Representation and memory in graphic novels

209 Pages·2019·15.592 MB·English

by  Golnar Nabizadeh

Representation and Memory in Graphic
Novels
This book analyses the relationship between comics and cultural memory. By
focussing on a range of landmark comics from the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries,thediscussiondrawsattentiontotheongoingroleofvisualculturein
framing testimony, particularly in relation to underprivileged subjects such as
migrantsandrefugees,individualsdealingwithwarandoppressiveregimesand
individualslivingwithparticularhealthconditions.Thediscussionisinfluenced
by literary and cultural debates on the intersections between ethics, testimony,
trauma,andhumanrights,reflectedinitsthreeoverarchingquestions:‘Howdo
comics usually complicate the production of cultural memory in local contents
and global mediascapes?’, ‘How do comics engage with, and generate, new
forms of testimonial address?’, and ‘Howdo the comics function as mnemonic
structures?’
Theauthorhighlightsthatthepowerofcomicsisthattheyallowbothcreators
andreaderstovisualisethefracturingpowerofviolenceandoppression–atthe
level of the individual, domestic, communal, national and international – in
powerfulandcreativeways.Comicsdonotstandoutsideofliterature,cinema,or
anyof the other arts, but ratherenliven the reciprocal relationship between the
verbalandthevisuallanguagethatinformsallofthesemedia.Assuch,thedis-
cussion demonstrates how fields such as graphic medicine, graphic justice, and
comics journalism contribute to existing theoretical and analytics debates,
includingcriticalvisualtheory,traumaandmemorystudies,byofferingabroad
ranging,yetcohesive,analysisofculturalmemoryanditsrepresentationinprint
anddigitalcomics.
Golnar Nabizadeh is Lecturer in Comics Studies at the University of Dundee
where she teaches on the MLitt in Comics and Graphic Novels, as well as
undergraduate modules in English and Humanities. Her research interests are
in graphic justice, critical theory, trauma and memory studies. She has pub-
lished on the work of Alison Bechdel, Marjane Satrapi, and Shaun Tan,
visual adaptation, picturebooks, and comics and literary justice.
Memory Studies: Global Constellations
Henri Lustiger-Thaler, Ramapo College of New Jersey, USA and Ecole des
Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, France
The ‘past in the present’ has returned in the early twenty-first century with a
vengeance, andwith it the expansion of categories of experience. These experi-
ences have largely been lost in the advance of rationalist and constructivist
understandings of subjectivity and their collective representations. The cultural
stakesaroundforgetting,‘usefulforgetting’andremembering,locally,regionally,
nationallyandgloballyhaverisenexponentially.Itisthereforenotunusualthat
‘migrant memories’; micro-histories; personal and individual memories in their
interwoven relation to cultural, political and social narratives; the mnemonic
pastandpresentofemotions,embodimentandritual;andfinally,themnemonic
spatialityofgeographyandterritoriesarereceivingmorepronouncedhearings.
Thistranspiresasthesocialsciencesthemselvesareconsciouslyglobalizingtheir
knowledgebases.Inadditiontotheabove,thereconstructivelogicofmemoryin
the juggernautofgallopinginformationalizationisrendering it more and more
publicly accessible, and therefore part of a new global public constellation
aroundthecodingofmeaningandexperience.Memorystudiesasanacademic
fieldofsocialandculturalinquiryemergesatatimewhenglobalpublicdebate-
buttressedbythefragmentationofnationalnarratives-hasaccelerated.Societies
today, in late globalized conditions, are pregnant with newly unmediated and
unfrozenmemoriesoncesequesteredinwidecollectiverepresentations.Wewel-
comemanuscriptsthatexamineandanalyzetheseprofoundculturaltraces.
Titles in this series
Traumatic Storytelling and Memory in Post-Apartheid South Africa
Performing Signs of Injury
Christopher J. Colvin
Memory in Transatlantic Relations
From the Cold War to the Global War on Terror
Kryštof Kozák, György Tóth, Paul Bauer and Allison Lynn Wanger
Representation and Memory in Graphic Novels
Golnar Nabizadeh
Representation and Memory in
Graphic Novels
Golnar Nabizadeh
Firstpublished2019
byRoutledge
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andbyRoutledge
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©2019GolnarNabizadeh
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BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Names:Nabizadeh,Golnar,author.
