The assemblage of comics, Deleuzian metaphysics and middle-aged men in the context of psychosocial research is an experiment in the sense that Deleuze advocates for the furtherance of thought. The works of Deleuze and Deleuze and Guattari can allow us, it is suggested, to bring together theoretical problems in comics theory with theoretical problems in psychosocial research and provide us with new insights as to how we might look at visual data qualitatively from participants who agreed to recount episodes of their relationships in graphic narrative form. Both psychosocial qualitative research and comics theory are new and fast moving fields which offer scope for creative thinking. It is argued in this thesis that the ‘affective’ and ‘visual’ turns, which are having an important impact in the social sciences, corresponds to the expressive function of comics, specially in the autobiographical, memoir and confessional genre. Having set the theoretical lens with the work of Deleuze and Guattari and some of their commentators, examples from commercially published works are examined in order to relate theory to empirical examination, prior to considering the work submitted by participants. Lastly, interspersed throughout the text and together as an appendix, I offer my own visual reflections in the comics mode which I believe dialogue with topics in the text, whilst remaining separate activities. That is to say I consciously avoid text or comic being an illustration of one another.

This thesis investigates the forms, production, consumption, and functions of Krokodil (The Crocodile) magazine in the period 1954-1964. Krokodil was among the most popular publications in the USSR, producing state-sanctioned satirical comment on Soviet and international affairs from 1922, but until now it has been the subject of only limited study. This thesis answers the question: How does an empirical analysis of the text of Krokodil allow us to extend and nuance our understanding of Soviet graphic satire beyond state-sponsored propaganda? The thesis comprises three chapters; each employs a post-structuralist theoretical framework to reinterpret an aspect of Krokodil. Chapter 1 explores how Krokodil’s cartoons deployed ideologically shaped schemata in the construction of satirical critiques, and draws upon Mikhail Bakhtin’s definition of Menippean satire to explain the nature of the journal’s satire. Chapter 2 investigates the production and consumption of the journal, illuminating readers’ contributions to the magazine, and using transmedia theory to extend our understanding of Krokodil to include a previously unacknowledged range of extensions in other media. Chapter 3 examines the performative force of Krokodil’s political cartoons, challenging assumptions about the limitations placed upon Soviet satirists by exploring the magazine’s use of theatrical performance as a metaphor in cartoons satirising domestic politics. Examining Krokodil’s satirical vision, its expressive means and the interpretive possibilities suggested by its cartoons, this study shows that Krokodil’s satire was complex, subtle and intermedial. The thesis highlights the importance of Krokodil’s readers’ and artists’ collaborative exploration and shaping of the boundaries of permissible discourse. Finally, the thesis argues that Krokodil’s cartoons simultaneously affirmed, refracted and critiqued official discourses in the Post-Stalin period and counterposed them with visions of Soviet citizens’ responses to them. Ideology, Krokodil’s satire suggests, is an interpretive tool for negotiating everyday reality and official discourses, and it was not always to be taken seriously.

Even before its current fledgling state, the field of Comics Studies in the Anglophone parts of the world has been interested in the influences received from other international incarnations of the comics medium. Manga, bande dessinnée, tebeo, campesinos, quadrinhos, fumetti, cartoons, strips, have all ben responsible, in part, for the development of both the medium and its related academic fields. Many studies, pieces of criticism and comparison have been offered showing the importance of those texts, both in their original language and in English translation, their impact on other parts of the industry, and on their readerships. What has been lacking, so far, is a study into the process of translation that allowed for those texts to be read, studied and incorporated into the multifaceted archives of the comis scholarship, academic or fan-based. The aim of my thesis is to provide a critical manual appealing to three audiences: the translation scholar, comics scholar, and practising translator. I analyse - from a translation and comics studies perspective - the interaction between image and text (signplay), the use of humour, and the use of multicultural and multilingual elements in the Italian fumetto. I do so by offering comparisons with current Anglophone publications, informed by a history of the development on the medium in the West, and by focusing on three exemplary Italian series: Dampy (2000-), Rat-Man (1989-), and PKNA (1996-2000, 2014, 2015). I use descriptive theoretical discussions to form a practical set of strategies for the process of translating Italian comics into English, by focusing on the functions with which the texts operate in the three macro-areas I define, and I provide extensive samples for each strategy devised.

