels), for much the same reason that many New Critics focused on poetry.

Procedures for Analysis The New Critic’s practice of close reading demands that the first steps are to read and reread the comic thoroughly to identify its various elements and exhaustively list them. Close reading is a messy process, and before the various elements can be assimilated into a coherent interpretation, it is necessary to first see what is there and remember that not everything will factor into a final interpretation. One important element is the comic’s text, which must be examined for all of the features that interested the New Critics: meanings and connotations; symbols, imagery, idioms and/or figures of speech; tone; irony, and ambiguity; narrative point of view and voice. In a comic, additional questions apply. Specifically, how is language presented (i.e., narration, dialogue, thoughts, sound effects, details in the panels’ compositions) and 107

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what are the effects thus created? Do any of the words take on pronounced visual characteristics (e.g., drawing a word like “SWOOSH” in letters that sweep across a panel to mimic an object or person’s movement)? These questions form a segue to consideration of the visuals in general. Is the comic in black and white or color? If black and white, how is it shaded? If color, what is the palette? What is the style of the artwork? Helpful here is the aesthetic representational strategy outlined by McCloud, in which he posits all comic art as falling somewhere within a triangle whose three points are “realistic,” “iconic,” and “abstraction” (McCloud 1993, 52–53). Are there recurring visual images, motifs, and/or patterns? What is the comic’s visual structure? This question must be broken down further. What is the nature of the panels (e.g., number of panels per page, shapes used, patterns of usage, etc.)? What are those panels’ significant compositional details and how are they arranged? What are the visual perspectives/points of view in the panels? How do the panels work together to form a page layout? What kinds of transitions are used between panels? How do these transitions manipulate time and space? What is shown, what is not shown, and what are the effects of each? Continuing with the issue of time, how does the story present its chronology? Is it in sequence? Is the sequence tight or loose (i.e., large jumps in time)? Is the chronology fragmented (e.g., flashbacks, multiple timelines)? If fragmented, how many timelines are there and how are they coordinated? From a New Critical perspective, these observations become the raw material with which to answer the main questions that determine the “success” of a given art object: Do all of the “parts” support the “whole”? What tensions are set in motion and how are they resolved?

Artifact Selected for Sample Analysis The story we will analyze is Jaime Hernandez’ “Flies on the Ceiling,” from the long-running series Love and Rockets (Fantagraphics, 1982–present), a comic that features the work of brothers Jaime, Gilbert, and (less frequently) Mario Hernandez. “Flies” focuses on Isabel (“Izzy”), a woman who, at the story’s beginning, is haunted by images from her past of divorce, abortion, and attempted suicide—all events that have estranged her from her family, and in particular her father. She travels to Mexico, where she is approached by an unnamed man to help him care for his young son, Beto, and she soon becomes integrated into their family. Before long, she has various encounters with a figure we are meant to understand is Satan, who assumes various forms and guises. What is never made clear, however, is whether he actually haunts Izzy or if she imagines him. She leaves the man and Beto but continues to be plagued by this demonic figure. After a period of self-imposed isolation, Izzy returns to the two and has one final 108

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encounter with Satan before leaving for good. There is certainly much more to the larger context of this story, its main character, and their talented creator, but in keeping with the New Critical focus on the work itself, the above summary will have to suffice. One caveat here: this particular comic is especially dense and layered, so what I offer here is a New Critical reading of the comic, despite the fact that New Critics often felt they delivered the reading of whatever they happened to be analyzing.

Sample Analysis Hernandez, Jaime. “Flies on the Ceiling.” Flies on the Ceiling: Volume 9 of the Complete Love & Rockets, Los Bros Hernandez, Seattle, Fantagraphics Books, Inc., 1991, pp. 1–15. Close reading reveals much about this particular story; first and foremost is that the narrative has a distinct pattern. Although not delineated into discrete parts—as stanzas in a poem, for example—the story nevertheless has distinguishable “sections,” where Izzy moves between periods of stability and turmoil. The first two pages constitute an initial section, as they set in motion various tensions that recur throughout the story. The second section consists of pages 3 through 5, where Izzy travels to Mexico, meets the man and Beto, and, after some initial resistance, joins them to form an ersatz family. The third section consists of pages 6 and 7, where Izzy has her first encounters with Satan in the form of, respectively, an old woman and a man in black. The fourth section consists of pages 8 through the top row of page 12, where Izzy has fled her new family and, in her isolation, has ongoing encounters with Satan that culminate in a dream sequence where she gives birth to monsters. The fifth and final section consists of the remainder of page 12 through page 15, where Izzy returns to the man and Beto after some time passes, finds a brief and uneasy peace, encounters Satan again to learn that her father has died, and then leaves for good. Also apparent is that this narrative develops primarily through images; nearly two thirds of the comic’s panels contain no text at all. The text that does appear is mainly dialogue within word balloons, the exceptions being a handful of panels that contain text in background details (pages 1, 6, 9, 11, 12, 13); a sound effect (page 10); a brief letter that Izzy writes to her mother (page 9); the story’s title (page 2); and the final panel’s “the end” (page 15). As for the visuals, there is quite a bit to notice, starting with the artistic style. The comic is in black and white with very little gray shading; instead, the images have a chiaroscuro effect that creates sharp visual contrast between light and dark. Despite this impressionistic choice, the overall style tends toward realism, though some “cartoony” elements such as sweat drops and “anger steam” appear at times of heightened emotion. The one

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noticeable break from this aesthetic is a single panel depicting a hyperrealistic portion of a demon’s face (page 11). But the comic’s most striking visual element is its structure. Every page, with the exception of the splash page, is a grid of nine panels of equal size and shape. Also noteworthy is that within the individual panels of these grids is a great deal of variety. In terms of point of view, most of the panels present a third-person perspective by showing Izzy speaking and interacting with others while some present a first-person perspective by showing Izzy’s perceptions and memories as if through her eyes or consciousness. In both perspectives, however, the angles of sight are quite varied; one panel might feature—to borrow film terms—an extreme close-up, such as a tearful Izzy in profile (page 1), while another might feature an extreme long shot, such as Izzy walking up a hill (page 8). The panel compositions themselves are also varied in terms of details; some panels are crowded with details while others are stark. Panel-to-panel transitions are similarly varied. While many sequences are fluid and use clear visual cues that dictate the flow of action or the passage of time, others break from an ordered pattern and create “disruptions,” most of which render the narrative more disorienting and impressionistic than sequentially coherent (pages 1–2, 7, 10, 11–12, 14). Taking all of this into consideration reveals a very interesting element of this comic—while its panel layouts are rigidly organized, its panel compositions vary greatly along several lines. There are also several recurring visual motifs: images of family, and especially motherhood (pages 1, 4–6, 11–13, 15); fathers (Izzy’s on pages 1, 9, 15, and Beto’s throughout, but with a visually obscured face on pages 3–6); crucifixes and other Catholic symbology (pages 4–5, 8–9, 11–13, 15); and Satan, whose “appearances” are multiform: a grotesque figure with phallic protrusions (page 2), an old woman holding a chicken (pages 6, 13), a silent man in black (page 7), a voice emanating from a crack in the wall (pages 8–9), a lucha libre wrestler in a devil’s costume (page 9), a demon face (page 11), and a young woman dancing at a street fiesta (pages 14–15). A quick cross-referencing of the page numbers listed above establishes that several of these motifs appear in the same places throughout the story, suggesting correlation. This list of observations can now be shaped into a New Critical analysis to see if “Flies on the Ceiling” is a “successful” art object by achieving unity in presenting, developing, and resolving its central tension. First, obviously, is to establish that central tension—no small feat, for the tensions in “Flies on the Ceiling” are legion; in fact, the story presents itself almost completely in terms of conflict: Izzy versus her father; Izzy versus the man and Beto; Izzy versus Satan; and Izzy versus herself. These concrete conflicts suggest larger, abstract conflicts: past versus present, isolation versus community, and reality versus imagination/delusion. The central tension should encompass these and also—if the work is unified—be reflected in the form. And in 110

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fact this is the case: tension exists between white and dark space in the art, in the story’s back-and-forth narrative arc, and—most significantly—in its ordered layout of disordered panels. My choice of words in this last example is deliberate, for in them lies what I argue is the comic’s central tension: order versus disorder, which is apparent from the very beginning of the story. The opening two pages may, on an initial reading, appear chaotic, but in actuality they establish both the narrative pattern by which the central tension will play out and present an aesthetic that embodies that tension. I’ll begin with that aesthetic, or the story’s form. On page 1 (Figure 8.1) the first panel depicts a house precariously balanced on the edge of a hill and orients the reader to a particular place. That order evaporates as the remaining eight panels alternate between contextless images. Some of these images—a broken wedding photo, the exterior of a Planned Parenthood clinic, a family argument, bandaged wrists—seem grounded in times and places different from the images of Izzy at her typewriter, but even these latter images lack coherence: the visual perspective shifts radically from a side view, to a front view, to a close up of her hands, to an extreme closeup of her tearful face. All of the panels, in fact, deliver a radical mix of perspectives—not only in the angles of sight, but also between first person and third person. The details in panels 3, 5, and 6 (numbering the panels left to right and top to bottom) appear to come through Izzy’s eyes, while the remaining panels are presented “outside” of Izzy’s eyes. A careful rereading reveals that these images depict tension between the character’s present (attempting to write) and her past (various conflict-laden incidents), but the uniformity of panel size, shape, layout, and style presents everything, visually, at the same level of reality, so the time shifts are not apparent. By presenting wide variations in time, space, and perspective in a consistently structured style, page one establishes an aesthetic of “ordered disorder.” So “ordered” is this presentation, in fact, that the page’s layout presents a subtle reinforcement of Izzy’s struggles; the images from her past create an “X” pattern over the entire page, suggesting—through the form—that the conflicts from her past negate her stability in the present. The next page—a splash (one large, single panel)—embodies the central tension as well. The image, mostly black, contains a side view of Izzy along with a side view of a horned individual with a phallus and with two more phallic objects protruding from his chest. Here, in terms of the drawing style, tension exists between the “order” of a clearly-lined Izzy and the “disorder” of the minimal, gestalt-like rendering of Satan. These opening pages also present the tension between order and disorder in the narrative. It is clear that Izzy’s apparent anguish stems from specific incidents in her past—the broken wedding photo represents her divorce; the conservative protesters and Planned Parenthood clinic represent her abortion; and the bandaged wrists represent her attempted suicide. Izzy’s guilt 111