Title:Representationandmemoryingraphicnovels/GolnarNabizadeh.
Description:NewYork,NY:Routledge,2019.|
Series:Memorystudies:globalconstellations;11|
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2018059992(print)|LCCN2018060210(ebook)|
ISBN9781315605418(ebk)|ISBN9781317066101(webpdf)|
ISBN9781317066095(epub)|ISBN9781317066088(mobi/kindle)|
ISBN9781472481566(hbk)
Subjects:LCSH:Graphicnovels--Historyandcriticism.|
Collectivememoryandliterature.|Memoryinliterature.
Classification:LCCPN6714(ebook)|LCCPN6714.N282019(print)|
DDC741.5/9--dc23
LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2018059992
ISBN:978-1-4724-8156-6(hbk)
ISBN:978-1-315-60541-8(ebk)
TypesetinTimesNewRoman
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
Contents
List of figures vi
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction: Comics, memory, and the visual archive 1
1 Migrant memories in Henry Yoshitaka Kiyama’s The Four
Immigrants Manga and The Arrival by Shaun Tan 27
2 Racism and cultural afterlives: American Born Chinese by Gene
Luen Yang and Pat Grant’s Blue 62
3 Narrating trauma in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis 89
4 Memories of illness in Epileptic by David B. and Stitches by
David Small 112
5 Multimodal memories: The Photographer Into War-Torn
Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders by Guibert et al. and
Waltz with Bashir by Ari Folman and David Polonsky 138
6 Comics online: Memories from the exclusion zone in “At Work
Inside Our Detention Centres: AGuard’s Story” by Wallman et
al. and “Villawood” by Safdar Ahmed 163
Afterword 185
Index 190
Figures
Cover image: © Zuzanna Dominiak
0.1 “Comics and Memory. After Winsor McCay”. 4
0.2 “Winsor McCay, Little Sammy Sneeze, 24 September 1905”. 9
0.3 “Mother and Son”. © Yoshihiro Tatsumi. 13
0.4 “I saw the hell inside me…”. 16
1.1 “U.S. Immigration Station, Angel Island, San Francisco Bay,
View Showing Wharf and Main Building, 1910”. 32
1.2 “Arrival in San Francisco”. The Four Immigrants Manga: A
Japanese Experience in San Francisco, 1904–1924 by Henry
(Yoshitaka) Kiyama, translated by Frederik L. Schodt, p. 30. 33
1.3 “AVisit from the President”. The Four Immigrants Manga: A
Japanese Experience in San Francisco, 1904–1924 by Henry
(Yoshitaka) Kiyama, translated by Frederik L. Schodt, p. 89. 37
1.4 “The Turlock Incident”. The Four Immigrants Manga: A
Japanese Experience in San Francisco, 1904–1924 by Henry
(Yoshitaka) Kiyama, translated by Frederik L. Schodt, p. 124. 39
1.5 “Escape – Draft Sketch”. 44
1.6 “Originary Montage”. The Arrival by Shaun Tan. 50
1.7 “Departure”. The Arrival by Shaun Tan. 52
1.8 “Dissolve – part 1”. The Arrival by Shaun Tan. 55
1.9 “Dissolve – part 2”. The Arrival by Shaun Tan. 56
2.1 “Counter-narrative (detail)”. Pat Grant, Blue, 2012. Creative
Commons Attribution. 77
2.2 “The Mongolian Octopus – his grip on Australia”. Philip May,
The Bulletin, 21 August 1886. 79
2.3 “Transition (detail)”. Pat Grant, Blue, 2012. 80
2.4 “Recognition (detail)”. Pat Grant, Blue, 2012. 83
List of illustrations vii
6.1 “White Bars”. Image provided courtesy of Sam Wallman, Nick
Olle, Pat Grant, and Pat Armstrong. “At Work Inside Our
Detention Centres: AGuard’s Story” (February 2014). 170
6.2 “Wounded Head”. 171
6.3 “Untethered Contents”. 174
6.4 “Marking Boundaries”. 176
6.5 “Symbolic Composition”. 178
6.6 “Couplets in Urdu”. 179
Acknowledgements
I am grateful for the support of many people whose encouragement and care
enriched the long process through which this book came to fruition. The book
wasstartedinPerth,WesternAustralia,andcompletedinDundee,Scotland.
