Representing Multiculturalism in Comics and Graphic Novels

Description

Multiculturalism, and its representation, has long presented challenges for the medium of comics. This book presents a wide ranging survey of the ways in which comics have dealt with the diversity of creators and characters and the (lack of) visibility for characters who don’t conform to particular cultural stereotypes. Contributors engage with ethnicity and other cultural forms from Israel, Romania, North America, South Africa, Germany, Spain, U.S. Latino and Canada and consider the ways in which comics are able to represent multiculturalism through a focus on the formal elements of the medium. Discussion themes include education, countercultures, monstrosity, the quotidian, the notion of the ‘other," anthropomorphism, and colonialism. Taking a truly international perspective, the book brings into dialogue a broad range of comics traditions. Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 6 Copyright......Page 7 Contents......Page 8 List of Illustrations......Page 12 Acknowledgements......Page 16 Introduction: Representing Multiculturalism in Comics and Graphic Novels......Page 18 PART I Histories and Contexts......Page 34 1 Multiculturalism Meets the Counterculture: Representing Racial Difference in Robert Crumb’s Underground Comix......Page 36 2 The Impact of Latino Identities and the Humanizing of Multiculturalism in Love and Rockets......Page 51 3 The Presidential Penis: Questions of Race and Representation in South African Comic and Satirical Art......Page 66 PART II Depicting Difference......Page 84 4 Recognition and Resemblance: Facture, Imagination and Ideology in Depictions of Cultural and National Difference......Page 86 5 “Badgers? We don’t need no steenkin’ badgers!” Talbot’s Grandville, Anthropomorphism and Multiculturalism......Page 100 6 The Image of the Foreigner in Historical Romanian Comics under Ceauşescu’s Dictatorship......Page 113 PART III Monstrosity and Otherness......Page 128 7 The Monster Within and Without: Spanish Comics, Monstrosity, Religion, and Alterity......Page 130 8 Colonialist Heroes and Monstrous Others: Stereotype and Narrative Form in British Adventure Comic Books......Page 147 9 Set Pieces: Cultural Appropriation and the Search for Contemporary Identities in Shōnen Manga......Page 163 PART IV Challenging Assumptions......Page 178 10 Narrative Exploration against Mentality Issues: Indirect Education for Multiculturalism in Tintin......Page 180 11 Embracing Childish Perspective: Rutu Modan’s A Royal Banquet with the Queen......Page 194 PART V Case Studies......Page 212 12 An Innocent at Home: Scott Pilgrim and His Canadian Multicultural Contexts......Page 214 13 The Lower East Side as Mishmash of Jewish Women’s Multicultural Images in Leela Corman’s Unterzakhn......Page 229 14 They All Look Alike? Representations of East Asian Americans in Adrian Tomine’s Shortcomings and Scenes from an Impending Marriage......Page 245 15 Tulips and Roses in a Global Garden: Speaking Local Identities in Persepolis and Tekkon Kinkreet......Page 257 Contributors......Page 274 Index......Page 280