An exploration of how autobiographical stories of illness, precarity, loss, and trauma are communicated and negotiated into public and digital spaces through webcomics.
This book examines webcomics as a complex and dynamic form of self-representation that captures the trends and tendencies of contemporary digital life narrative. Webcomics represent a rich and composite site for autobiography online that allows for experiment with analogue and digital technologies in ways that are fundamentally visual but also mediated, public, and networked. Exploring a broad spectrum of case studies emerging on various digital platforms – including personal blogs, websites, and social media, author Shannon Sandford focuses on wounded bodies, mental illness, graphic medicine, and feminist webcomics to introduce complex questions around self-representation and embodiment. Works covered include: Stuart Campbell's These Memories Won't Last; Allie Brosh's blog Hyperbole and a Half; Alec MacDonald's Instagram account; Kate Beaton's “Regular Life” webcomics on Twitter and Tumblr; MUTHA Magazine (2013–present); and Australian artist Mary Leunig's short series of Facebook webcomics.
Investigating the ways modern webcomics, by inscribing subjects on the edges of representation, signal the urgencies of life narrative as a practice/ discipline that moves into increasingly networked and digital subject positions, this book considers how webcomics uniquely combine visual artistry with modern methods of production, consumption, and circulation. In a contemporary moment fascinated with life narrative in fluctuating digital spaces, Digital and In/Visible Lives in Autobiographical Webcomics considers how webcomics might transition into a representative apparatus to challenge the status quo and engage with subjects marginalised by mainstream media and the digital sphere.