This thesis examines the history of animated cartoons in Britain between 1880 and 1928, identifying a body of work that has been largely ignored by film and animation historians, covering the production, distribution, and exhibition of these films. Throughout this history, graphic arts - especially print cartooning and illustration - and the music-hall lightning cartoon act are found to have played a formative role in British animated cartoons. The artists who made the first British animated cartoons were almost exclusively drawn from one of those two fields and thus this work may be considered to form a parallel history of ‘artists’ film’. They brought with them to film a range of concerns from those prior forms that would shape British animated cartoons. Examining that context provides an understanding of the ways British animated cartoons developed in technologic, economic, and aesthetic terms. This work includes the first in-depth history of the music-hall lightning cartoon act, which finds that it anticipates cinematic animation, featuring qualities such as transformation, the movement of line drawings, and the desire to bring drawings to life. Building on this history, a new critical framework for examining these films aesthetically is provided, emphasising the role of the spectator and their perceptual processes. This framework draws upon the work of E.H. Gombrich and Sergei Eisenstein, and extends it to include recent findings from neuroscientific fields. The result is an original aesthetic reading of this body of work, which finds the films to have a deep engagement with the basic perceptual processes involved in viewing moving line drawings.

This thesis examines the queer and affective aspects of an online yaoi fan community. Yaoi is a genre of Japanese manga focussing on homoerotic/homosexual themes. A key point of interest about yaoi is that it is largely created by and for women. Set within the context of yaoi fan studies, this thesis utilises queer theory to investigate how a diverse group of fans comes together in a fan community on the internet in order to explore alternative identities and develop new relationships with like-minded others. According to David Halperin, queer is “whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant” (cited in Sullivan 2003, p.43). I queer yaoi studies and suggest that its fandom is not a homogenous group of heterosexual female fans as has become customarily thought. Expanding on the work of other scholars, I combine original ethnographic research in AarinFantasy (http://www.aarinfantasy.com), a yaoi manga community to demonstrate how, for many fans, an online community is a place to explore and discuss queer alternatives to heteronormative gender and sexuality. I also discuss how members of AarinFantasy invest into the site through affective connections with other fans. By creating and maintaining valued friendships with others members create not only a queer space but also a space where they feel accepted as yaoi fans. Relationships in the community are formed and maintained through communication that is grounded in the fans’ experiences and the contextual state that yaoi manga has in their lives.

The general objective of this research is to propose a critical approach to ambiguous or unstable concepts of national and cultural identity. The particular objective is to study the ways in which these concepts are visually articulated in comics. The research focuses on a number of comic books created in the first decade of the 21st century and published between 2000- 2011. All of them draw on what I define as “Mexican cultural icons. In my analysis I deconstruct the dynamism —a multidirectional interaction— that can be found in these comic books. I argue that comics’ icons that represent concepts of national and cultural identity commonly go through a process that I refer to as “iconic displacement”, that is to say a removal from the position they are usually presented and, in some cases, a replacement by another icon that seems to fulfil the same communicative goal. When an icon of national or cultural identity is combined with a foreigner’s point of view, the dividing lines between the two domains turn into what I call “permeable boundaries”; these are porous limits that can be partially trespassed creating indeterminate zones that I refer to as “cultural frontiers. Cultural frontiers could be as diverse as: reverse situations where time and space are altered, characters swapping roles, objects taken out of their original context or the use of code-switching. My specific study focuses on cases of iconic displacement as they are employed in comics that deal with “Mexican cultural icons” represented by non-Mexican contemporary authors. My aim is to demonstrate the many ways in which this visual literacy contributes to give shape and to configure the iconic language of the unstable world of leaky realities that we live in.

No description available.

