Book Review: Hurricane Nancy by Nancy Burton, edited by Alex Dueben

Reviewed by Cassia Hayward-Fitch

Nancy Burton. Hurricane Nancy. Seattle: Fantagraphics, 2024. 112 pp. US$30 (Paperback). ISBN: 9781683969839. https://www.fantagraphics.com/products/hurricane-nancy

 This retrospective of Nancy Burton’s work, Hurricane Nancy – one of the artist’s pen names – is the first-ever collection of Burton’s work, and the latest in a line of Fantagraphics’ collections of underground comix by female artists, preceded by anthologies such as The Complete Wimmen's Comix (2016) and Tits & Clits 1972-1987 (2023). Like these two earlier publications, Hurricane Nancy attempts to make the work of a pioneering female comix creator available to a broader audience, helping to alter public perceptions of the “boys only” nature of the underground comix movement. The book is split into four sections and begins with an introduction that situates Burton as the first female artist to emerge from the broader underground comix movement. This is followed by a selection of Burton’s comix and artwork, divided into work created between 1965 and 1971, and her new artwork from 2010 to the present. Finally, the edition is rounded off with an all-new interview by editor Alex Dueben. Here, Burton discusses her involvement in protest movements, the impact of her global travels and music on her art, her artistic background, and the factors that led her to cease creating art in 1971 and then to resume in 2010.

The presentation of Burton’s early work has an archival tone; the comix are mounted on a black background, with many of the pages featuring scans of the original artwork; sepia-toned and complete with stains, rips, marginalia notes, correction fluid marks, and faint blue tracing lines. This creates an intimate reading experience, giving the reader the impression that they are being made privy to Burton’s private collection. The selection of work from 1965 to 1971 begins with “Gentle’s Tripout,” a serial comic strip about a group of friends who go on a journey to find the “Wicked Wandering Hag” in the hope of lifting the curse that has rendered one of their number, Vera, silent. After the comic abruptly ends with an incomplete, half-finished strip, it is followed by a selection of artwork that resembles the psychedelic poster art of the time. Similarly, Burton’s artwork from 2010 to the present, which features gigantic figures who peer through house windows, larger-than-life cat heads, lizards, and birds, bears similarities to the Alice in Wonderland-esque poster art of the 1960s. Her style also resembles artists such as Aubrey Beardsley in that, where most psychedelic posters utilized brilliant color, Burton’s artwork, like Beardsley’s before her, is drawn in black ink on white backgrounds. Across both sections, the artwork is unaccompanied by captions, dates (except when this is indicated in the artwork itself), or contextual information. This alleviates the feeling that a critic is breathing down the reader’s neck, dictating the “correct” way in which the art should be interpreted. It is only in the interview that concludes this collection that Burton herself situates her work within the broader context of her life and artistic influences, which, alongside the underground press movement and poster art, she lists as art nouveau, abstract expressionism, and formline art.

Overall, this collection presents a decade-spanning overview of an artist whose career has one foot in underground comix and the other in poster art but who has yet to gain significant recognition within either sphere. Burton's entire career is contextualized through the inclusion of the introduction and interview, and the collection demonstrates the fluid divide between underground comix and other contemporary artistic movements, making it a valuable addition for scholars wishing to broaden discussions of female underground artists and the nature of the underground comix movement itself.

Book Review: The Anxiety Club, a graphic guide to understanding anxiety

 reviewed by Ishita Sehgal

Frédéric Fanget, Catherine Mayer and Pauline Aubry (ill.). Translated by Edward Gauvin. The Anxiety Club, a graphic guide to understanding anxiety. SelfMadeHero, 2024. https://store.abramsbooks.com/products/the-anxiety-club

 

Modern life definitely demands a guide to navigate the daily obstacles and attempts to achieve a sense of composure in the daily grind. The presence of anxiety and other psychological troubles keep creeping in trying to detour oneself from the path of the daily hustle bustle. French creators psychiatrist Dr. Frédéric Fanget, co-author Catherine Meyer and illustrator Pauline Aubry explain how anxiety can manifest itself, how it can cause threatening scenarios, and most importantly how anxiety, in whatever intensity it may show up, can be treated through Anxiety Therapy. The book itself is divided into five chapters that discuss in detail the many aspects of anxiety and how it is imperative to recognize them and find the right kind of treatment.

