Characters have long been studied as narratological element and how they function in relation to their plots. Characters are also studied on basis of their actions, trans-medial aspects, archetypes, knowledge, their interrelation to each other and they are also studied how the readers relate to them. In my essay, I will explore how the character’s distinctive quality from other characters creates polarity between the characters and also, their relations to each other helps to define identity construction of a character. To demonstrate my argument, I will study the characters in two mediums that are the graphic novel American Born Chinese and the film Ghost World. The essay will first describe the assigned traits to each character, how they differ from each other and how their interrelation within characters helps to construct character’s identity in the narrative. Both the film and the graphic novel have in common their coming-of-age narrative which is be used to study different characters and their contribution in development of protagonist’s identity. In addition to that, the essay will further explore the visual narrative of both medium to see how panels aid the identity construction of the characters.

The Revisionist comics of the 1980s to present represent an effort to literally revise the existing conventions of mainstream comics. The most prominent and common device employed by the Revisionists was self-reflexivity; thus, they created metacomics. The Revisionists make a spectacle of critically interrogating the conventions of mainstream comics, but do so using those same conventions: formal, generic, stylistic, etc. At their most practical level, Revisionist metacomics denaturalise the dominant genres of the American mainstream and therefore also denaturalise the ideological underpinnings of those genres. At their most abstract level, they destabilise the concepts of "fiction," "reality," "realism," and "fantasy," and even collapse them into each other. Chapter 1 explains my methodological approach to metacomics: formal (sequence and hybridity), self-reflexive (metafiction, metapictures, metacomics), and finally denaturalising (articulation and myth). Chapter 2 analyses two metacomic cycles in the mainstream (the Crisis and Squadron Supreme cycles) and surveys the self-reflexive elements of Underground comix (specifically with regard to gender and feminist concerns). Chapter 3 presents three motifs in Revisionist comics by which they denaturalise the superhero: the dictator-hero, postmodern historiography, and fantasy genres. Finally, Chapter 4 analyses three major Revisionist comic-book seriesTransmetropolitan, Promethea, and Sandmanall of which comment on contemporary culture and the nature of representation using the dominant genres of American comics (science fiction, superhero, and fantasy, respectively). / English

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This thesis explores the zombie’s rise to prominence in popular culture, with a focus on its development within the comics medium. The zombie is not just a ‘floating signifier’ (according to Jerrold E. Hogle), but a revenant signifier, actively and aggressively linking with existing concepts, and transforming them. The thesis also considers both the zombie figure and zombie genre within the parameters of several media – comics, television, film, and literature. The medium of comics is examined in detail as it has evolved through the influence of the zombie just as the zombie has been reshaped by each new representation. In contemporary horror comics, The Walking Dead series is not just commercially successful, it exploits properties of the medium (including panel arrangement, transitions, repetition, and the liminal space within the gutter) to thoroughly explore the metaphors and allusions that have been associated with the zombie. I discuss these metaphors by charting the zombie’s development. A lack of pre-twentieth century literary texts featuring this creature frustrates easy comparison with the monsters of Gothic fiction. Rather than evolving within the novel form, as its rival horror icons have done, the zombie has maintained a visual and visceral identity, maturing with each new incarnation, and becoming ever more gruesome: the walking corpses of ancient texts; a symbol of eternal slavery within Haitian Voodoo folklore; and its modern interpretation as violent and virulent monster. The recent notion of a zombie plague has redefined the creature as a representation of modern fears, and has led to ‘zombie apocalypse’ becoming a commonly-used fantasy scenario. The zombie’s connection to apocalyptic literature is simultaneously ancient and contemporary, with the creature being a signifier of social disorder and disrupted identity. While the emphasis throughout is on the shifting relations between media, comics are the main focus of this study. The symbolism present in the zombie, and the political and cultural ideas stemming from its slow maturation are revealed within The Walking Dead and sustained through the functions of the comics medium. Through the application of Scott McCloud’s comics theory, the closure between panels and the transition within the gutter enhance these ideas, and provide further understanding of the zombie as depicted in comics. The visual/textual relationship within comics is compared with Jacques Lacan’s modalities of consciousness, and the psychoanalytic reading provided here explores the crises of identity within the zombie, and within the fragmented narrative of the comics medium. Alternative psychoanalytic readings, and the physiology/pathology of the zombie itself are undertaken, revealing the creature to be responsive to Julia Kristeva’s concept of the abject, and Slavoj Zizek’s postmodern reworking of Lacanian ideas. The thesis also returns to notions of the Gothic, haunted spaces, and the role of suburbia in the zombie narrative. This is augmented with a study of intertextuality and the “revenant” status of the zombie, and of comics. Through incorporating the critical theory of Kristeva, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Jacques Derrida, and by positioning in parallel comics theorist Thierry Groensteen’s concepts of braiding and arthrology, I emphasise the operations of the zombie figure in the comic book, and other media, asserting that the zombie is a revenant signifier continually returning and transforming, never resting, but endlessly cannibalising and reconstructing debate about identity, morality, and society.