In Australia, I’d like to thank David Barrie, Ned Curthoys, Joy Damousi
and the Kathleen Fitzpatrick Fellowship Program, Kieran Dolin, Wendy
Grace, Gareth Griffiths, Tony Hughes-d’Aeth, Gail Jones, Judy Johnston,
JaneLydon,Lee-VonKim,AdamNicol,RajeshKrishnamuti,AndreCrozier,
Des Manderson, Philip Mead, Bruce Mutard, National Library of Australia,
Sophie Sunderland, Peter Morgan,Katie Tonkin, BobWhite, Sam Hutchison
who providedvaluablefeedbackon several chapterdrafts,and the Croweand
Nabizadeh families. I also thank Shaun Tan, Sam Wallman, and Safdar
Ahmed,whoserespectiveworksIwriteabouthere,fortheirartisticgenerosity
and help with my queries.
IntheUK,I’dliketothankJenBarnes,SueBlack,DanielCook,LauraFin-
dlay, Carmen Garcia del Rio, Jo George, Dominic Smith, Matt Graham,
Damon Herd, Brian Hoyle, Martine van Ittersum, Divya Jindal-Snape, the
Livesey-Stephens family, Monty Nero, Joan Ormrod, Andrew Roberts, Julia
Round, Roger Sabin, Ana Salzberg, Aliki Varvogli, Phil Vaughan, Keith Wil-
liams,colleaguesintheSchoolofHumanities,andthefantasticartistsatInkPot
Studios.I’dalsoliketothanktheMLittinComicsandGraphicNovelscohorts
for 2016/17 and 2017/18 for their enthusiasm and insights into the world of
comics. To Zu Dominiak, thankyou for designing and illustrating the coverof
thisbook,andspecialthankstoCatrionaLairdfordrawingthethree-panelstrip
inFigure0.1.
Inotherpartsoftheworld,IthankAngelikaBammerandIanGordon,for
their interest in my research, and also send special thanks to Fred Schodt for
his invaluable insights on The Four Immigrants Manga.
I extend many thanks to Drawn & Quarterly Publications, Stone Bridge
Press, Hachette Australia, and Pat Grant, for providing permission to use
the respective images in this book. Sections of Chapter 1 on The Arrival
were previouslypublished in ‘Visual melancholyin Shaun Tan’s The Arrival’
in Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 5.3 (2014), pp. 366–379, and is
reprinted here with permission of the publisher, Taylor & Francis Ltd. A
Acknowledgements ix
portionofChapter2previouslyappearedin‘VisualisingriskinPatGrant’sBlue:
xenophobiaandgraphicnarrative’inTextualPractice31.3(2017),pp.537–552,
availablefrom www.tandfonline.com. PartsofChapter 3 were first publishedin
‘Vision and precarity in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis’, WSQ: Women’s Studies
Quarterly44.1&2(2016),pp.152–167.Copyright©2016bytheFeministPress
at the City Universityof New York. Usedwith permission of The Permissions
Company, Inc., on behalf of the publishers, www.feministpress.org. All rights
reserved. Parts of Chapter 6 first appeared in the article ‘Comics online:
Detentionandwhite-space in“AGuard’s Story”’, publishedinariel: A Review
ofInternationalEnglishLiterature47.1–2(2016),pp.337–357.Copyright©2016
The Johns Hopkins University Press and the University of Calgary, and are
reprintedherewithpermissionfromJohnsHopkinsUniversityPress.
AtRoutledge,IamindebtedtoAlice Salt forhersupportandhelpatevery
stage of the manuscript. I also want to acknowledge Henri Lustiger-Thaler’s
feedbackon the finishedwork, for which I am enormously appreciative.
IamparticularlygratefultoChrisMurrayforhisextensivefeedbackonthe
manuscript, and for his indelible support and friendship since I arrived at
Dundee. Mayra Crowe has been an amazing friend, who I was lucky enough
to meet during my first week at Dundee. Thank you for your unforgettable
generosity and spirit.
I am grateful to Narges Razavi, the best, best friend anyone couldwish for,
and for her love, kindness, and support for more than 29 years.
Specialthankstomy parents, Maliand Sohrab Nabizadehfortheir support,
love, inspiration, and trust.
Andfinally,toMatthewCrowe,withoutwhosesteadfastencouragementand
selflessness I would not have movedtoDundee totake up the opportunityofa
lifetime,andalsoforhisbrilliantfeedbackonthemanuscript.