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Figure 8.1 The story’s very first page, a largely wordless and initially disorienting entry into the narrative that juggles multiple timelines and establishes several tensions. “Flies on the Ceiling,” Love and Rockets Book 9, p. 1 (1991) Jaime Hernandez © Fantagraphics Books, Inc

here and as subsequently developed is clearly rooted in her particular faith (or lack thereof); even a lapsed Catholic like myself can remember that divorce, abortion, and suicide are taboo in the eyes of the Church. In response to Izzy’s guilt as presented on this first page, the second page 112

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delivers a kind of “answer” to it and establishes a narrative pattern: immediately following images of her guilt, Satan “appears.” This pattern emerges throughout the story, where images of family and motherhood are often paired with images of crucifixes, and these are followed by Izzy’s Satanic encounters. In the penultimate panel on page 4, for example, we see Izzy, the man, and Beto seated around the dinner table as the man proclaims, “Now we’re more like a family, eh?” The very next panel is an image of separation and guilt: in the foreground, the man smokes, while in the background and behind a window, Izzy slumps in silhouette beneath a crucifix (page 4). On the following page, Beto and Izzy hold hands in the marketplace, and Beto asks her if she is going to stay with them longer, to which she replies, “I think so.” Again, visible above her head is a crucifix atop a church (page 5). In the next panel, she has her first encounter with Satan—the old woman with the chicken—who tells her, “I know who you are” (page 6). Later on that same page, Beto tells his friend, “Isabel is going to be my mother soon,” and on the following page, Izzy has her second encounter with Satan—this time as a man dressed in black (page 7). Finally, near the end of the story, Izzy returns to the village and is reunited with the man and Beto. In the bottom row of the page, the three walk hand in hand, but two panels later, Izzy wakes, a crucifix visible on the wall above her head (page 13); she then sets out to leave again, only to encounter Satan for the last time, now in the form of a dancing woman. The tension of order versus disorder in these scenes is clear: “order” is represented by the man and Beto who are, in effect, stand-ins for the husband and child that she lost in her past; and “disorder” is represented by images of her guilt (crucifixes and Satan). She is even told (or imagines she is told) as much by Satan: “it’s not your sins but your guilt that allows me to come to you” (page 8). In effect, every moment of stability—order—that Izzy attains with the man and Beto is undercut and counterbalanced by guilt— disorder. This tension is also apparent in the story’s larger narrative structure and its different “sections,” as mentioned above. Specifically, there is a clear pattern in Izzy’s literal movements. She begins in a state of disorder, and she runs away to Mexico. She finds order with the man and Beto, but then encounters disorder in the form of the old woman and the man in black, so she runs away again, this time to a stark room in an unnamed town. This central section represents the most “disordered” part of the story, where Izzy has conversations with Satan, appears to vomit lizards, attempts to flee, and then dreams that she gives birth to reptilian creatures, echoing Satan’s statement that he “may come to [her] as [her] own baby” (page 9). She then returns to the man and Beto, where she is briefly stable, represented in four sequential and wordless panels where they are all together as a family (page 13). But then she encounters Satan one final time before running away for good. The 113

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narrative moves Izzy between the twin, antagonistic poles of order and disorder. As it does, it continues its aesthetic of ordered disorder. One embodiment of this aesthetic is the panel transitions. Such transitions require varying degrees of “closure,” defined as the work required by a reader to make the connection between two or more given panels (McCloud 1993, 73). Transitions that make minimal changes in time, space, and/or logic require “little closure” (McCloud 1993, 70) and are fairly ordered; by contrast, larger changes—including those “which offer no logical relationship between panels whatsoever” (McCloud 1993, 72) are more disordered. This latter type appears in the story at points where Izzy’s state of mind is most fragile—on the first page, as already discussed, but also when she encounters the man in black (page 7—see Figure 8.2), and when she has run away and is alone (page 11—see Figure 8.3). In both cases, there are rapid shifts in perspective, reflecting Izzy’s inner disorientation and turmoil. In the scene on the bridge, there is little change in time or place, but every panel is from a different angle and distance, and first- and third-person perspectives are once again mixed (panels 4 and 8 are in first-person POV, and the remaining panels are in third-person). In the scene on page 11, there are several transitions that make large, disorienting leaps of time and space. The narrative moves from a panel of Izzy curled around a toilet in which she has vomited lizards, to two panels of her in a village with her suitcase, to a single panel of a demon’s face that originates, presumably, from Izzy’s imagination, to three panels depicting a memory or fantasy of a mock wedding between a young girl (Izzy?) and Jesus (as represented by his severed head), to the sequence’s five-panel climax (the first two of which complete this page), where Izzy imagines birthing monsters. Throughout these sections, the rigid nine-panel structure provides order to “contain” the disorder. One row of panels on page 14 (see Figure 8.4) perfectly captures this aesthetic. These three wordless panels show Izzy approaching the dancing woman, and they employ a technique that is common in comics—breaking a single image into several panels. In this case, the overall image is a wide shot of a crowded street, but the gutters create breaks and allow Izzy to appear in each panel as she moves from left to right and toward the woman. On the surface, this sequence is unlike any other place in the story, but in fact it captures the essence of ordered disorder in two ways. First, the panels “order disorder” by creating a static image of a dynamic scene where Izzy walks and people dance. Second, the “multiple Izzys” appearing in a single wide shot would indicate disorder, yet the presence of the two gutters creates a formal order to those images of her. New Critics were very interested in how tensions resolved; such resolution was, in fact, a sign of unity (Bressler 2007, 63). In “Flies,” the ending stands as an embodiment of and statement about its central tension. After Izzy’s final confrontation with Satan, she tells the man that her father is 114

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Figure 8.2 An entirely wordless and visually fragmented page in which Izzy encounters one of the story’s several “versions” of Satan, this time a mysterious man dressed in black. “Flies on the Ceiling,” Love and Rockets Book 9, p. 7 (1991) Jaime Hernandez © Fantagraphics Books, Inc

dead and she can return home (page 15). At the same time, however, she also tells him that “it’s not over” (page 14) and that Satan “refuses to give [her] up” and may come to her later as “flies on the ceiling” (page 15). While a kind of order is restored through the death of her father, it is clear 115

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Figure 8.3 A page juggling at least two timelines that depicts Izzy’s fragile and fragmented consciousness after she has run away from the man and Beto. “Flies on the Ceiling,” Love and Rockets Book 9, p. 11 (1991) Jaime Hernandez © Fantagraphics Books, Inc

that disorder will persist in Izzy’s life through the continued future presence of Satan. This lack of resolution at the story’s end would seem to indicate, from a New Critical perspective, a flaw in that the central tension of order versus disorder has not been resolved. But the story’s apparent lack of 116

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Figure 8.4 The bottom three panels of the penultimate page, a wordless sequence in which Izzy confronts the story’s final “version” of Satan, a woman dancing in the town square. “Flies on the Ceiling,” Love and Rockets Book 9, p. 14 (1991) Jaime Hernandez © Fantagraphics Books, Inc

resolution is in fact entirely consistent with the interpretation thus far, where order and disorder have existed in tension, in balance. Izzy’s lack of resolution therefore is her resolution, for in her life order and disorder balance each other; this balance exists in both the content of the story and in the form of its telling. From a New Critical perspective, therefore, “Flies on the Ceiling” is an exemplary comic because it is a unified art object wherein “all parts of the poem are interrelated and support the poem’s chief paradox” (Bressler 2007, 63). Even seemingly minor details reinforce the “balance” between order and disorder. Consider the various male figures in the story. First is Izzy’s father, a clear antagonist. His physical absence from the story, however, requires a presence to create balance, so “substitutes” emerge— specifically, the man and Satan. Although the man is kind and not a threat to Izzy, his initial presence in the story is visually depicted as ominous; in his initial appearances, his face is noticeably obscured (pages 3–6). When Izzy gives him her diary to read, he responds that he would never judge her (page 6). Once he ceases to be a threat (a substitute for her judgmental father) she has her first encounter with Satan, who then fills that role. That he does is established overtly—Izzy tells him that he “sound[s] like [her] father” (page 9)—but also subtly; even though Satan’s various forms suggest gender ambiguity, Izzy always uses the masculine pronoun when referring to him. An even more subtle detail that reinforces the idea of order and disorder existing in balance appears in the story’s very first and last panels. The former depicts a precariously balanced house, which suggests the ruination of home; the latter depicts the man and Beto huddled in the dark beneath a crucifix, which calls to 117

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mind the lost husband and child. Together, these panels capture the totality of Izzy’s guilt as established throughout the story. By “bookending” Izzy’s story, these images provide an ordered, symmetrical frame to that story’s disorder. A well-wrought urn, indeed.

Selected Bibliography Barnet, Sylvan. A Short Guide to Writing about Literature. 7th ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1996. Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. Brooks, Cleanth. The Well Wrought Urn. New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1947. ———. “My Credo.” The Kenyon Review 13, no. 1 (Winter 1951): 72–81. ———. “The New Criticism.” The Sewanee Review 87, no. 4 (Fall 1979): 592–607. Eisner, Will. Comics & Sequential Art. Tamarac, FL: Poorhouse Press, 1985. Hatfield, Charles. Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2005. Hernandez, Los Bros. Flies on the Ceiling: Volume 9 of the Complete Love and Rockets. Vol. 9. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books, Inc., 1991. Lauter, Paul. Canons and Contexts. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Lynn, Steven. Texts and Contexts: Writing about Literature with Critical Theory. 3rd ed. New York: Longman, 2001. McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. Sabin, Roger. Adult Comics: An Introduction. London: Routledge, 1993. Wellek, René. “New Criticism: Pro and Contra.” Critical Inquiry 4, no. 4 (Summer 1978): 611–624.

