Sequential Art: Kathrin Muschalik and Florian Fiddrich - 978-1-84888-447-2 Via Vienna University Library

Sequential Art
Kathrin Muschalik and Florian Fiddrich - 978-1-84888-447-2

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Sequential Art:
Interdisciplinary Approaches to
the Graphic Novel
Edited by
Kathrin Muschalik and Florian Fiddrich
Inter-Disciplinary Press
Oxford, United Kingdom

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Table of Contents
Introduction
Florian Fiddrich and Kathrin Muschalik
Part I Frames, Styles and Authenticity
The Adventures of the Graphic Novel in Turkey 3

Nüzhet Berrin Aksoy
Part II Literature and the Graphic Novel
Shelley’s Progeny: Using the Comic to Re-Animate 13

Frankenstein’s Vision
John Harnett
Reimagination of Hell in Mike Mignola’s Hellboy in Hell 23

Joseph G. Altnether
Part III Identity and the Graphic Novel
From the Damsel in Distress to Kickass Babes: The Cultural 37

Expansion and Internatinalization of the Heroine through
Sexuality in the Graphic Novel
Justin Oney
Non-Normative Identity and Construction of Reality in Serena 47

Valentino’s and Ted Naifeh’s GloomCookie
Juliane Regener and Kathrin Muschalik
Looking through the Enemy’s Eyes: Cinematic Views and 55

Character Identification in Manga Naruto
Yi-Shan Tsai
Part IV War and Reverberation
Graphic Adaptation of the 9/11 Commission Report: Relevance, 67

Risks and Responsibilities
Sudha Shastri
The Vietnam War: Not a Space for Superheroes 77

Björn Hochschild

Introduction
Florian Fiddrich and Kathrin Muschalik

Over the past thirty years, the image of sequential art in all its varieties has
changed from a cheap form of entertainment for youngsters to a medium of
cherished novels and films. Since the 1980s, with works like Will Eisner’s A
Contract with God, Art Spiegleman’s Maus or Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis the
latest, this art form has not just attracted a more adult audience but also scholars
from various fields who have been devoting themselves to the examination of this
popular and vibrant means of communication.
Also the inter- and multidisciplinary project 3rd Global Conference: The
Graphic Novel aimed to engage critically with the issues in and around the
production and perception of comics and graphic novels. Focusing particularly on
the question of ‘what makes a Graphic Novel so Graphic and so Novel?’ as well as
the three core themes ‘the Inner and Outer Worlds of the Graphic Novel,’ ‘Identity,
Meanings and Otherness’ and ‘the Graphic Novel in the 21st century,’ this At the
Interface research project successfully brought together people from various
backgrounds and interests to collectively devote themselves in reciprocal dialogue.
This book is meant to present the results of the many stimulating and enriching
discussions explored during the conference. The first section, ‘Frames, Styles and
Authenticity, starts with the chapter by Nüzhet Berrin Aksoy, who – taking a closer
look at the history of graphic novels in Turkey – will focus on the comic book’s
role as identity marker in the Turkish poly-system.
The second part, Literature and the Graphic Novel, begins with a chapter by
John Harnett elaborates on Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing as a successor of Mary
Shelley’s Frankenstein and will illustrate to what extent the modern Prometheus
lives on in the graphic medium of comic books. Similarly, the visual depiction of
the afterlife in Mike Mignola’s Hellboy in contrast to classic literary interpretations
by Ovid, Milton, Lovecraft and the like will be presented by Joseph Altnether.
Dealing with the portrayal of females in superhero comic books, Justin Oney
begins section three, ‘Identity and the Graphic Novel. His chapter contrasts the
classic image of the damsel in distress with modern day characters like Jennifer
Blood, Wonder Woman, and Hit-Girl. Juliane Regener and Kathrin Muschalik then
focus on the depiction of non-normative identities in graphic novels, particularly
Serena Valentino’s and Ted Naifeh’s GloomCookie. Yi-Shan Tsai’s chapter wraps
up section three with a study on the manga title, Naruto, its cinematic techniques,
and its impact on young readers.
The final part of this interdisciplinary collection, ‘War and Reverberation’,
begins with the work of Sudha Shastri, and an observation of orientalism in the
graphic narrative version of the 9/11 commission report. Here, the author will
discuss the risks and responsibilities that come along with the representation of a
governmental survey. Going even further back in time, Björn Hochschild examines

viii Introduction
__________________________________________________________________
the depiction of superheroes like Iron Man and Captain America during the
Vietnam War. Focusing particularly on the moral ambiguity of this war, his study
points out the thematic conflicts of these cultural icons during this time.
Admittedly, this collection covers only a few thematic areas one might want to
explore with regard to the medium of comic books and graphic novels. However,
we hope it gives an insight into the huge variety of topics this art form is able to
address and inspires other scholars to further engage with the sometimes radically
different visual worlds of this hybrid medium.