This thesis examines how Brittany and Corsica are represented in the medium of bande dessinée. Both are peripheral French regions with cultural identities markedly different from that of the overarching French norm, and both have been historically subject to ridicule from the political and cultural centre. By comparing a fair selection of bandes dessinées which are either set in Brittany or Corsica or feature characters from the relevant regions, this thesis sets out to discover whether representations of Brittany and Corsica differ according to the origin of the creators of the bandes dessinées and, if so, how. To facilitate this analysis, the bandes dessinées included for study have been classified as either external representations (published by mainstream bande dessinée publishers and/or the work of creators originating from outside the two regions) or internal representations (published by local Breton or Corsican companies and/or the work of local creators). It transpires that there are clear differences between mainstream and local bande dessinée authors and illustrators with regard to their portrayal of the local culture of both ‘outlying’ regions. External representations rely on broad stereotypes and received ideas, while internal representations draw on local folklore, regional history and regional identity to create works with more local relevance. In some cases internal representations are or were clearly aimed at a local market, while others aim both at local readers and at the wider bande dessinée market. Those aimed at a wider readership have an additional function, namely that of promoting their regional cultures in French culture generally and offering an alternative to the stereotypical representations presented by larger publishers of bandes dessinées. Brittany and Corsica are examined separately, each taking up roughly half of the thesis. Each half has the same general structure, beginning with discussion of how historical events have shaped perceptions of Brittany and Corsica in French popular consciousness, followed by analysis of the respective external representations and lastly internal representations. There are also two case studies of representations of Corsica in wider visual culture. Owing to its widespread appeal, its adaptability and its capacity to reflect popular opinion in different sectors of society, the medium of bande dessinée offers a potentially rich field for the investigation of social and cultural attitudes and prejudices. It is hoped that this thesis points the way to further research on the topic.

This thesis brings together two distinct areas of scholarship – trauma studies and comics. I focus on representations of trauma, specifically trauma arising from conflict and war, in post-Vietnam American comics. Trauma studies is an established area within literary research, both in terms of conflict trauma and also personal trauma. For the most part, comics have been ignored. It is my contention that, by the nature of its form, comics is able to mimic the symptoms and presentation of a traumatic rupture in order to represent a traumatic event as accurately and viscerally as possible. My primary texts are taken from across the full spectrum of the comics form. I consider mainstream superhero comics alongside alternative and art comics; all primary texts were published after 1975 by American creators. The theoretical basis is drawn from Freudian, post-Freudian and contemporary clinical thought. The application of trauma theory to the comics form is a largely untraced path so in using this solid theoretical base I hope to reinvigorate these theories in light of a ‘new’ form. I also draw on the small corpus of critical texts in the field of comics studies. This thesis is structured around 6 key issues in conflict and traumatic representation. I conduct close analyses of my primary sources to consider the effectiveness of comics, both formally and thematically, in the areas of mourning, dreams and personal identity. I further consider how the formal concern of temporality and problematizing issue of postmodernism affect, and are affected by, the dual focus of comics and trauma.

In this thesis, I explore the practices of English-speaking readers of shônen manga (Japanese comics written primarily for an audience of teenage boys). I concentrate on three series in particular: Hiromu Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist (2001–2010), Tite Kubo’s Bleach (2001–ongoing), and Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto (1999–ongoing). I argue that, although it may appear to be inherently imbued with (authorial) meaning, the shônen manga text emerges from a curious ‘alchemy’ through which the practices of readers transform the ‘raw’ materials provided by manga creators to produce a text that appears to have always been inherently meaningful in itself. I argue that this is always an impossible and monstrous transformation. In the first chapter, I introduce the monstrous combinations of words and pictures, panels and gutters known as shônen manga and argue for the importance of taking the practices of ‘ordinary’ (or, at least, non-scholarly) reading seriously. In the second chapter I explore the idea that reading is an ‘alchemy’ through which the disparate elements readers encounter on the page are transformed into a meaningful text. In the third chapter, I discuss the ways in which time and narrative are braided as readers assemble the disparate elements they encounter on the shônen manga page. In Chapter 4, I explore the visceral thrills of reading shônen manga, which are often expressed through notions of the awesome and the epic. Finally, in Chapter 5, I examine the ways in which a group of shônen manga readers known as ‘shippers’ find love and romance amidst the fighting in shônen manga and demonstrate the legitimacy of these readings by locating them in the material text through the concept of ‘canon’. By attending to reading as an embodied and material practice in this way, the thesis contributes to debates about the relationships between creators, texts and audiences and ongoing attempts to imagine new ways of being critical within cultural and literary studies. Within cultural geography, these kinds of attempts have often been aligned with what might broadly be described as nonrepresentational theories. As such, this thesis attempts to draw out the geographies through which manga texts are realised as manga texts at all.