 

In the authors’ own words, the book is to “decatastrophize anxiety.” This graphic novel is a guidebook about surviving with anxiety as this psychological problem is depicted and then shown being dealt with. In the first two chapters of the book, readers are introduced to the multiple ways of how anxiety can show up and how one can try and identify it. This is done by using day-to-day terms and phrases which makes identifying the problem accessible and easy. The quirky titles of the chapters such as “anxiety’s disaster camera” or the “faces of anxiety” and the lingo the authors use are not only relatable, but also help in retaining information.

 

Even though the authors have fictionalized the anxious people, renamed and anonymized them, the book keeps the character of Dr Fanget as himself. This choice to not fictionalize the doctor gives the reader a sense of security and confidence in receiving correct information. The chapter on anxiety treatment is the key element of this book. It brings together all the questions that people suffering from anxiety might raise and the ways in which they could be answered. The treatments are divided into three parts depending on the intensity of the anxiety one is under.

 

This book is a delightful read about a very serious problem faced by people of all ages as the world is progressing disconcertingly faster technologically. The question one asks of a self-help type of book is about its authenticity and reliability, which Dr Fanget’s presence in the book as a narrator answers. However, those who seek this as self-therapy for anxiety, may or may not find one here, but between the gutters, they may identify their own symptoms.

 

Book Review: Drafted by Rick Parker

reviewed by Nicholas Wirtz, doctoral candidate, Department of Comparative Literature, University of Oregon

Rick Parker. Drafted. Abrams ComicArts, 2024. 256 pp. $24.99 (Hardcover). ISBN 978-1-4197-6159-1. eISBN 978-1-64700-660-0. https://store.abramsbooks.com/products/drafted

 Rick Parker, early in his Vietnam War-era memoir Drafted, reflects on his 1966 induction into the United States Army, indicating his small, uniformed figure among the many marching through the snowy night, and writes “I kept reminding myself that I was just in the army, and not in some prison or concentration camp” (7). Rick the artistic naif has little time for the broader geopolitical tensions or ideologies that demand his conscription after losing his S-2 student deferment. His energy is devoted instead to the effects of his conscription, to surviving his coming-of-age in the military culture, and living under the threat that he will be sent to fight and die for, as one sergeant declares, “motherhood and apple pie!” (47).

Parker illustrates his memoir in a bulbous, gangly, at times grotesquely detailed style reminiscent of EC’s publications, an affinity which should come as no surprise, given his involvement in the 2007 Tales from the Crypt revival. Parker viscerally and vulnerably captures the discipline, bombast, and often painful humor of his experiences through his expressive illustrations. Any sense of their stylistic anachronism, fifty years removed in time, also offers synchrony, drawing us closer to the times and places of those experiences. Parker’s expressionistic cartooning also evokes for me Justin Green’s influential autobiographical Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary. Parker shares Green’s emphasis on his own insecurities and abuses by authorities around him, but where Green emphasizes his unique subjectivity, Parker positions himself as an everyman.

Parker’s history and personality are in the foreground of the book, but often his character and narrative focuses on representing a common experience; many sequences, especially in boot camp, approach instruction manuals or montages, and they offer a general image of military life as much they more specifically represent his life. Drafted devotes few pages to Rick’s artistry at the time. His skills occasionally earn him friendship or disapproval, but they rarely mark his role as distinct from his contemporaries. Rick the artist emerges in his attention to rare flashes of silent, natural beauty that emerge in contrast with situations and shouted orders that demand his reaction. Parker is a keen observer, and it is in his observation that Drafted excels as art and finds value as history. He effectively caricatures his own cluelessness or others’ antagonism for sympathy or a laugh, but I find his demonstrative style most engaging when he shows others’ more nuanced distress, resentment, joy, or sympathetic understanding. That soldiers’ emotions are so dramatically cartooned as to be inescapable here, often seems to speak to how unmistakable and unforgettable these emotions are to him, and how he feels their experiences and communicates his empathy and concern, such as when Rick witnesses a sergeant beat a man under his command nearly to death over a practical joke. This empathetic recognition becomes a painful confession of the harm he knows he causes when, for instance, he draws the fearful face of a fellow officer candidate he abuses as punishment, on orders which he is sworn to obey.