Part I
Frames, Styles and Authenticity

Adventures of the Graphic Novel in Turkey
N. Berrin Aksoy
Abstract
This chapter describes how the graphic novel was initially translated, adapted, and
appropriated in the Turkish cultural and literary polysystem from the West in the
early years of the Turkish Republic (1923). The transfer enabled the graphic novel
to be used as popular genre to contribute to the construction of a national identity
of Turkishness through icons and heroes of Turkish history going back to Central
Asia before moving to Asia Minor (Anatolia). Hence, the evolution of the graphic
novel in Turkey goes parallel with the growth of popular culture under the
influence of state-led westernisation efforts in the Turkish society. The initiatives
towards creating a modern, west-oriented society necessitated the dissemination of
culture among layers of society which was producing its dynamics to absorb these
efforts within the frame of economic and social developments on a global scale.
Steps towards creating a modern Turkish literature and to enrich culture and
strengthen a national identity fit in with the adoption of the graphic novel genre in
the early years. The translations enabled Turkish artists to develop their own
examples in the genre to produce an awareness of national identity and links with
history in a creative and easily comprehensible way. The graphic novel as an
accessible form of production became a part of the developing cultural polysystem.
According to Tynjanov, literature of a nation or culture contains a multi-layered
structure of elements which relate to and interact with each other.1 The evolution of
the graphic novel in the Turkish polysystem comprised several layers of texts, i.e.
visual texts, and verbal texts. It does not hold such a significant role now in the
cultural polysystem but has become an influential genre in creating global fantastic
icons, norms and images.
Key Words: Graphic novel, translation, appropriation, identity-making, Turkish

polysystem.
*****
Adventures of the Graphic Novel offers an examination of ways and means in

which its first appearance as translation and adaptation has been linked to the
process of westernisation and modernisation since the 1840s in the late Ottoman
and early Republican period in Turkey. The promotion of national literature is
usually backed with a conscious policy of encouraging translations to enrich the
existing literary and cultural polysystem. Turkish literary polysystem developed in
parallel with the creation of a new concept of Turkish identity under the legal
definition of Turkish citizenship and a modern society after the proclamation of the
modern Turkish Republic in 1923.

4 Adventures of the Graphic Novel in Turkey
__________________________________________________________________
The use of the term polysystem is intentional at this point. Itamar Even-Zohar
introduced the term ‘polysystem’ for the aggregate of literary systems including
everything from ‘high’ or ‘canonized’ forms such as poetry to ‘low’ or ‘non-
canonized’ forms (e.g. children’s literature, popular fiction in a given culture).
Even-Zohar recognized the ‘primary’ (creating new items and models) as well as
‘secondary’ (reinforcing existing items and models) importance of translated
literature in literary history.2 Hence, polysystem theory is significant since it
incorporates some of the methods and assumptions of cultural and literary studies
within translation studies. It provides the researcher with tools to analyze, describe,
and understand the process in which genres evolve in the cultural milieu in a
society.
The cultural and literary situation in the early years of the Turkish Republic
(founded 1923) may well be defined in terms of Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory.
During the1930s and in the mid- and late 19th century, Turkish society was in a
process of transformation from a disorganized cultural structure of the past to a
modern and western-oriented one. Efforts to reorganize the state and social as well
as political spheres of life began to take shape with the Reformation movement in
the 19th century and gained momentum and strength after the proclamation of the
Republic in 1923. Then, giant steps were taken to develop in the fields of
technology, industry, economy. Establishing a national culture and literature
became the main goal of the state in order to create an advanced, enlightened and
modern society. The domination of court literature of the Ottomans over the
people’s literature in Anatolia had not allowed other genres to flourish and the
hegemony of court poetry created itself a central position in the polysystem at that
time. In the mid-19th century and from there on, new diplomatic policies enabled
better contact with Western culture and literature which showed its effects in the
translation activities. State-led translations gained momentum, new genres,
narrative forms and techniques entered the literary polysystem which was in a state
of development. Translations gained a central position in the ‘20s, ‘30s and all the
way into the ‘50s. Following the language reform, translation activities fulfilled the
need to use the potentials of the Turkish language and promoted the development
of modern Turkish literature which soon gained a significant status in the literary
polysystem and moved to a central position. Some new genres and literary
techniques entered Turkish literature (such as the novel) by means of translation;
but soon, they left their places to a national literature which was enriched with its
own potentials and with the new models presented by ways of translation.
Developments and reforms in social life and increasing contact with the Western
world began to give a new mould to the Turkish cultural polysystem. Among the
new genres of popular culture, comics and the graphic novel arrived amid a
scarcity of paper, low percentage of reading public and few numbers of publishing
houses. Following the introduction of new genres of popular culture such as
comics by means of translation activities into the newly emerging Turkish literary