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9 PSYCHOANALYTIC CRITICISM Visual Pathography as a Means of Constructing Identity: Narrating Illness in David Small’s Stitches Evita Lykou

Introduction The following analysis of Stitches is based on an initial hypothesis that the comics medium bears strong resemblance to the dream-work, as this has been analysed by Sigmund Freud in his The Interpretation of Dreams and later psychoanalytic texts. Psychoanalytic theory turned criticism is an application of the vast psychoanalytic literature1 and its various approaches on the bodily, psychic and cultural interconnections to texts and authors (or any piece of art and its creator). The importance of psychoanalytic criticism is pointed out by Elizabeth Wright in Psychoanalytic Criticism, and is mainly focused on investigating the analogies between art and the mechanisms of the psyche, taking into account the relationship between creator and creation as well as between the audience and the piece of art, and incorporating these relationships to a wider cultural and historical context (Wright 2000, 6). In order to apply psychoanalytic criticism to comics, we need to take into account the strong association of visual images with the (Freudian) psyche, and a straightforward relevance of the graphic novel to the structure of dreams as well as striking similarities of the comic strip to the procedure of image-production and distorting-operations of the dream process. Furthermore, the “visual grammar” of a graphic novel’s art reflects the conflicts of the unconscious and exposes the psychological processes that take place during the reconstruction of a plotline. Consequently, the extent of representability in comics is certainly of a different nature, and arguably greater, in comparison with other media, whilst, simultaneously, the conventions of traditional narrative are kept intact. In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud associated dreaming with a visual representation of language (Freud 2006, 293–294); furthermore, he ends up considering dreaming a language in and of itself. According to Freud, the 119

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literal or manifest content of a dream constitutes a de facto language which, after analysis and transcription to verbal and textual language, can be recast as a visual representation. If we consider grammar to be a tool, or mechanism, to arrange language in terms of a chronological narration, Freud’s account of dream-grammar coincides with comics theorist Scott McCloud’s assertions about temporal arrangement in comics. In Understanding Comics, McCloud claims that the pictorial representation in a single illustrated panel can encompass many moments, not necessarily apparent prior to experience with the medium. Just as the often incoherent manifest content of dreams reveals through interpretation their latent content or hidden meaning which is governed by proper grammar, similarly, comics, when read, are interpreted in the mind of the reader to a grammatically coherent narrative, beyond what is presented in the drawings appearing on the page.

Underlying Assumptions of the Approach The first assumption is that the very construction of the graphic medium is of major psychoanalytic interest, as it combines the generation of visual images with the narration of a story. This function is strikingly similar to the procedure of the dream-work as this has been described by Sigmund Freud in his The Interpretation of Dreams. This connection gives ground to assume further that throughout a work expressed in the graphic medium one can find plenty of psychoanalytic material, which can be discussed along with the relevant theories. In this case we are making use of the Freudian concept of a psychoanalytic construction of identity, through the composition of an autobiography, to discuss David Small’s graphic memoir as an example of a visual pathography. The basis of this analysis is that the narration through the comics medium is a rather straightforward demonstration of the process of the construction of the idea of the self, which is a major psychoanalytic concern, always in line with the historical and cultural context within which it has been constructed. Graphic autobiographies are an excellent sample on which to apply psychoanalytic criticism, as the published material is already so close to the idea of the self, and the points that need to be extracted are definitely significantly more straightforward. Exercising on such ideal material equips us with the interpretive tools that are necessary to expand the psychoanalytic approach to non-memoirs, having learned to interpret the text, the drawn lines, the space between the panels and ultimately the comics medium as a whole. Visual pathographies, in particular, give the extra edge of introducing the subject of trauma and suffering within the content itself; it is straightforward and revealed, not concealed under any kind of pretence. Pathography is a genre speaking of both illness and health, or the lack of it, reaching up to the finest details of the human mind (for which we use the psychoanalytic 120

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term “psyche”) that are involved with feelings of safety, comfort and understanding of the self. And these matters affect not only the narrating “I”, but they involve its entire family and social circle, or, as literary theorist Jeremiah Dyehouse suggests: “what is also at stake through pathography is an ethics of response that would transform the moral intensities that circulate around the actualities of trauma, illness and dying” (2002, 211). The general point is that every author inscribes traces of unconscious thoughts (which have been part of their identity construction process) in the complexity of the medium they use to narrate their story. The reader perceives such unconscious thoughts and translates them into a personal perception, inflicting their own unconscious thoughts upon the existent material provided by the author.

Appropriate Artefacts for Analysis The field for the application of psychoanalytic criticism is large and not limited to any specific thematic categories within the corpus of comics works. The primary element of the medium, that is the visual, permits numerous psychoanalytic approaches, allowing for a variety of interpretations depending on the main text content and the psychoanalytic school applied. Autobiographical graphic novels are a good starting point in the sense that the very personal nature of such key texts and the convenience of researching the connections between the author’s intentions and the artefact (whether coming from related or unrelated author interviews, an introduction or related bibliography) provides ample material for the application of psychoanalytic theories. Other accessible genres are superhero comics, where one can apply multiple theories on the Ego and Superego, fantasy comics which allow for a very creative and thorough analysis based on dream-theories, and horror or war comics providing a spacious field for a discussion regarding various psychoanalytic disturbances (trauma management, post-traumatic stress disorder, etc). The application of psychoanalytic criticism on the abovementioned genres is very much aided by their thematic nature, which strongly resembles psychoanalytic concepts facilitating the research and study which will provide you with the links necessary for a successful interpretation. However, there is no reason why psychoanalytic criticism should be limited to any kind of comics genre – as it is not limited to any specific literature genres either. The very nature of comics, their visual aspect in particular, makes the medium a perfect candidate for the application of psychoanalytic criticism, although for other key texts (e.g. comic strips) you may need a more advanced grasp and more thorough understanding of the psychoanalytic literature, probably more appropriate for postgraduate level. 121

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We should note here that the approach is significantly different depending on whether we are handling a text created by a single artist or a collective piece of work. The former is again more accessible on a beginner’s level, as the latter demands a vastly more complicated argument, very well grounded in the relevant literature.

Procedures for Analysis Psychoanalytic criticism intends to provide a more thorough understanding of the links between the themes emerging from a literary text and the very process of creation, the thoughts and intentions of the author, as well as the relation between the text and the interpretive aspect for the reader. This is not to say that we treat the text assuming the intentions of the author (this is by no means the appropriate approach), nor that we need to have them stated in order to proceed to psychoanalytic criticism. What we do is more like detective work, painstakingly figuring out patterns that can be explained through psychoanalytic theories, and based on said patterns move on to provide an interpretation which offers meaningful explanations regarding the artefact and its cultural context. Psychoanalysis as a practice occurring through culture and is fundamentally based on the function of language. The story of the patient is as important a factor as the activity of narrating this story to a therapist (or writing it down in any form of art, sequential art included). As a result it isn’t only the content that matters, but the structure of the narration as well. The association between psychoanalysis and language, this integral bond which makes them inseparable, is the major reason why psychoanalysis is so closely related to literature and literary criticism, as, according to Elizabeth Wright, “every single utterance, spoken or written, is invaded by the unconscious” (2000, 112). Along with matters of language, psychoanalysis is a theory about the idea of the self and the general notion of identity. The question of identity is fundamental in the era which followed the romantic nineteenth century, the era of modernism which to a large extent has been shaped by the construction of psychoanalysis. The theories which occurred then looked into the mentality of individuals in a more complex and extensive way than had ever happened before. Indeed, as Anthony Elliott describes it, “Selfhood and personal identity become increasingly precarious in conditions of modernity, as the individual loses all sense of cultural anchorage as well as inner reference points” (1996, 9). The sense of personal identity is closely connected to the psychoanalytic narrative. The identity is structured around narrative and emerges as a result of it. The more fragmented and conflicted the psychoanalytic narrative is, the more troublesome is the conceived idea of the self. Stephen Frosh notes that 122

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[t]he self, as summary and integration of personal being, is not a fixed entity: it is constructed out of the bits and pieces of experience and is in dialectic relationship with social organization. It is full of conflict, particularly between what is desired and what is encountered. (1991, 31) As with every kind of criticism, your starting point should be a good first acquaintance with at least the general terms of psychoanalysis, in order to have a sense of what you will be looking for during your close reading. Equipped with this understanding you would proceed to a very thorough reading of the key text, to find points of interest related to the above-mentioned theories (examples of potential points of interest are, but are by no means limited to: transference, libido, repression, the Oedipus complex, fixation, defence mechanisms, pleasure principle, Eros, Thanatos (the death drive), the symbolic, the uncanny, taboo, repressed memories, narcissistic neurosis and any matter concerning the construction of identity). The interrelation of text and image is immensely important, and should not be neglected. From the perspective of Comics Studies, theorists such as McCloud, Harvey, Eisner and Groensteen will provide you with ample insights for understanding these interrelations, and depending on your chosen subject, always with a critical eye you could selectively draw useful material from film studies, the theory and history of photography, history of art and any cultural and academic aspect of the visual and the graphic. You are looking for emerging patterns, recurring elements and contradictions, which will give you hints for specific points of reference. After you have read and distinguished the specific points which you will later analyse in your essay, you proceed to construct a “roadmap” of the key text, perceive it as a whole, and note at what point in the narration you find the previously selected extracts (patterns, recurrences, contradictions, etc.), figuring out what purpose they serve. You construct thus a research hypothesis, proposing an interpretation. For instance, in the case of autobiographical graphic novels and graphic memoirs the patterns emerging and the interrelations of content and theory point easily towards the concept of the construction of identity, shaping the research hypothesis. At this point you make connections between your suggestions and previous work done, both in your chosen field of theory and perhaps on the key text itself. Any additional material, such as author interviews, factual data regarding the era, location and circumstances described in the key text, is also welcome, useful and indeed necessary at this stage. How is this information related to the “roadmap”? Does it reveal any additional aspects which are not obvious on first sight? How does the key text relate to its historical and cultural

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surroundings? The last question is of major importance in terms of psychoanalytic criticism.