The Vietnam War itself is absent from Drafted. Parker’s memoir is occasionally punctuated by references to Vietnam, but because he was never sent abroad, his attention remains with American military culture; the locales of Drafted are domestic, and its depicted violence is American in origin. When soldiers are killed or their rights ignored, Parker identifies with their shared mortality and subjection to a dysfunctional system, but seems to speak from a desire to tell, more than to judge. Parker’s pages are densely packed—with information, detail, texture, with barely contained captions and expressively lettered dialogue—a telling both urgent and claustrophobic, but his commentary remains remarkably restrained. Parker occasionally alludes to, or implicitly critiques, positions or policies, but by refraining from savvy, critical, or sardonic retrospective reflection, these comments, like his expressive cartooning, demonstrate his disciplined commitment to voicing an everyman soldier’s experiences and effectively ground Drafted in Rick’s “present.” Whereas a predictable anti-war moral might have rendered Parker’s emotional—often visceral—telling overwrought or didactic, his mix of personal honesty and ideological restraint instead offers an insightful portrait of this important time in American history. Writing as a teacher, I feel Parker’s dense style may represent a demanding adjustment for students but, with some guidance or in an advanced context, I expect students of history or comics would be well-rewarded by his voice and cartooning that draws us into Rick’s time.

Book Review: Advocate: A Graphic Memoir of Family, Community, and the Fight for Environmental Justice by Eddie Ahn

 reviewed by Margaret C. Flinn

Eddie Ahn. Advocate: A Graphic Memoir of Family, Community, and the Fight for Environmental Justice. Ten Speed Graphics, 2024. 208 pp. US$24.99 (Hardcover). ISBN: 9781984862495; Ebook ISBN: 9781984862501. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/729254/advocate-by-eddie-ahn/

 

The subtitle of Eddie Ahn’s Advocate, A Graphic Memoir of Family, Community, and the Fight for Environmental Justice kind of says it all. Graphic memoirs are numerous and it’s difficult to stand out. Ahn’s book is an engaging look at a particular intersection of identities and experiences: unique in as much as each individual is unique. The book gives insights into Ahn’s family’s trajectory from Korea to Texas (and return visits for various reasons), and Ahn’s own relocation to California, initially as an Americorps volunteer. The book flashes back and forward between different moment of Ahn’s family history, including a mélange of documents (details from diaries, maps, drawings of photographs) as is frequently seen in the graphic memoir. While the story focuses on Ahn’s own journey, it thus includes stories recounted to him by family members, or pieced together between family stories and material in his grandfather’s diary.

            If Ahn’s story stands out, it will probably be for its ordinary weirdness. He shares the quirks of his life, like playing poker and health issues in law school, and the financial struggles through his life that lead to unexpectedly amusing, if melancholy, details like calculating the cost of everything in its burrito math equivalent (a tank of gas equals four or five burritos)—the burrito being the expensive, filling, and nourishing meal of choice for Ahn, particularly through his early years in the Bay Area. Ahn is at once informative and banal, educating the reader through his own story about the vicissitudes of environmental and social justice, the constant challenges of immigration and racism in the U.S. and depicting a quiet passion and dogged labor that allow anyone to imagine that what Ahn has done is doable, although most of us never will. It also documents recent realities such as the way COVID-19 impacted community organizing and social justice work.

            The self-taught artist’s realist lines are clean and clear, with single color washes in a soft palette changing by page or panel and includes a brief annex regarding the making of the book and environmental justice work. In all, the book is readable and informative. Many readers will be able to relate to parts of Ahn’s story, and young readers may even be inspired by the non-glamorized yet dignified representation of doing meaningful work in today’s world.

