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

This book explores the fictional female bodies of four stylistically distinct comics artists in the United States, showcasing how comics can critique and re-envision social issues. The protagonists are outsiders by gender identity, sexuality, ability, religion, race, class, ethnicity, age, or a combination of these categories, and their bodily expressions resist traditional categorization and stereotypes. Comics offer a unique opportunity for complex representation of these bodies.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 156 pages
Publication date: 29 January 2024
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This captivating book delves into the fictional female bodies created by four distinct comic artists in the United States: Chris Ware, Emil Ferris, Ebony Flowers, and Tillie Walden. Their work has garnered significant attention, showcasing the unique power of comics to critique and re-envision challenging social issues of our time. The characters analyzed in this book represent a diverse range of identities, including gender identity, sexuality, ability, religion, race, class, ethnicity, age, and more. Through their bodily expressions, these outsiders challenge traditional categorizations and stereotypes, sometimes employing them for parody or social critique.

Comics offer a unique platform for the complex representation of these diverse womens bodies, particularly when artists employ a range of techniques such as style, materials, narrative direction, gutter space, and the interplay between word and image. This book is a timely and essential intervention for researchers and students in comics studies, gender studies, literature, and queer studies, providing valuable insights into the representation of women in comics and the broader social context.

Weight: 453g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367679484