Artefact Selected for Sample Analysis The interpretive goal of this essay is to demonstrate the psychoanalytic and deeply personal approach of David Small to his own personal story, through the narration of his life as much as his medical history intertwined with his troubled parental relationships. Incidents from the graphic novel will be analysed as an example of how the comics medium is a rich field in which to search for applications of psychoanalytic criticism. The graphic novel Stitches is a graphic memoir, written and illustrated by David Small, narrating his troublesome, dark and tormented childhood in Detroit in the 1950s. His story starts at the age of six, with multiple flashbacks to his infancy, highlighting a number of personal issues that only become clear when the whole of the autobiography has been constructed and everything is set out in the open for the author of the autobiography to comprehend, and for the critics and audience to interpret. Stitches is written in black and white, and shades of grey. Everything in this story is grim, yet the very narration of the story, the action of articulating the trauma is uplifting by definition. Stitches is a characteristic example of a visual pathography, rich in interpretive details. Published in 2009, it is a highly acclaimed graphic memoir, named one of the ten best books of 2009 by Publishers Weekly and Amazon. com, being a No. 1 New York Times bestseller, finalist for the 2009 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and a 2010 Alex Awards recipient.

Sample Analysis Small, David. 2009. Stitches: A memoir. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. The hero in Stitches is growing up in a troubled family, in an unstable and tense environment which is particularly due to the reserved and domineering personality of the author/protagonist’s mother. The character of the mother is presented as sentimentally withdrawn, nervous, with frequent outbursts of rage forcing the entire family to construct coping mechanisms in order to retain their personal integrity at the cost of losing the capability to bond with each other. A note at the very end of the book gives a brief explanation for the situation described throughout the novel: the mother has always been suffering crippling, albeit silent, pain due to a genetic defect. She has also been maintaining a secret life as a lesbian, a subject that is only momentarily touched on in the book but never analysed in any significant detail. Both her illness and pain and her secret sexual orientation made her become bitter and rough. Sickly as a child, David, the hero of the 124

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novel, the childhood persona of the author, is subjected by his father (a medical doctor) to radiation therapy. In the USA of the 1940s and 1950s this was, as described in the novel, the standard practice for children born with respiratory problems. Along with medicines, shots, enemas and osteopathic manipulations, David would receive “two to four hundred rads” (Small 2009, 258) in X-rays on a pretty much regular basis. His medical ordeal is presented early in the book, in a dark atmosphere, depicting the small baby that is himself being treated on a medical table. The fear and the pain drawn in his eyes highlight a pagelong sequence culminating with a revealing image of the baby David strapped onto the X-ray table. This is the image of an imposing close-up on the baby’s face where the point of view seems to be from within the X-ray machine. Up until this point all of the characters, including the child-self of the hero, have been graphically portrayed somewhat roughly (in terms of the drawing), and their faces are enriched with the peculiarities of each character as they are being introduced. This image, of the baby, holds nothing of a past or a future. It is an image of absolute baby innocence. Even though it is presented at the very beginning of the novel (on page 22), and there are no specific hints as to how the plot is going to unfold, this image of utmost innocence demonstrates a value judgement of the self. Of the self as completely innocent and pure, who is nonetheless going to be inflicted with something nasty, as the medical equipment on the panels above and below creates a sinister and rather ominous atmosphere. Indeed, during his adolescence, David develops an imposing tumour on his neck, the removal of which also results in the removal of part of his vocal cords. As if this wasn’t enough, before his diagnosis, the obvious growth in his neck goes ignored by his parents for several years. Not only has he been given cancer by his father, but also their neglect and indifference has probably resulted in an aggravation of his condition to the point where he ends up with a permanent disability. This introductory material is starting to justify why Stitches can be read as a “visual pathography”, a term rather specific and quite interesting in its own terms. A pathography brings into the intellectual product that is an autobiography a bodily aspect. The suffering of the body becomes constructive material for narration, the narration is built around the particularities of the illness, and the bodily functions acquire a status of theory. The narration of illness in any form (fictional or biographical) is directly related to the kind of the illness in question. Pathology dictates the course of the story, it shapes the plot and carves the characters into the likeness of the illness; the symptoms of different conditions produce different situations, different patients, different mentalities and different narratives. These varied forms are structured in accordance with the medical and cultural subtext each condition carries through history, as well as with the objective bodily 125

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and psychological effect the symptoms have on the patient. Accordingly, physical illness and psychological state are intertwined and, under certain circumstances, cannot be differentiated. Such matters have been discussed thoroughly by Susan Sontag, in an intense autopathographical essay titled Illness as Metaphor (written and published in 1978) which she composed after her experience with cancer, which she describes as “a demonic pregnancy” (Sontag 1991, 14). Furthermore, she suggests that “nothing is more punitive than to give a disease a meaning – that meaning being invariably a moralistic one” (Sontag 1991, 59). According to Sontag, illness is time and space, it is a state of being, not only something that defines you but also something that grows to be inseparable from yourself, imposing on you an identity and characteristics which will be present long after the illness is gone. David Small has been permanently characterized not only by his cancer, but mostly by his disability, the absence of his vocal cord, which has sentenced him to live in a state of semi-silence, a lack of voice. This lack of voice is predominant in the book, even when describing the time before his operation. The retrospective application of the self-view is of psychoanalytic interest. The remembrance of the life lived is constructed along the way of narrating the autobiography. According to Jerome Bruner, “an autobiography is not and cannot be a way of simply signifying or referring to a ‘life as lived’. I take the view that there is no such thing as a ‘life as lived’ to be referred to” (Bruner 1993, 38). From the viewpoint of Bruner, life is shaped and structured during the act of writing an autobiography. Experiences and memories are put into place, neatly arranged in a clear storyline, constructed and reconstructed until they all fit the narrative plot. Again, this is to no extent an act of intentional manipulation of the audience; it is a psychoanalytic process in order for the narrating “I” to make sense of their lives. Making sense is the essential precondition for the narration to exist. It is also an essential precondition for an individual in order to carry on with one’s life. The material we are presented with, however, is always open to interpretation, which can come from critics, the audience or the author themselves. This is not to say that a new personality – or a new person – has been created via the process of autobiography. It is more to say that the narrator/ author has by the completion of an autobiography created a methodology – a theory – about interpreting their life. Travelling through language and its restrictions, through reincarnating the past and its impossibility, Spicer tells as that “autobiography is impossible and exists. The desire for autobiography, the fantasy of autobiography, can withstand its impossibility; I would suggest that it necessarily withstands its own impossibility” (Spicer 2005, 392). Later on, David is diving into an imaginary world of fantasy and fun that he uses as an escape tool out of his tediously ordinary and to a large extent unbearable life. The left page presents him literally diving into his 126

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drawing paper and on the right one we see him sliding down a tunnel, which ends in a stomach-like cavity, filled with friendly, cartoony creatures. Before this he has been explaining how as a child he was fascinated by Alice in Wonderland – “I had fallen in love” (Small 2009, 56), he says. His playing was an attempt to reach to the magic land of Alice, a carefree, joyous land, where he would be free and happy, even though, the world of Alice is more of a dystopia than a dreamy location. The presentation of his descent into this imaginary land holds the quality of a dream, the awkward shapes, the experience of falling, the transformation into something as playful and cheerful as his fantasy friends. Trying to put this picture into language is difficult. It is hard to describe what we see in a meaningful and coherent way. In order for this sequence to be re-narrated into oral language, it has to be interpreted and filled with answers to a latent question “why?”, as a simple description will not be enough and may not even be possible. In his theory of comics, Scott McCloud discusses at length the notion of closure, a fundamental element of comics to which he appoints the role of grammar. Closure is the “phenomenon of observing the parts but perceiving the whole” (1993, 63). This formulation of “closure” refers to the action that takes place between panels, the interval space which is not presented graphically but has to be induced by the reader, and creates the course of the story by adding information in the gutter between the panels. The third part of Stitches, entitled “Three and a half years after the first diagnosis,” starts with the protagonist in a hospital bed. David’s parents have finally taken their son to the doctor, and a routine operation is arranged for the removal of what is considered to be a benign cyst. At the very end of the previous part, the mother during an enraged outburst burns some or most of David’s books. Nabokov’s Lolita is the only book mentioned by title, and she refers to it as “Smut!” (Small 2009, 153). The final panel of this chapter is an image of the burning bin, flames atop it and a thick smoke mushroom. Immediately after that, David is in the hospital at three and a half years after the first diagnosis, but it is rather unclear how long it has been since the end of the previous chapter. His operation is going to take place in the morning. However, when he wakes up from sedation, the lump is still there, everyone is behaving weirdly and he is told by his father that he will need a second operation, adding that “We will be bringing in a specialist to do it tomorrow morning” (Small 2009, 168). Still, he is reassured, “I told you, nothing is wrong! Now get some rest” (Small 2009, 169). The same night David receives an even more surprising visit from his mother. Her behaviour is unprecedented. She seems to be fighting to overcome her usual restrained self while at the same time struggling not to become sentimental. When David asks her what she is doing there she responds, “I suppose I have the right to visit my own son” (Small 2009, 171). She appears to be crying, but she is still unable to express herself or demonstrate any amount of healthy emotional 127

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response. Instead she is aggressively trying to make amends, asking her son if he needs something, telling him that she will get him anything he wants, adding, “Within reason of course.” David tells her that he forgot to bring with him the book he was reading, then sarcastically adds, “But oh, wait. I forgot. You stole that from my room and you burned it up” (Small 2009, 172). After two panels of a staring contest the mother walks out of the room, slamming the door. She comes back with Lolita. At this point the reader does not know yet that the reason why the surgery has been postponed was a malignant tumour. The odd behaviour of the mother is a sign of something being exceptionally unusual. The reader can figure this out in the long pauses between action. A clock is ticking while the mother is out. The sound effects (“tk, tk, tk, tk, klik, klik”) add time-depth. Time goes by, offering a sense of continuity, and in the absence of the mother, the big gap between two “kliks” and many “tk, tk, tks”, the reader proceeds to produce meaning. We use closure to make sense of the events on the paper. We create links, we think of alternative possibilities, invest time and energy. This process, this closure, works as a very strong adhesive, holding the plot together and allowing it to move forward to the next incident in a very personal way, triggering emotional responses in the reader. According to McCloud, “in a very real sense comics is closure” (McCloud 1993, 67); without this aspect the medium wouldn’t be able to hold itself together. The visual narrative is significantly different than any other kind of narrative; particularly because the interpretation of the visual is inevitably personal and subjective for each and every recipient of the medium. Comics, using the element of closure, manage to diversify the impression that each reader acquires, for each reader has to interpret the time and space gaps between panels, which in psychoanalytic terms leaves a whole lot of space open for useful interpretations. After the operation has taken place, David wakes up to realize that he is unable to speak. He has received no previous warning about it, he is not expecting it, it is a massive shock. Furthermore, his throat has been permanently marked with a large scar, which is presented to the reader in a detailed close-up through his mirror the first time that he gets to change his bandages himself. He describes it as such: “A crusted black track of stitches; my smooth young throat slashed and laced back up like a bloody boot. Surely this is not me. No, friend. It surely is” (Small 2009, 191). This scar, with everything it implies, becomes an aspect of his identity. Not gradually, not smoothly. Immediately and forcefully his identity has opened up to include a mark which will define him indefinitely. The image is visually exaggerated, presented with the intensity of a traumatic memory. The reader is given not only the information about the outcome of the surgery, but also the information of its impact on a psychological level. It is not the language used here, nor merely the visual presentation. It is the mixture of both, and the added interpretations that make this panel so forceful. 128

