Studies in Comics - Current Issue

This article examines fascinating, yet not widely researched, forms of graphic storytelling located at the intersection of comics studies, feminism, autobiography and the medical humanities, namely comics devoted to pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood. I focus on two contemporary Polish autobiographical comic books, Agata Nowicka’s Projekt: Człowiek (‘Project: A human being’) (2006) and Olga Wróbel’s Ciemna Strona Księżyca (‘The dark side of the moon’) (2014). Torn between their roles as ‘bodies’ and their personal and professional aspirations and needs, both authors visually conceptualize their pregnant selves as unstable, multiple and serial. They document and reflect on their state, trying to negotiate their subjectivity in and through the medium of comics. Nowicka conceptualizes her pregnancy as a ‘project’, something she will complete within a specified period of time. The metaphor of the project is bittersweet. On the one hand, it points to the excitement associated with completing a creative task – something that reinforces her role as a creator. On the other hand, it also points to the insecurities and fears associated with being a freelance artist (i.e. lack of social and financial security during and after pregnancy). Respectively, Wróbel attempts to draw ‘the dark side of the moon’, the dark side of her pregnancy, including weight gain, haemorrhoids, skin problems, anxiety and depression. Indirectly, both comics also engage in sociopolitical critique, commenting on/representing the experience of childbirth in Poland.

This article examines Drawing Power, a collection of autobiographical comics about ‘sexual violence, harassment, and survival’, with contributions from more than sixty comics creators from a variety of racial, sexual, cultural and social backgrounds, edited by American underground cartoonist Diane Noomin and published by Abrams Comic Arts in 2019. I argue that the accumulation of stories from Drawing Power seems to rely on a logic of familiarity – as the attackers are familiar figures such as family members, friends, neighbours and co-workers, who assault women in familiar environments such as the home or the workplace in dishearteningly similar ways – that counters the potential risk of inadvertently suggesting that such acts are inevitable and unpreventable. Against this background, a few stories introduce self-representations of the survivors of sexual assault as monstrous figures, while perpetrators remain ordinary people whose deeds are often facilitated by either social complacency or complicity. This article examines the effects of the conjunction of the familiar and the monstrous in the context of several testimonies about sexual violence. For this purpose, I am in conversation with feminist scholarship on the gendering of violence and intimacy, with work on how perpetration is facilitated by ‘implicated subjects’, as well as scholarship on monstrosity and femininity.

Percy Bertolini’s Da sola (‘alone’) (2021) depicts a non-conforming, pink-furred, fluorescent-jumpsuit-wearing protagonist roaming the streets of a dystopian brutalist city in the course of a night. The narrative starts with the main character’s escape from a mental health facility, and it continues by depicting their constant attempt to avoid being institutionalized. Alongside the powerful images created by Bertolini, the graphic novel intermixes the panels with quotes from Vaslav Nijinsky’s diaries about his own mental health struggles. The article investigates how the graphic novel depicts the marginalization and loneliness of individuals who are excluded from the cisheteropatriarchal society in which they live through its representation of the graphic novel’s main character and Nijinsky. Furthermore, the article analyses how Da sola challenges this ostracization; through scenes of unruly dancing, the graphic novel creates a community between queer individuals, beyond the limits of time and space, to the point of including Bertolini as well. Finally, as this community supports Da sola’s main character, the article argues that the graphic novel promotes a form of queer unmaking of normative societal structures, in order to liberate the main character and to foster a new society.

This article pays attention to gentrification, race and gender in the work of Ezra Daniels and Ben Passmore, as well as the specific forms of ‘erasure’ that connect these themes in their work. The erasure of identity that stems from racial, economic and gender disparity – the processes of marginalization that affect non-white voices and identities through logics of white supremacy and cultural appropriation – have been abiding themes of these artists. Reading Passmore’s and Daniels’s approach to these themes as part of a longer history of black comics activism, their work (like 2019’s BTTM FDRS) can be seen as an example of an ‘intersectional’ urban conscience, one that is mindful of the underrepresented history of black women’s participation in urban struggle (whether in the form of direct action or the production of graphic media), and how this participation is a key nexus in the web that connects race and gender with the problem of gentrification.

This publication features a creative presentation of findings from interviews conducted with Barbara Brandon-Croft, the first African American woman to have a nationally syndicated newspaper comic strip in the United States, Where I’m Coming From (1989–2005). This article begins with an introduction to the historical contributions of women and Black American cartoonists. Afterward, it presents a detailed overview of (Barbara’s father) Brumsic Brandon, Jr.’s works as an activist, animator, cartoonist and television personality on numerous concurrent projects. Next, a similar review of Barbara Brandon-Croft’s accomplishments is offered. These results are part of a study that answers the following research questions: (1) how do stereotypes influence social interactions and communications amongst media industry professionals and stakeholders? (2) How have the social experiences, professional training and educational backgrounds of media industry professionals informed the choices they make in their specific roles within the media industry? The feature comic focuses on findings about Barbara’s formative years and incorporates them into the narrative and illustrations. It serves as a preview of a graphic history book project that focuses on early moments in cartoonists’ lives. This book will illustrate the backstories that changed each cartoonist’s subjective world-view. It will reveal how these pivotal moments caused them to form beliefs that influence their reactions to stereotypes, their choice to tackle or avoid stereotypes and their decisions concerning how to use or portray stereotypes in their media projects.

Dr Anna F. Peppard is an award-winning researcher and public scholar. Her work on representations of gender and sexuality in comics and pop culture is widely published in academic books and journals and on websites such as Shelfdust, Women Write about Comics and ComicsXF. She is the co-project lead of the social media research project ‘Sequential Scholars’, co-host of the podcast Oh Gosh, Oh Golly, Oh Wow! and editor of the anthology Supersex: Sexuality, Fantasy, and the Superhero, which won the 2021 Comics Studies Society Prize for Best Edited Collection. In this interview, Dr Peppard talks about her public scholarship, the sexiness (and sexism) of comics and the importance of disrupting the gaze. The conversation explores her thoughts on key themes relevant to this issue, including the presence of empathy in comics, the importance of fandom and public scholarship and the ethics of representation. Julia and Anna spoke on Zoom on Friday 15 March 2024; this transcript has been edited for length and clarity.