N. Berrin Aksoy 5
__________________________________________________________________
polysystem, these translated comics constituted a great chunk of translations made
from western sources. The accession of graphic novels and comics into the Turkish
cultural polysystem is no coincidence. Their easily accessible forms of production
and dissemination, attractive images, drawings, figures, and other technical
qualities attracted the attention of the publishers who were in search of more
economical means of printing and publishing under the harsh conditions before and
during World War II. Publishing houses depended heavily on printing magazines
and journals which consisted of great numbers of graphic novels and comics. In the
early years of the Republic, printing and publishing houses also had assumed the
mission of educating a whole new generation of Turkish youth and children.
Graphic novels and comics with their combination of several layers of texts i.e.
pictures, images as visual, and bands, speech balloons and scripts as verbal texts
could easily attract a relatively large reading public. Since cinema was barely
available and radio broadcast hardly existed, graphic novels easily became popular.
In the 1930s and ‘40s, graphic novels were mainly translations and adaptations.
Graphic novels and comics simply showed up in the cultural polysystem as copies
or domestications. All the same, it is important to note that they offered a whole
new world, characters, heroes, and events which were new to the new generation of
the Turkish youth. Hence, the adaptations and copies soon greatly attracted not
only the youth and children, but adults as well. First translations – especially after
the ‘50s – came mainly from Italy, Belgium, and France. Strangely enough, they
all reflected and contained American and Anglo-Saxon ways of life, themes and
heroes. In the 1930s, the American artist Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon which is
the first graphic novel to appear in children’s magazine was translated into Turkish
with a Turkish name for the hero. It took the name Baytekin and its publication
made way for other translated comics to make their appearances in exclusively
children’s magazines. Baytekin, or its original Flash Gordon, first appeared in
Çocuk Sesi magazine (1930) which was published by a former school teacher who
may have believed that such a publication would serve for an introduction of
Turkish children to the popular genres of western culture. The magazine only
contained comics with lots of pictures and drawings. Baytekin may be regarded as
the first example of the sci-fi graphic novel since the events take place in space.3
The Flash Gordon series introduced permanent characters, fictional narratives,
speech balloons and a serialized story for the first time in Turkish children’s
magazines. Unlike today’s translated graphic novels, Flash Gordon as Baytekin
and Jungle Jim as Avcı Baytekin were given Turkish names. The events, gadgets
and tools, places, and vehicles were all given Turkish names and domesticated. On
the other hand, evil characters were left in their original names, for instance the
evil Ming. In other words, characters that would become a role model were all
domesticated whereas the bad characters were foreign. Additions were made to the
story in order to give a moral lesson and to set an example to the Turkish youth to
be patriotic and hard-working. Flash Gordon influenced a whole generation of