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David will find out that his cyst was actually cancer by accidentally reading a letter his mother has been writing to his grandmother. When the word “cancer” has been spoken, everything falls into place, but everything also falls apart. “Cancer” and all the associated mythology of cancer becomes a new identifying agent for David. The attempt to silently deal with this realization pulls him down. When he is confronted by his parents about his behaviour the illustration is forceful. The author is drawing himself, trying to express his anger and pain, demonstrating a mouthful of angry selves who try to speak, to scream, try to escape his damaged throat and articulate his confusion (Small 2009, 234; Figure 9.1). This is a portrait of an alternative identity. One he wishes he could have had, but he never had the opportunity to acquire. Instead, he whispers his first revolution: “What about you? Have you nothing to say to me?” (Small 2009, 235). His parents do not understand; they haven’t learned to expect a retort from

Figure 9.1 A portrait of an alternative identity. Featuring a mouthful of angry selves who try to speak, one from within the other, the author is trying to express his anger and pain. Excerpt(s) from Stitches: A Memoir p. 234. © 2009 David Small. Reprint by permission of W. W. Norton & Company and McClellan & Stewart, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. All rights reserved

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David. The crucial moment when he finally finds words to give an explanation is framed by the parents’ figures. They almost graphically suffocate David’s figure, when he murmurs, “About my cancer” (Small 2009, 236). This crucial moment is not handled with sympathy. The parents give a brief and harsh response, not even an explanation: “Well, the fact is, you did have cancer. But you didn’t need to know anything then … And you don’t need to know about it now. That’s final!” (Small 2009, 238). David is denied a decent explanation, as well as an apology. Soon after, at the age of fifteen, David gets into therapy. The importance of the character of the therapist is never shown in a direct way within the novel, but it is more than obvious by the way the author chooses to depict this person. The therapist is drawn as the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. The importance of Alice for this novel and its narrative structure has been pointed out before, and the reappearance of a character from this line of the story is a conscious act, which tells more than what is written between the panels. And what is written there is heavy already. “I’m going to tell you the truth” (Small 2009, 253), says the rabbit-doctor. “Your mother doesn’t love you. I’m sorry, David, it’s true. She doesn’t love you” (Small 2009, 255). The next scene is once again focused on the eyes, a technique frequently used in Small’s graphic style. The realization comes through a long stare. The psychoanalytic truth has been spoken, it is out there, and it is going to cause change, major identity change, and life-changes as well. The articulation of great truths (whether it is the objective truth or not, which is always irrelevant in terms of interpretation) stands out in memory and this pivotal moment repeats itself in the form of several intense incidents during the narration of the autobiography. Later in the story, David is invited to dinner by his father. During this dinner, he gets to hear his father’s confession about the way he had used the X-rays on him as a baby. “I gave you cancer” (Small 2009, 287), he hears, this being an attempt on behalf of the father to relieve himself from the burden, with little or no care about the impact this would have on his son. Still no apology is articulated. The realization comes to David through a series of portraits and close-ups which culminate into a double portrait of himself as a baby and as a teenager (himself at the present of the narration) (Figure 9.2). The beautiful and dashing innocence of the baby, as described earlier, intertwines with the tormented eyes of present David, re-establishing the conviction that what he is going through is something that had been done to him, something imposed onto him by the actions of others, their decisions ruining the perfection, innocence and beauty of the baby that he once was (Small 2009, 291). Michael Sheringham suggests that “a memory is a memento: a memorial to remind us – for the future – of what is no longer; a material substitute in place of what is absent” (1993, 313). This materiality is expressed through the text of the autobiography as a document that is bound to survive the 130

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Figure 9.2 The innocent past self and the tormented present of the narration, intertwined in a single image, juxtaposing two levels of reality and their obvious connections. Stitches: A Memoir, p. 291. © 2009 David Small. Reprint by permission of W. W. Norton & Company and McClellan & Stewart, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. All rights reserved

passage of time: “in saving experience from the ravages of time and in overcoming the discontinuity of past and present, memory turns anterior into interior and converts time into (inner) space” (Sheringham 1993, 289). Through the process of the autobiography the interior self is transferred into an exterior materiality, invoked into the text and brought forth into the world. The last scene we are discussing here is David standing next to his mother’s deathbed. Soon after the traumatic incident with his father’s revelations, at the age of sixteen David moves out and creates a life of his own, away from the stressful and painful reality of his parents’ home. At the age of thirty he receives news of his mother dying. When he arrives at the hospital, his mother is unable to speak, due to a medical tube down her throat, and David is voiceless as well, since he has been screaming in the car all the way from upstate New York to Detroit, in order to elevate the crippling pressure of his intended visit, which has 131

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deprived him of the little voice he had left after his operation. He can only touch her hand, caress her face and look her in the eye. A lonely tear coming from her may be the only sort of apology (or regret) he ever received. His mother dies that same night. In a 2014 paper Ilana Larkin points out how the character of the mother is presented with blank eyeglass lenses on most occasions throughout the novel. When this is not happening, the exception is of great significance. In her last moments, David’s mother is re-humanized, still wearing her glasses, but her eyes clearly visible through the lenses, conveying messages that were neither spoken nor otherwise expressed. This image casts doubt upon the therapist’s declaration that David was never loved by his mother, but it doesn’t contradict it necessarily. Everything up to this point in the memoir has been stages in a process. The process of writing the autobiography, constructing a script which then has to be put into words and into images, which will be revised and redrawn, and will undergo many alterations until the final product of the graphic novel is presented to the public. In this particular case the psychoanalytic approach is illuminating the stages of this construction through the visual medium, demonstrating how the creative approach followed by the author brings forth traces of his unconscious which can be perceived and interpreted anew by the reader.

Note 1 Which begins from but is not limited to Freud. An introductory chapter on psychoanalytic criticism allows space to focus only on Freudian criticism. Further study suggestions, however would include Post-Freudian Criticism, Carl Gustav Jung, Object-Relation Theory, Jacques Lacan and numerous more postmodern approaches to the subject.

Selected Bibliography Bruner, Jerome. 1993. “The Autobiographical Process.” In The Culture of Autobiography: Constructions of Self-Representation, edited by Robert Folkenflik, 38–56. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Dyehouse, Jeremiah. 2002. “Writing, Illness and Affirmation.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 35: 208–222. Elliott, Anthony. Subject to Ourselves: Social Theory, Psychoanalysis, and Postmodernity. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1996. Freud, Sigmund. 2006. Interpretation of Dreams. London: Penguin. Frosh, Stephen. Identity Crisis: Modernity, Psychoanalysis and the Self. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1991. Larkin, Ilana. 2014. “Absent Eyes, Bodily Trauma, and the Perils of Seeing in David Small’s Stitches.” American Imago 71 (Summer): 183–211.

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McCloud, Scott. 1993. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Northampton, MA: Kitchen Sink. Sheringham, Michael. 1993. French Autobiography: Devices and Desires: Rousseau to Perec. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Small, David. 2009. Stitches: A memoir. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Sontag, Susan. 1991. Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors. London: Penguin. Spicer, Jakki. 2005. “The Author Is Dead, Long Live the Author: Autobiography and the Fantasy of the Individual.” Criticism 47 (3): 387–403. Wright, Elizabeth. 2000. Psychoanalytic Criticism. Malden, MA: Polity Press.

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10 AUTOGRAPHICS Autographics and Miriam Katin’s We Are on Our Own and Letting It Go Andrew J. Kunka

Introduction Most studies of autobiographical comics (such as Chute 2008, 2010; Gardner 2008; El Refaie 2012) trace the genre back to the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, with Justin Green’s Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary (1972), as well as some of Robert Crumb’s earlier works and Aline Kominsky-Crumb’s “Goldie” and “Bunch” stories. However, strains of autobiography can be found throughout the history of the comics medium, dating back to early comic strips by creators like Winsor McKay and Bud Fisher and going through the advent of the comic book in the 1930s and 1940s (Kunka 2018a, 2018b). Since the publication of Art Spiegelman’s Maus I: My Father Bleeds History (1986), autobiographical comics have been at the forefront of Comics Studies scholarship (see Witek 1989), and such works as Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis (2004) and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home (2006) have achieved canonical status in the field, despite the desire of comics scholars to resist canon formation. In more recent years, Raina Telgemeier’s young adult graphic novels, Smile (2010) and Sisters (2014), are continuous best-sellers, inspiring another generation of creators to take up autobiographical comics. Among the recent examples of autobiographical comics, Mirian Katin’s We Are on Our Own (2006) and Letting It Go (2013) follow Spiegelman by focusing on Holocaust survivors and their children; however, in this case, unlike Spiegelman, Katin is the child survivor of the Holocaust.