Book review: The Road: A Graphic Novel Adaptation, by Cormac McCarthy and Manu Larcenet

reviewed by Luke C. Jackson

 Cormac McCarthy and Manu Larcenet. The Road: A Graphic Novel Adaptation. Abrams ComicArts, 2024. US $26.99. ISBN:  9781419776779. https://store.abramsbooks.com/products/the-road-a-graphic-novel-adaptation

The Road, released by Cormac McCarthy in 2006, was a publishing sensation, winning several prestigious awards, including the Pulitzer Prize. In 2009, it was adapted as a film, starring Viggo Mortensen and directed by John Hillcoat. Now, for the first time, the novel has been adapted as a graphic novel, by French writer/illustrator Manu Larcenet, with the blessings of its creator. Larcenet is known for his work on several comics series, including Cosmonauts of the Future, written by Lewis Trondheim, and Ordinary Victories, which Larcenet wrote and drew. But it is his series Blast that most clearly foreshadows his work on The Road, with its more contemplative pacing, its white spaces, and its silence.

In the endpapers to The Road: A Graphic Novel Adaptation, the reader is presented with a letter, written by Larcenet to Cormack McCarthy. Entitled ‘A plea for The Road’, it represents Larcenet’s attempt to convince the famous author to allow him to adapt his novel. In this letter, he promises that, if he does so, he will ‘not rewrite anything, or change the feel of the story’. Instead, he sought to ‘draw [McCarthy’s] words.’ We cannot know what, in particular, appealed to McCarthy about Larcenet’s plea. Perhaps it was his impressive experience as both a writer and illustrator, his evident humility, or his clear love for the novel. But it is easy to see the throughline from McCarthy’s novel to Larcenet’s adaptation in Larcenet’s claim that ‘I draw violence and kindness.’ This is a story of violence – of murder, and rape, and cannibalism; and of kindness – of charity, and occasional laughter, and the bonds between people brought together by tragic circumstance.

‘You have to carry the fire.’ With these words, an unnamed father communicates his son’s purpose to him. They are the words that drive the narrative forward. The fire that this father speaks of is the belief that the next day is worth living, no matter what it brings. This is a belief that the boy’s mother could not sustain. Her suicide preceded the journey of father and son down The Road. Where they are going is only half-clear. There is the vague promise of the South. Perhaps, if they walk far enough in that direction, they can put the scourge of nuclear fallout behind them. And yet, as they trudge across the landscape, they have embarked on not one journey but two. The second, and more important, is forged not on foot but through the boy’s naïve questions, through his father’s thoughtful responses, and through their long, companionable silences. For the father, the stakes are clear: if his son dies, the world dies. Comparisons with the Christ story are unavoidable, and the temptation to render emotional moments with bombastic sentimentality must have been compelling, yet Larcenet never falls into that trap.

Against backgrounds of grey, brown and beige, his gritty linework stands in stark relief. Litter, ash and dust appear to swirl constantly around the characters and, by extension, around the page, at times almost obscuring the action. Rendered in this way, the remains of buildings and the leafless trees are interchangeable, while skeletons comingle with detritus, forming a landscape that is part-rubble, part-biological, everything dead or dying. The demarcations that once separated people along socio-cultural and political lines are now moot in the face of mass displacement. Presented without chapter breaks, the story is unrelenting, as events representing days, weeks, possibly months, merge into one another. Flipping back and forth through the book produces a kaleidoscopic effect, with one moment nearly indistinguishable from another, and cause and effect meaningless. It is only by pausing on a moment that its import can be fully appreciated.

Exhibiting an admirable combination of artistic bravura and restraint, Larcenet’s graphic novel adaptation perfectly embodies the quiet, profound poetry of McCarthy’s tale. It is a tale that might be viewed either as an elegy to a dying world, or – through its insistence on the resilience of love and hope in the face of Armageddon – as a new Genesis.

