Bodies and Boundaries in Graphic Fiction - Reading Female and Nonbinary Characters

Bodies and Boundaries in Graphic Fiction - Reading Female and Nonbinary Characters

Published: 29-07-2022

Original publication: 0000

Pages: 168

Rating: 5

Language: en

eBook status: Skipped   AudioBook status: Skipped

ISBN: 9781000612769

Sources

SourceIDLink
GoodReads 60191339 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60191339
Amazon B0B3KGC3HH https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B3KGC3HH

Description

This book examines the fictional female bodies of four stylistically distinct comics artists in the US--Chris Ware, Emil Ferris, Ebony Flowers, and Tillie Walden--whose work has attracted significant attention. These bodies showcase how comics and its unique visual language can both critique and re-envision some of the most challenging social issues of our time.



The characters analyzed in this book illustrate diverse techniques for projecting the complex humanity and truth of US women's unruly bodies onto a two-dimensional page. All of the protagonists qualify as outsider in some way, whether by gender identity, sexuality, ability, religion, race, class, ethnicity, age, or a combination of these and other categories. These bodily expressions of outsider identity both resist traditional categorization and stereotypes, and sometimes harness and employ those stereotypes for the purposes of parody or social critique. The language of comics affords a unique opportunity for complex representation of these disparate women's bodies, especially when comics artists use the full range of tools at their disposal, such as style, materials, narrative direction, the space of the gutter, and the friction between word and image.



This is an a timely and important intervention suitable for researchers and students in comics studies, gender studies, literature and queer studies.