Underlying Assumptions of the Approach Approaches to analyzing prose autobiography are frequently applied to autobiographical comics (see, for example, El Refaie 2012; Kunka 2018a), often with the result that the comics medium somehow challenges or even 134

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undermines common assumptions about the genre. Such analysis begins with Philip Lejeune’s (1989) “autobiographical pact,” which makes claims for the unity of the author, narrator, and protagonist in an autobiographical text (p. 22). That is, the reader assumes that the “I” telling the story of their experiences is the author of the work. However, one basic question demonstrates just how autobiographical comics can challenge fundamental assumptions about the genre: Who is the “I” or narrator in autobiographical comics? When we think of the “I” in prose autobiography, as with Lejeune’s “autobiographical pact,” we generally think of the first-person narrator through whom the events are focalized. However, El Refaie (2012), citing Herman (2011), breaks down the authorial self into three parts: “the real-life I (the author), the narrating I (the self who tells), and the experiencing I (the self told about)” (p. 53, original emphasis). In comics, therefore, these three components are clearly separate. The “narrating I”—the “eye” or camera through which we see the events unfold—is not the creator’s eyes or point of view (with some rare exceptions). The camera eye functions more like an objective, third-person narrator, and we see the “experiencing I” or autobiographical subject as a character in the story and as an avatar for the creator. Still, yet another “narrating I” can also function in graphic memoir: the retrospective narrator who speaks through caption boxes or other textual forms. This narrator is neither the “camera-I” who focalizes the story nor the “experiencing I” we see as the character in the story. This is instead the present-day version of the creator who is looking back on their experience, much like the firstperson narrator of a prose autobiography. Not all creators use such a narrator (for example, Jeffrey Brown doesn’t, nor does Miriam Katin in We Are on Our Own), but it is a fairly common storytelling technique. Therefore, comics fragment an authorial self that readers otherwise assume to be a unified, singular narrator in conventional prose autobiography. In fact, scholarship on autobiographical comics has developed the convention of applying separate names to the creator and subject. The creator of the work is usually referred to by last name (Katin), while the first name (Miriam) is used for the narrative’s protagonist or subject. While this is a practical convention used to avoid confusion between creator and subject, it also emphasizes that a distinction needs to be made between the two even if they are essentially the same person. Gillian Whitlock (2006) first coined the term “autographics” as applied to graphic memoir “to draw attention to the specific conjunctions of visual and verbal text in the genre of autobiography, and also to the subject positions that narrators negotiate in and through comics” (p. 966). However, autographics is not limited to comics, but instead covers any autobiographical work that combines both visual and verbal elements, like social media posts, zines, children’s illustrated books, multimedia presentations, and so on. As Whitlock and Poletti (2008) explain, autographics “indicat[es] from 135

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the first its attention to the multiple modes and media of autobiographical texts, and to the tensions between ‘auto’ and ‘graph’ in the rapidly changing visual and textual cultures of autobiography” (p. v). By this definition, then, the “auto” or self who creates the visual and verbal components of the work can be referred to as the “autographer.” Autobiography in comics lends itself to a variety of critical approaches, but none more prevalent than trauma theory (Chute 2008, 2010). Gardner (2008) argues that comics autobiography “allow[s] the autographer to be both victim of trauma and detached observer” (p. 12). That is, creators may be relating their own personal traumatic experiences, but they are drawing and narrating them from a more distant perspective, imagining how a “detached observer” would view the proceedings. This is a unique function of comics, and Chute (2010) highlights it more when she argues that the comics medium has elements that make it particularly suited to reveal traumatic experiences and render them visible: “graphic narrative, invested in the ethics of testimony, assumes what I think of as the risk of representation” (p. 3, emphasis original). Trauma studies in general tends to focus on traumatic experiences as unspeakable or unrepresentable, but Chute shows that comics do the opposite, and that there is an ethical component to such representation. Of course, not all autographers reveal the graphic details of their traumatic experiences—many put such scenes outside the panel border, for one—but Chute highlights that creators have an ethical choice to show or not show. In addition, comics, by their very nature, are fragmented into panels, and that element can often be used to show the fragmentation of traumatic memory, another common topic of trauma studies. Much of the analysis of autobiographical comics comes down to the available choices that creators have to tell their stories, and some of these choices veer widely from those available in prose autobiography. While all autobiographers have the license to fudge details, compress timelines, or merge characters to allow for more streamlined and effective storytelling, autographers have considerably more flexibility with the truth. The very formal properties of comics always already place the works in precarious relation to the truth. The narrative is mediated through the artist’s subjectivity and style—they make choices about their avatars, for example, which can never look exactly like them in the way that, say, an author photo can. And comics can also foreground questions about truthfulness and veracity. As El Refaie (2012) explains, “some graphic memoirists are much more interested in reflecting their feelings toward their own past in an authentic manner than in claiming to portray the ‘absolute truth’” (p. 44). This distinction involves favoring a kind of “emotional truth” that can sometimes be at odds with verifiable facts or a visually realistic style. Autobiographical comics creators also often foreground the act of creation—that is, the artist shows the work of creating the comics that the audience is reading. Doing so allows the artist to present the choices that go 136

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into the creative process: that often the creator must make creative decisions that can call into question the veracity of the events depicted. Spiegelman does this in the second volume of Maus (1991), where he shows how the success of the first volume has raised serious moral questions about his project and his profiting from the Holocaust. He depicts himself wearing a mouse mask and sitting at his drawing board, which is positioned at the top of a pile of dead bodies. This is not, of course, meant to be a literal image, but instead a figurative representation of how Spiegelman feels that he has built his career on the bodies of millions of murdered Jews. In many cases, foregrounding the act of creation lends a kind of authenticity or credibility to the work and the artist: they are being transparent about the creative process and the mediated nature of autobiography. Charles Hatfield (2005) refers to this concept as “ironic authentication” (p. 125): that autobiographical comics demonstrate authenticity by acknowledging that the “truth” as they present it is a construction, and something like total truthfulness is impossible.

Appropriate Artifacts for Analysis At first glance, one might assume it is easy to spot an autobiographical comic. Usually, some paratextual information will identify it even before we start to read the book: a front cover that identifies the work as a “memoir,” a blurb on the back cover, the book’s location in a bookstore or its categorization in a library or online bookseller, or a review. Once we open the book, we can identify conventions of the genre at work: most notably, is there a character that shares the same name as the creator and/or resembles them? In such cases, a clear, unequivocal generic identification signals that the work can be analyzed as an autobiography. However, many works function on the fringes of the genre and may not be so easily identified. Sometimes, a creator will take on an “autobiographical persona” who has a different name, like Justin Green’s Binky Brown and Phoebe Gloeckner’s Minnie Goetze. In other cases, a creator will put their autobiographical persona in clearly fictional settings, as when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby tried to crash Sue Storm and Reed Richards’s wedding in Fantastic Four Annual 3 (1965). The comics medium offers creators many different opportunities to challenge conventions of autobiography, leading readers to rethink their expectations about both autobiography and comics.

Procedures for Analysis In general, autographics looks at the unique aspects of the image/text relationships in comics and demonstrates their function in life writing. As is evident in Whitlock’s (2006) definition of “autographics,” comics most often apply visual and verbal elements to a narrative (or image/text), so an 137

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obvious way to analyze autobiographical comics would be to break down those various elements and demonstrate how they perform specific, even unique, functions in the genre. Such elements can include the artists’ drawing style (especially in the way that they depict themselves), page and panel layouts, coloring, lettering, and so on. Not all of these elements will factor into every analysis of autobiographical comics, but very often a creator will choose innovative or experimental approaches to one or all of them, and all can have an impact on the reader’s experience of the narrative. The creator’s narrative choices come into play here as well. Does the story follow a linear, chronological pattern, or does it move backward and forward in time? How does the creator cue the reader regarding time shifts? What does a creator choose to show or not show in the narrative? Was the work created retrospectively or currently as the events were unfolding (like a diary)? Finally, autographics can include the “materiality” of comics. For example, the way in which the work was published can be important to its interpretation. Was it published in comic book form (the saddle-stitched “pamphlet”) or in the graphic novel (squarebound) format? Was it published serially or as a single book? Was it published in multiple formats (such as serial-to-collection)? If so, how do the different formats affect the reading experience? Were changes made between formats? What choices went into the book’s design? Was the comic self-published by the creator? Was the work a web comic? These are all questions that can affect the experience of any comics, but they can be specifically relevant to autobiography. For example, a creator may publish a webcomic diary, documenting their life on a regular basis, giving the reader a sense of immediacy, with the events unfolding before their eyes rather than following a contained, predetermined narrative.

Artifacts Selected for Sample Analysis Miriam Katin’s We Are on Our Own and Letting It Go work particularly well to demonstrate some of the unique features of autobiographical comics. The two function as companion pieces: the former is referenced frequently in the latter, and we see the impact of her creative success with We Are on Our Own on Miriam’s life. Most important, Letting It Go reveals Katin’s unresolved trauma as a Holocaust survivor and shows her struggle to find such a resolution. We Are on Our Own documents two-year-old Miriam’s (named “Lisa” in the story) escape with her mother from Nazi-occupied Hungary in 1944–1945, and the ultimate, against-all-odds reunion with her father at the war’s conclusion. Letting It Go takes place between 2007 and 2010, as Miriam’s son, Ilan, decides to move to Berlin with his girlfriend, Tinet. This plan triggers Miriam’s unresolved childhood trauma, as she associates 138

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everything German with the Holocaust. The memoir, then, follows the path of her reconciliation with her traumatic past, which readers should know about from the former work. Both works foreground many of the creative choices that the autographer has available, and these choices lend themselves to analysis in a way that can be applied to other autobiographical comics. In addition, Letting It Go is partially about the creation of an autobiographical comic, as Miriam struggles to make a narrative about events that she is currently experiencing.