 

IJOCA 25:2 Silver Anniversary issue Table of Contents

The issue is available to order via http://www.ijoca.net or https://ijoca.blogspot.com We anticipate self-publishing the index as a stand-alone volume for those who are interested in having it available that way.

The digital version is almost ready, and is just awaiting some late-found corrections.

Mike Rhode

The International Journal of Comic Art

Vol. 25, No. 2 Fall/Winter 2023

The International Journal of Comic Art: A Silver Anniversary Rundown, 1999-2023*
John A. Lent
3

"The Story of the Holocaust Is Not Pretty, And It's Not Redemptive."
Hélène Tison
85
Spanish Superheroes under the Franco Dictatorship
Ignacio Fernández Sarasola
118
Commercializing Pleasure: The Development of the Manga Industry in Vietnam after Opening to the Global Market
Tran Thi Nguyet Anh
153
Sport in Johnny Hart's B.C.: A Study in Comedic Anachronism
Jeffrey O. Segrave
173
Division, Duty, and Face: Exploring Three Interpersonal Relationships in Japanese Anime
Andrea Keene
196
The State of Comic Art Bibliography in North America (2010)
Michael Rhode
224
Comics Bibliography for the 21st Century
Mike Rhode
236
"When Comics Become Fixed, It Stops Being a Place of Freedom and Invention": Interview with Paul Gravett
Eva Ule, Matevž Rems and Tajida Liplin Šerbetar
273
A Cartoon Analysis of Boşboğaz (Bigmouth) Humor Gazette from 1945 in Turkey
Fatma Fulya Tepe
284
Coffee, Poetry, and Superpowers for Men: Beatnik-Hipster Superhero and Gender in The X-Men
Yuri Shakouchi
290
Comics and Cartoons on Social Media Adopted as Public Service Advertisements and Entertainment Education Strategy for the Response of COVID-19 in China
Yiheng Wang
315
Beyond Comedy: A Global Perspective to Understand the Social Impact of Humor and Satire in Politics
Daniele Battista
331
Manga and Words
Natsume Fusanosuke
Translated by Jon Holt and Teppei Fukuda
344
Performance, Resistance, and the Comics Medium in Sally Heathcote, Suffragette
Krista M. Turner
358
From the Heart of Empire: The Politics of Camilo Aguirre's What Remains
Héctor Fernández L'Hoeste
380
Captain Marvel: Losing, Replacing, and Regaining Family
Liam Webb
406
Cultural Expectations for Heroism Analysis of Hero Character Designs
in Shōnen Manga and Superhero Comics
Claude Michel Moïse
441
Letting the Everyday Speak Its Own Power: The Works of Von Allan
David Beard
465
The Demise of Three Comics Scholarship Giants: Maurice Horn, David Kunzle, and Alfredo Castelli
John A. Lent
471
David Kunzle April 17, 1936 – January 1, 2024
Ian Gordon
476
Ivan Lima Gomes
492
Pedro Moura
492
Memories of Dr. M. Thomas Inge (1936-2021) "Gone but Not Forgotten"
Wiliam H Foster, III
494