Sample Analysis Katin, Miriam. 2006. We Are on Our Own. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly. Katin, Miriam. 2013. Letting It Go. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly. In comparing We Are on Our Own and Letting It Go, the former appears to be a straightforward comics narrative: mostly black and white with clearly delineated panels. It tells a primarily linear narrative about a mother and daughter’s escape from Nazi-occupied Hungary, and it concludes with the mother and father reuniting at the war’s end. As Katin told Yevgeniya Traps in a 2013 interview, “The first book stood on its own, a story from A to Z, a start and a finish.” Another, more famous Holocaust graphic memoir—Art Spiegelman’s Maus (1986 and 1991)—features Art interviewing his father about his Holocaust experience as a part of the research process, and the narrative moves back and forth between the memories and the interview. That research process, and how it reveals the strained father/son relationship, is a vital part of the memoir. Katin leaves that research process out, which may not seem remarkable unless contrasted with Maus. Instead, she closes the narrative with a brief statement about her source material: a real sense of myself as a small child and the reality of the fear and confusion of those times I could understand only by reading the last few letters and postcards my mother had written to my father. They survived the war with him. (p. 125) Those letters gave Katin access to the immediate emotional truth of the experience because her own fear and confusion was lost in her childhood memory. As such, the narrative feels self-contained, perhaps misleadingly so. The final two pages of the memoir show Lisa crawling under the dining room table to play with her toys. One might expect this scene to reveal a return to childhood normalcy. However, Lisa’s play becomes immediately violent: she pretends a ball is a bomb dropped from an airplane, landing on her doll (p. 120). A male figure becomes a “bad soldier” and a stuffed dog represents a dead dog from earlier in the narrative. Finally, Lisa takes a fork and violently stabs the

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male doll. The images appear frenetic and hastily sketched as the fork extends outside of the panel borders and the doll’s head cannot be contained within the panel. These images signal that the story does not have the neat resolution one might expect with the family reunion. The violence and trauma that is imprinted on Lisa’s psyche will continue past the story’s end. The book signals the reader to think of it as a children’s story even before they open the book. The front and back covers are constructed from the thick cardboard material common to children’s “board books.” By using this material, the publisher (Drawn + Quarterly) sets up expectations that become ironic as the memoir progresses: while it is a child’s story, the final scene reveals how the traumatic experience causes a loss of childhood innocence that the board book symbolizes. Almost the entire book is black and white—more accurately a gray, graphite tone from Katin’s pencil-only art. However, moments of color appear that call attention to its use because they stand out so obviously and, therefore, demand an interpretation of their purpose. The special use of color is evident before the reader even opens the book. The cover image—a version of which also appears on page 47—depicts two panels: one with a red Nazi flag on the ground and another with a red Soviet flag flying overhead as a mother and daughter walk beneath it (the image on 47 does not contain the human figures). The book’s title and the author byline (“A Memoir by Miriam Katin”) are also in red on a black background. This sets up a color motif in the book, where red, in the form of the two flags, represents the oppressive governments that threaten Lisa and her mother throughout. This motif is most fully realized on page 5, where six panels repeat the same canted image of a double-paned window. At first, hints of a blue sky peek out over the buildings. In each succeeding panel, a red Nazi flag covers more and more of the window until the black swastika has almost taken over the entire frame. The text on the page reads, “And then one day, God replaced the light with the darkness” (p. 5). The absence of color throughout the narrative, then, symbolizes the darkness imposed by the oppressive and genocidal Nazi regime. The brief color flashforwards also anticipate this ending. In these, Katin shows Lisa just after giving birth to her son and later caring for him as a toddler (Letting It Go shows her son’s birth, by Caesarean section). The pastel color scheme seems to indicate that the darkness of the Holocaust is past. However, the dialogue ironically undercuts that sense. The adult Lisa, now a parent, feels peace at the birth of her son, but it is only a temporary peace: “Everyone seems so calm and secure // One can almost believe that it can last” (p. 6). Later, her toddler son destroys a block village that they made together (p. 63), duplicating Lisa’s violent play at a similar age and showing that the trauma of the Holocaust has crossed generational lines. In addition, throughout the memoir, moments of violence and panic appear chaotic, with panel borders breaking down or disappearing and 140

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Katin’s style becoming sketchy and abstract, as if hastily drawn. Pencil lines that are thin and fine in other places become thick and rough, as if the side of the pencil has been scraped on the page. In one scene, an aerial bombing awakens Lisa while she’s sleeping in a farmhouse, and Katin depicts this scene through four images of Lisa quickly sitting up and covering her ears, but with no panel borders separating each of the images (p. 48). Above her head, sound effects of “Boom!” and “Crash!!” explode, setting up Lisa’s re-enactment of the experience with her dolls at the end. The penciling also gives the impression that the work, like the work of trauma, is unfinished. The most common steps of comics production include an inking stage over the pencils, which doesn’t happen here. So, despite the sense of narrative closure found in the family’s reunion, Katin’s style, including her choice of drawing instrument and the color flashforwards, hints that the trauma remains unresolved in the end. So, Katin sets up several motifs in We Are on Our Own through color, panel borders, and a penciling style that impact the reader’s experience of the narrative. These motifs are then recalled in Letting It Go, which uses bright colors and almost no panel borders throughout. These differences highlight the different narrative approaches that Katin chose for each work. We Are on Our Own is told retrospectively, the narrative gathered from her parents’ memories, as Katin was too young to remember the events. Therefore, most of the narrative is contained within solid panel borders, with moments of chaos and violence breaking those borders. However, with Letting It Go, Katin creates the memoir as the events happen, and so the lack of panel borders and the combination of colored pencils with a more abstract style give a sense of immediacy, of events unfolding in real time. Katin describes her creative process, where she didn’t plan a story or even page layouts, but instead just began to draw spontaneously: “What happened was, as I said, this was written in real time, with an enormous amount of emotion and pressure and a lot of sort of hatred. I didn’t have the patience for ink or watercolor,” though she did try, at the beginning, to use traditional panel layouts (Traps 2013). Katin does, however, return to dark pencils and panel borders at times when she flashes back to the war, as with the story of Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese Vice-Consul in Lithuania, who used his authority to issue Japanese visas in order to save 6000 Jews. Other moments show scenes from wartime Germany in the same black-and-white, pencil style. Mihăilescu (2015) describes these shifts to black and white as “a way to prove how the artist’s view of Germany has kept the location frozen in time, at the level of World War II events” (p. 157). These moments also make the reader recall the earlier work and show the continuity between the two books, just as We Are on Our Own’s color flashforwards set up the postwar world of Letting It Go. As with We Are on Our Own, pencils make Letting It Go appear unfinished, but colored pencils also seem more immediate: coloring, normally 141

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a separate step later in the comics production process, happens simultaneously with the penciling instead. Early on, Katin highlights the challenges of immediacy, in a page with four horizontal panels containing repeated static images of the New York skyline and East River as a tugboat pulls a cargo ship across the panels: “So, where does a story begin? // And if you are inside that story right now, // in that situation and it hurts and say you can draw, // then you must try and draw yourself out of it” (n.p.). This contrast between the retrospective and the immediate in the two works can even be seen in the fact that We Are on Our Own is paginated throughout, and Letting It Go is not. With an unpaginated book, a reader could feel unanchored to the book’s progression by not knowing exactly how far along they’ve read or how much is left. This inside/outside distinction plays out in a key moment in the story where we see an event and then we see Miriam talking about how she wants to represent that event. While in Berlin for the first time, Miriam and her husband, Geoff, visit the Neue Synagoge museum. There, visitors must empty their pockets and place jewelry in a tray to leave with security. After exiting the museum, Geoff realizes that he doesn’t have his wedding ring, and he can’t find it when he goes back. At the bus station just before they depart, Geoff tells the story of the lost ring, only to have the ring miraculously fly out of his jacket pocket. What may be just a mildly diverting anecdote turns into something more significant a few pages later, when Miriam talks to her son, Ilan, about the memoir she is working on. She explains that, in her version, Geoff won’t find the ring: “It will be meaner that way. I want it as nasty as possible” (n. p.). Ilan objects: “But Mom, lying about the ring conveys this idea that we should continue to hold our prejudices based on history and not based on direct experience. We know you had a nice time in Berlin” (n.p.). Katin’s refusal to tell the story as it happened reflects her desire to give her memoir the “emotional truth” of her persistent anger toward Germany. She doesn’t want to give Germany the satisfaction of or credit for a happy ending. However, we already know that she tells the truth and shows that the ring is found. Somewhere, between the conversation with her son and the completion of the memoir, Miriam decides to follow her son’s advice and tell the truth, yet Katin does not include the moment of epiphany when that decision occurred. That absence creates an interesting slippage between the graphic memoir Miriam creates in the story and the version we are reading. It also reveals that the emotional truth of the memoir has shifted from resentment to acceptance—she lets Germany have its happy ending. Letting It Go also contains fantasy elements that wouldn’t have appeared in the earlier work and may seem out of place in a nonfiction memoir. For example, early in the memoir, Miriam finds many distractions preventing her from working, including her husband’s music practice, which is represented by tangible musical notes that pound on her head. At another point, 142

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Katin shows birds in conversation outside of her apartment window. Later, in Miriam’s final visit to Berlin, she is bitten by a bedbug infestation in her hotel room. As she and Geoff leave, two bedbugs with hats, umbrellas, and suitcases also exit the hotel and discuss Miriam: “She said she will never come back to Berlin.” “Her blood will be all over the city. That will call her back.” “Who was sent with her?” “Klaus und Mønica.” “Lucky bastard.” (n.p.) The bedbugs provide the book’s moral in its final moments: Miriam has left some of herself behind in Berlin, and she is also taking Berlin with her. However, this moral is presented with some ambivalence. She had a triumphant visit to Berlin, where original pages from her comics were displayed in a gallery show, but that triumph was marred by the fact that she constantly itched from the bedbug bites. She may have left something of herself behind in Berlin, but only because of the pain and aggravation caused by the insects. And since two bedbugs are stowing away in her luggage, the bit of Berlin that she’s taking with her will be the cause of further irritation. The bedbugs offer a clear moment where Katin has sacrificed a literal truth for an emotional one. “I left something of myself behind” is a kind of cliché; the bedbugs complicate the cliché’s sentimentality. Miriam has not entirely resolved her negative feelings toward Germany in the end, but her anger over Ilan’s move to Berlin has, at least, sated. Comics, therefore, can visualize figurative or symbolic elements that don’t conform to verifiable realism but nonetheless enrich the reader’s experience of the memoir. Letting It Go has many other moments where Katin deploys innovative and creative strategies to reveal her complicated relationship with Germany. Overall, though, this memoir showcases a variety of artistic practices that take advantage of the strengths and conventions of the comics medium. Together, We Are on Our Own and Letting It Go offer readers a way to see how the varied visual and verbal elements of comics like color, style, lettering, page layouts, panel borders, choice of drawing instruments, and so on contribute to autobiographical storytelling, especially in the communication of “emotional truths” that make autobiography such a significant genre in comics.

Selected Bibliography Bechdel, Alison. 2006. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. Boston: Mariner. Chute, Hillary L. 2008. “Comics as Literature? Reading Graphic Narrative.” PMLA 123, no. 2 (Mar.): 452–465. https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2008.123.2.452. Chute, Hillary L. 2010. Graphic Women: Life Narrative and Contemporary Comics. New York: Columbia University Press.

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El Refaie, Elisabeth. 2012. Autobiographical Comics: Life Writing in Pictures. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. Gardner, Jared. 2008. “Autography’s Biography, 1972–2007.” Biography 31, no. 1 (Winter): 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1353/bio.0.0003. Green, Justin. 1972. Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary. San Francisco: Last Gasp. Hatfield, Charles. 2005. Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. Herman, David. 2011. “Narrative Worldmaking in Graphic Life Writing.” In Graphic Subjects: Critical Essays on Autobiography and Graphic Novels, edited by Michael Chaney, 231–243. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Katin, Miriam. 2006. We Are on Our Own. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly. Katin, Miriam. 2013. Letting It Go. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly. Kunka, Andrew. 2018a. Autobiographical Comics. Bloomsbury Comics Studies Series. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Kunka, Andrew. 2018b. “Cranky Bosses, Rebellious Characters, and Suicidal Artists: Scribbly, Inkie, and Pre-Underground Autobiographical Comics.” In Comics Studies: Here and Now. Routledge Advances in Comics Studies, edited by Frederick Luis Aldama, 44–56. London: Routledge. Lejeune, Philip. 1989. On Autobiography. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Mihăilescu, Dana. 2015. “Haunting Spectres of World War II Memories from a Transgenerational Ethical Perspective in Miriam Katin’s We Are on Our Own and Letting It Go.” Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 6, no. 2 (June): 154–171. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21504857.2015.1027940. Satrapi, Marjane. 2004. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood. New York: Pantheon. Spiegelman, Art. 1986. Maus I: My Father Bleeds History. New York: Pantheon. Spiegelman, Art. 1991. Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began. New York: Pantheon. Telgemaier, Raina. 2010. Smile. New York: Scholastic. Telgemaier, Raina. 2014. Sisters. New York: Scholastic. Traps, Yevgeniya. 2013. “An Enormous Amount of Pictures: In the Studio with Miriam Katin.” Paris Review, April 18. www.theparisreview.org/blog/2013/04/18/ an-enormous-amount-of-pictures-in-the-studio-with-miriam-katin/. Whitlock, Gillian. 2006. “Autographics: The Seeing ‘I’ of the Comics.” Modern Fiction Studies 52, no. 4 (Winter): 965–979. https://doi.org/ 10.1353/mfs.2007.0013. Whitlock, Gillian, and Anna Poletti. 2008. “Self-Regarding Art.” Biography 31, no. 1 (Winter): v–xxiii. Witek, Joseph. 1989. Comic Books as History: The Narrative Art of Jack Jackson, Art Spiegelman, and Harvey Pekar. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

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11 LINGUISTICS Comics Conversations as Data in Swedish Comic Strips Kristy Beers Fägersten

Introduction In his seminal work Understanding Comics (McCloud 1993), Scott McCloud identified six different types of panel transitions that occur in comic strips and even serve to characterize specific genres of comics. These panel transitions include: 1) moment-to-moment, 2) action-to-action, 3) subject-to-subject, 4) scene-to-scene, 5) aspect-to-aspect, and 6) non-sequitur transitions (4). Most American, European, and Japanese comic strips (as surveyed by McCloud 1993, 6–77) make use of transitions 2, 3, and 4, which highlight variation in action, subjects, or scenes. It follows, then, that images in comics tend to be many and varied, and it is also often the images that do the bulk of work in progressing the comic’s narrative. Images have thus traditionally been assigned greater significance than text in comics, and, unsurprisingly, they tend to be the target of most scholarly analysis. This chapter, however, shifts the focus to comics texts, as it explores comic strips which are characterized by both an over-representation of the seemingly rare moment-to-moment panel transition and a correlated preponderance of text in the form of character dialog. Moment-to-moment panel transitions show only subtle manipulations or even no differences at all between panels, resulting in a deliberate minimizing and marginalization of the depiction of physical action or changes in setting. The visual aspect of such transitions reflects less of an effort to move the narrative through time and space but rather serves to linger on one moment only. When there is little to no change between panels in the action, subject, or setting depicted, images become static and put fewer demands on the reader who, instead, can direct her attention to the comics text. Moment-to-moment panel transitions may thus be a predictable consequence of a desire to exploit the resources of the comics medium to make the text all the more salient and significant. In other words, there may be a correlation between moment-to-moment panel transitions and dialog-dense comics, whereby the text more so than the 145

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Figure 11.1 Speech balloons in Rocky #2948 (2013), Martin Kellerman © Kartago Förlag

image progresses the narrative. This can be seen in the Swedish newspaper strip, Martin Kellerman’s Rocky (1998–2018), where the moment-to-moment panel transitions establish a super-ordinance of text over image, which is quite literally represented by speech balloons that obscure the illustrations, as in Figure 11.1. As additional examples from Rocky and another Swedish newspaper comic strip included in this chapter will show, text in the form of character conversations is foregrounded. This is achieved by moment-to-moment panel transitions occurring not only over several panels, but also throughout several strips over a series of days. The term “prolonged moment panel transitions” (PMPTs) is suggested to refer to such multi-panel, moment-to-moment transitions, as illustrated above, and to a greater extent in Figure 11.2. In these example comics, an over-representation of moment-to-moment and prolonged moment panel transitions enables attention to be paid—by both artist and reader—to dialog, especially with regards to the conventions and mechanics of face-to-face conversation. There is, however, currently little to no established practice within comics scholarship of analysis of conversation in comics texts. With the ultimate aim of promoting linguistic research in comics scholarship, this chapter proposes that conversation analysis (CA), as the study of ordinary conversation as social action, can provide a framework for investigating comics in which resources are saliently exploited to foreground talk-in-interaction.

Underlying Assumptions of the Approach The tradition of focusing on image in comics is reflected in definitions of the medium, such as that of McCloud (1993, 9), whereby “juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer” helps to establish the pre-eminence of image by omitting any mention of text. This focus on the pictorial aspects of comic strips echoes Eisner’s (1985) definition of comics as “sequential art”, which in turn is reminiscent of Kunzle (1973, 2), whose definition includes

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Figure 11.2 Prolonged moment panel transitions in Rocky strips #3436, #3437, #3438 (2013), Martin Kellerman © Kartago Förlag

a “sequence of separate images” and a “preponderance of image over text.” Accordingly, even current scholars and theorists either seek to understand text only in relation to image (Bateman 2014, Cohn 2013, Magnussen 2000, Saraceni 2003, Varnums & Gibbons 2001), or outright privilege the image (Duncan 2012, Lefèvre 2009, Magnussen 2000), thereby aligning with Groensteen’s (2007, 8) assertion of its superiority, since, “except on rare occasions, in comics [the image] occupies a more important space than that which is reserved for writing.” However, as this chapter demonstrates, a number of contemporary Swedish comic strips challenge this assertion of rarity and, in so doing, establish the necessity of an apparatus that can account for the primacy of text in (some) comics. The inclusion of linguistic analysis in comics scholarship remediates the marginalization of text. The approach outlined in this chapter does not, however, aim to reduce the critical role of image in comics, but rather showcases image as a vehicle for foregrounding textual content. 147

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Another assumption critical to moving forward with an application of conversation analysis to comic strip texts is the relevance of panel relationships. While McCloud’s panel transition paradigm has been subject to criticism (see Cohn 2010, 2013), it nevertheless does acknowledge the sequential nature of comic strips and the role of panels in story progression. According to convention, much more actually happens in comics than that which is depicted in the panels. It is the space between panels, known as the gutter, that allows (or rather, requires) the reader to determine what has transpired between them. This process is known as closure, which McCloud defines as “the phenomenon of observing the parts but perceiving the whole” (1993, 63). The more progression in time and space from one panel to another, the greater the need for the reader to provide closure. Many comics thus put a demand on readers to be highly involved to perform closure work, so as to allow for potentially rapid story progression or dynamic story arcs based on recurring changes in action, scene, or subject. Moment-to-moment panel transitions require very little closure (McCloud 1993, 70) since little to nothing actually happens other than what is depicted. The over-representation of moment-to-moment panel transitions in contemporary Swedish comics is the result of general, cross-strip focus on foregrounding dialog. The time which elapses in one comic strip is equivalent to the amount of time it takes to speak or read the dialog. Prolonged moment-to-moment panel transitions not only make possible the “real-time” depiction of continuous, face-to-face conversation, but also serve to attribute importance to any minor changes in image that do occur between panels, signaling these as significant to the conversational structure. Finally, this chapter operates under the assumption that conversation analysis (CA) can be applied to comics texts. Essentially, CA is a set of methods for describing and understanding how people manage their own and others’ contributions to talk-in-interaction. As the name indicates, the object of analysis is conversation, which in CA equates to natural, unscripted, spontaneous talk-ininteraction. The conversation to be subjected to analysis is first audio- or videorecorded and then carefully transcribed to include both verbal and non-verbal details; both the process and the product of transcription are central to CA. In this chapter, I propose that comic strips “do the work” of transcribing by employing the affordances and resources of the medium to depict both verbal and non-verbal details of conversation. For this reason, the underlying assumption of applying CA to comic strips is that they represent “recordings” of conversation that are amenable to transcription and subsequent analysis.

Procedures for Analysis Based on the work of Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson (1974), Sacks (1995) and Schegloff (2007), conversation analysis focuses on conversation as social action, maintaining that life experiences are shared primarily through talk, and that “ordinary conversation is the default version of talk” (Gardner 148

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2008, 264). Conversation analysis is thus concerned with determining and explicating the strategies people use to interact in conversation, including contributing their own input and making sense of others’ contributions. One reason for applying CA methodology to comics is thus to explore the variety of techniques employed to represent dialog as authentic conversation. In this regard, the guiding investigative question is: How are the affordances of the comics medium exploited to represent features of face-toface conversation? To answer this question, comics texts must be transcribed using a system of notation, such as in Table 11.1.1 Transcription aims to capture the structure, sequence, and sound of talk, making visible the practices of participating in and managing talk-in-interaction. Broad conversational phenomena such as interrupting, overlapping, or sequencing of turn-taking can be conveyed via general conventions of ballooning, lettering, and spelling, which can also represent nuances such as non-standard

Table 11.1 CA notation system for transcription Symbol

Description

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