Book Reviews

• Qiana Whitted, ed. Desegregating Comics: Debating Blackness in the Golden Age of American Comics, by Michael Kobre, p. 495.
• Edgar Calabia Samar, Natasha Ringor, and Mervin Malonzo. Janus Silang and the Creature of Tábon, Volume 1, Arnold Arre. The Children of Bathala, Arnold Arre. The Journey to Lupan-On, by Lara Saguisag, p. 501.
• Leela Corman. Victory Parade, by Hélène Tison, p. 503.
• Pedro Moura, ed. Ilan Manouach in Review--Critical Approaches to His Conceptual Comics, by Gareth Brookes, p. 508.
• Kathy Merlock Jackson, Carl H. Sederholm, and Mark I. West (eds.). Forgotten Disney: Essays on the Lesser-Known Productions, by Cord A. Scott, p. 510.
• Alison Halsall. Growing Up Graphic: The Comics of Children in Crisis, by Cecilia Garrison, p. 512.
• Esra Mirze Santesso. Muslim Comics and Warscape Witnessing, by Adrienne Resha, p. 517.
• J. Andrew Deman. The Claremont Run: Subverting Gender in the X-Men, by James Willetts, p. 520.
• J. Andrew Deman. The Claremont Run: Subverting Gender in the X-Men, by Christopher Roman, p. 522.
• Nora Krug. Diaries of War: Two Visual Accounts from Ukraine and Russia [A Graphic Novel History], by Kenneth Oravetz, p. 525.
• CT Lim and Koh Hong Teng. Drawn to Satire: Sketches of Cartoonists in Singapore, by Felix Cheong, p 527.
• Nate Powell. Fall Through, by CT Lim, p. 529.
• Ramin Zahed. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: The Art of the Movie, by Michael Kobre, p. 530.
• Josh Trujillo and Levi Hastings. Washington's Gay General: The Legends and Loves of Baron von Steuben, by Cord Scott, p. 534.
• Eliot Borenstein. Marvel Comics in the 1970s: The World inside Your Head, by CT Lim, p. 537.
• Matthias Lehmann. Parallel, by Lizzy Walker, p. 540.
• Chris Robinson. All-Negro Comics (the 75th Anniversary Edition), by Cord Scott, p. 542.

Exhibition and Media Reviews
"This Is A Cartoon Era. " An Exhibition of Chinese Famous Cartoonist Mi Gu's Works From 1945-1965.
Xu Ying
545
Spirou dans la tourmente de la Shoah. Didier Pasamonik and Caroline Francois
Review by Nick Nguyen
561
Le Petit Poilu in Concert: A Fresh Take on Music and Movement in Comics.
Review by Laurie Anne Agnese
570

International Journal of Comic Art Author, Country, and Genre Index Volumes 1-25 (1999-2023)
Grace Livingston Wright Hulme
Jae-Woong Kwon, John A. Lent, and Xu Ying
572

International Journal of Comic Art Book, Exhibition, and Media Reviews Index Volumes 1-25 (1999-2023)
850-882

*The 25th Anniversary Special Supplement

3-84

• Table of Contents
• Congratulatory Messages
• The Cartoonists
• The Scholarship Community
• IJOCA Mission
• Meet Challenges, "Rattling Cages"
• Accolades Aplenty
• An Exhaustive Round-up
• Tabulation of Contents by Volume/Number
• Continents and Countries Covered
• List of Symposia
• Pioneers in Comic Art Scholarship
• Reminiscences of Cartoonists by Family Members
• Other Reminiscences and Remembrances of Cartoonist Friends by John A. Lent
• Reminiscences by Others
• Most Published Authors
• Cartoonists Who Authored Articles
• Articles about Women, Their Works, Their Portrayals
• The Editor's Sounding Board
• Sincerest Thanks
• Insert A Peer Review--From "Editor's Notes"  (Vol. 8, No. 2/Fall 2006)
• Insert B Scopus Indexing Database--From "Editor's Notes" (Vol. 19, No. 2/ Fall/Winter 2017)
• Insert C Peer Review--From "A 20-Year Harvest of Comic Art Scholarship: International Journal of Comic Art--1999-2018" (Vol. 20, No. 2/ Fall/Winter 2018)
• Letter I: Oleg Dergachov
• Letter II: Massoud Shojai Tabatabai
• Letter III: Hüseyin Çakmak
• Letter IV: Ryan Holmberg
• Photo Gallery of IJOCA's Editors
• List of Congratulatory Artwork and Writings with Accompanying Works

Book Review: Drawing (In) The Feminine. Bande Dessinée and Women

 reviewed by Manuela Di Franco, Ghent University

Margaret C. Flinn, editor. Drawing (In) The Feminine. Bande Dessinée and Women. Studies in Comics and Cartoons series. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2024. 279 pp. <https://ohiostatepress.org/books/titles/9780814215142.html>

Drawing (In) The Feminine raises the important issue of underrepresentation of women and nonbinary creators in the bande dessinée, or Francophone (including Africa), industry, a topic whose relevance goes beyond Franco-Belgian traditions. The volume does not only have the merit of addressing such an important topic in the field of comics studies, but also opens a debate on how scholarship can better include and give recognition to marginalised creators. The volume’s bringing to light underrepresented creators is achieved by focusing on contribution of female and nonbinary creators and by challenging the predominant, male-dominated narratives that have populated not just the comics industry, but also the scholarship. The book’s examination of how gender dynamics in the comics field caused or contributed to the marginalization of these creators is combined with a solid socio-cultural contextualization that helps situate the experience of the specific authors and case studies approached by the contributors. The volume engages well with existing scholarship and offers a rich contribution to the field, opening up paths for future research.

The volume is divided into three parts, comprised of four essays each for a total of 12 chapters, each by a different author. Part 1, “Industry, Audience, and Platforms,” tackles the issue of underrepresentation by examining dynamics between the comics industry and audiences, to highlight how some creators have attracted more attention than others. It starts with by retracing the history of bande dessinée from a gender perspective, to examine if and how the professional path of male and female creators diverged. Written by Jessica Kohn, the chapter exposes the limits of focusing on monographic careers, predominantly male, and the negative consequences such an approach has on our general understanding of the comics industry, shedding light on issues that have often been overlooked by fans and scholars. In chapter 2, Sylvain Lesage expands the question by analyzing bd publishing process as a whole, underlying the importance of recognizing and addressing the impact of roles such as that of colorists—which “has traditionally been feminine” (39)—that often go unnoticed despite their importance. In so doing, Lesage offers an examination of the gendered distribution of roles in the industry and argues of its relevance to this day in the legitimization of comics in France. Benoit Crucifix connects these ideas and adds a historical perspective on the “intermedial connections and exchanges between comics for adults and for kids” (56), the latter being the field where women cartoonists and illustrators were more widely employed (and acknowledged). Crucifix shows through the example of art by Nicole Claveloux how recognition differs between female and male creators. This third chapter therefore raises two important issues: that of the recognition of a genre (children’s comics) and of women’s artists. The final chapter of Part 1, by Jennifer Howell, addresses the use of comics by female artists as a tool for social activism, and particularly for challenging the established and oppressive patriarchal society. Howell provides an exhaustive socio-cultural contextualization that includes an overview of Moroccan feminism, allowing the readers to better understand the case studies of the chapter and adding a contemporary perspective on the issues raised in the previous chapters.

Part 2, “Geographies of Identities,” centers on bodily experience and its placement in space. The four chapters of this section deal with different aspects of the body and the physicality of women’s lived experiences. In chapter 5, Armelle Blin-Rolland adopts a “medium- and place-specific approach” (97) to examine the connection between gender and the environment and to add to the field of “ecographics.” Blin-Rolland does so by using Breton comics as a case study that shows the links between the construction of a folkloristic, rural, and feminized identity. The latter is particularly emphasized for the (historical) importance of women’s experiences with nature, which are particularly relevant for the Breton case. In chapter 6, Michelle Bumatay focuses on contribution by women and nonbinary creators within the francophone African and diasporic context comparing the work by Marguerite Abouet (and Clémenet Oubrerie) with Joëlle Epée Mandengue’s (known as Elyon). Bumatay argues that the use of the “feminine plural” in Abouet and Elyon’s comic series serves the purpose to highlight (and engage with) diversity in gender identities and experiences of African women. The chapter stresses the importance of acknowledging the intersectionality of race, gender, and cultural identity, especially to understand how these creators navigate both African and global contexts and their contribution to the comics industry. Comics emerged as a medium for African and diasporic women to express their experiences and challenge dominant, colonial narratives—showing how comics can give voice to a broad spectrum of African and diasporic womanhood. Alexandra Gueydan-Turek also explores the use of comics to give voice to marginalized communities in chapter 7, focused on the 2016 Lebanese comic anthology by the collective Samandal. Through this case study, the chapter examines the use of comics for political expression, social activism, and cultural resistance, arguing the significant role of comics as a platform for marginalized voices and a form of visual communication that can inspire political change and challenge oppressive regimes. By analysing Samandal’s work, Gueydan-Turk shows how through visual and narrative strategies representing political realities, revolutionary comics transcends borders and can amplify political impact. Finally, the chapter stresses the importance of paying more scholarly attention to this genre, especially in the context of contemporary social movements where comics still have a key role in advocating for political change. The last chapter of part 2, “Unveiling IVG” by Catriona Macleod, argues comics’ ability of breaking taboos and offer nuanced portrayal of women’s experiences with abortion, while also serving as a tool for feminist advocacy. Macleod argues the crucial role of comics in normalizing conversations about abortion by depicting it as a personal issue. By normalizing abortion through personal verbal-visual storytelling, comics humanize the issue and contribute to “unveil” lived experiences of women. The chapter adds a perspective on feminist comics and brings to the reader’s attention how they challenge and reshape cultural (and heteropatriarchal) narratives, aligning with the book’s themes of visibility, representation, and activism.

Part 3, “Representations and History (Herstories),” concludes the volume with essays addressing how women have been represented across century (and genres). It starts with Jacques Dürrenmatt’s analysis of the depiction of women in early bande dessinées and their stereotypical image that followed society’s view of women of the time. This chapter puts the physical representation of women into the socio-historical context that wanted women attractive and vulnerable, traits that comics reflected by portraying them with exaggerated feminine features and secondary roles. Dürrenmatt engages in a visual analysis through case studies to show how deliberate visual choices reinforced the idea of women’s passive and secondary role in both society and comics. The analysis is concluded by a call for a reassessment of early French comics. The evolution of the portrayal of women is traced by Mark McKinney in his study of the “the Black woman warrior, or ‘Amazon,’ from Dahomey” (198), who follows its transformation from colonial to postcolonial narratives (chapter 10). The chapter argues that French colonial comics often exoticized (and eroticized) and simplified the Amazons, while post-colonial African comics have reclaimed and recontextualized their image as symbols of empowerment and resistance. McKinney also examines the complex gender dynamics surrounding the portrayal of the Dahomey Amazons, whose representation in comics provides a space to explore gender, power, and resistance, as well as the defiance of the typical representation of women as passive or subordinate (as seen in the previous chapter). McKinney brings to light the importance of reclaiming historical narratives through cultural production and highlights the importance of comics in the process of decolonization in African arts and literature: by challenging the effects of colonialism on cultural representations, comics can actively engage with ongoing discussions of postcolonial narratives—including the European colonial responsibilities. In the following chapter (chapter 11), Isabelle Delorme adds to the discourse of women’s representation in comics by analyzing the work of Catel (Catel Muller), whose feminist biographical bande dessinées have challenged the historical underrepresentation of women in both history and popular culture. Delorme examines how Catel’s work blurs the line between art and activism by advocating with her (bio)graphic novels for greater visibility of women’s contribution to history, culture, and society. Catel not only brought attention to marginalized or overlooked female figures, but she also legitimized the genre of biographies dessinées. Delorme concludes by suggesting that Catel’s work and collaborative projects points for future directions for both feminist art and the comics medium. Véronique Bragard concludes this section with an analysis of how women creators can contribute to the overturning of “normalized versions of social organization, offering alternative readings of exploitative systems and hierarchies as well as alternative appropriations of the comics medium” (240). Through the analysis of Emilie Plateau’s Noire and her representation of Claudette Colvin, Bragard shows how comics can be used to re-tell history from a feminist perspective and make a significant contribution to collective memory. By emphasizing the contributions of women to the Civil Rights Movement, Plateau’s work challenges the traditional focus on male leaders and instead gives voice to marginalized female voices, making the story one of gendered experience and not only of racial injustice.

Overall, the volume achieves its goal of giving voice to marginalized women and nonbinary creators, although perhaps with a certain imbalance in favor of the first category. The contributors call for further research on forgotten or disregarded comics creators, a call that one can only hope will be welcomed by the scholarship to bring to light the many underrepresented and marginalized voices left outside of the established, male-dominated narrative.