__________________________________________________________________
Turkish drawers.4 A great number of children who aspired to Flash Gordon and
Jungle Jim became the first graphic novel artists and drawers in Turkey. Turhan
Selçuk (1922) one of the most prominent Turkish caricaturist and drawers and the
creator of the unforgettable Abdulcanbaz series says that he owes a great deal to
Alex Raymond.5 Baytekin and Avcı Baytekin’s success provoked Turkish drawers
to create similar comics and graphic novels in other children’s magazines. This
initiative promoted and increased the publication of magazines. Orhan Tolon was
the first local drawer and graphic novel producer in Turkey. His productions were
created in panels and strips; the events usually took place in foreign places where
Turkish children set out to seek adventures and to learn a lesson in the end. The
lesson was mostly concerned with being a good citizen and patriotic.
Clarence Gray’s (1902-1957) famous fantastic sci-fi hero Brick Bradford was
another example of how the graphic novel genre was appropriated to set an
example to the Turkish youth. He was clever, hard-working, good hearted, and
always victorious. In this story, again the characters were all domesticated and
some passages were added for educational purposes. Brick Bradford’s name turned
into Birik Birad. In the story, Turkish police officers and detectives appeared to
solve the most difficult cases and they became very famous in the USA in an
overnight due to their courage, wit, and bravery.6
Children’s magazines such as Afacan, Çocuk Sesi, Ateş carried on the tradition
of publishing adapted, copied and domesticated foreign graphic novels. Another
important magazine was 1001 Roman (1939) which contained the greatest number
of serial graphic novels. Its appearance on the literary scene was the first sign of
adult graphic novel mags which were going to flourish during the years 1955-1975.
The effects of World War II were felt strongly in Turkish social life and its
cultural polysystem. Under the harsh conditions, the state went on with its efforts
to improve and modernize society by means of a process of implicit cultural
transformation. Intercultural awareness was felt to be necessary for this
transformation. Translations in general and graphic novel translations in particular
became not only textual and visual rewritings but carriers of ideas and frames of
minds. During the economic bottleneck of World War II, publishing activities in
Turkey waned and magazines had difficulties in having access to foreign graphic
novels. The situation led publishers to look for local drawers and artists. A new
group of drawers who were previously copyists went into the profession. Local
characters and topics, historical events, adventures of Turkish and Ottoman heroes
began to be topics for serials and graphic novels. Şahap Ayhan, Ayhan Erer, Suat
Yalaz and Faruk Geç are some of the names of this new generation of drawers. The
influence of war, the spirit of nationalism, patriotism and heroism attracted the
attention of adult and teenage readers who were looking for new role models. The
change in the content of the graphic novels went hand in hand with the general
tendency for patriotism and the confidence in Turkishness in society. Heroes from
Central Asia who fought courageously and saved their people, became idols of the

N. Berrin Aksoy 7
__________________________________________________________________
youth thanks to the drawings of Suat Yalaz and his production Karaoğlan.
Karaoğlan became a hit. (His name was later used as a nickname in the 1970’s for
a Turkish politician and Prime Minister, Mr. Ecevit.)
The 1950s brought about an increase in Belgian, Italian, and French originated
graphic novel translations and adaptations in Turkey along with the continuation of
local creations. Local creations carried on with historical themes and figures. The
drawers borrowed technical innovations from the cinema with its colourful pictures
and the world of evil and good. Soon, concerns about picking-up subject-matters to
avoid being repetitive led the drawers to add a little spice of politics and social
criticism. Their language which was pretentious under the influence of translation
and adaptation gradually became ordinary and daily.7 Towards the end of the 50s,
subjects of politics and ordinary concerns of the average person began to appear.
The two decades following World War II were marked by innovations in
communication and the production of mass media tools and instruments on a
global scale, along with new economic and cultural systems and productions.
Following Western examples, Turkish newspapers began to flourish and became
an active agent in the dissemination of popular culture products and values.
Hurriyet newspaper (1947) is the forerunner of its kind and soon it began to give a
Sunday supplement. In the 1950s, the relative ascendance of social mobility, the
change in consumption patterns due to the global free market system enabled the
formation of an audience eager to have access to the world outside by means of
newspapers. The publishers turned to graphic novel serials or comic band strips in
the supplements to increase the sales. Soon, almost every newspaper printed
comics. Historical and local figures were high in demand. Compared to children’s
magazines, newspapers were smaller in sales figures, thus comic artists moved into
the professional life of newspaper drawings. Comics contributed to newspaper
design on the visual level. The use of photographs in the newspapers was limited
until the second half of the sixties because of deficiencies in print technology.
Thus, artists who worked both with the newspapers as well as in the comic
business were able to shape the visual aspects of the Turkish press. Caricatures,
vignettes, portraits, illustrations, and various decorations were used instead of
photographs.8 Along with local productions, adaptations and copies were
persistent. After the 1960s, adaptations came mostly from Italy, Belgium, and
France, however, except for Tin Tin and Asterix, the content of which was
American. The American artist Lil Abner’s AI Capp who was domesticated and
became young Turkish peasant boy Hoş Memo lasted for 40 consecutive years.
The ‘70s brought about new and cutting-edge technologies to the printing
businesses along with faster and cheaper methods of publishing and circulation of
newspapers in Turkey. Levent Cantek comments on the situation of the publishing
activities in Turkey at that time and points to the fact that, due to the recent
technical innovations, photography took over the scene and publishers did no
longer need artists to create visual effects on the printed page. This led to a

__________________________________________________________________
reduction in the income of the comics artists and their enthusiasm dwindled with
the diminishing royalties. On the other hand, it is important to note that the
descending position of comics and graphic novels in newspapers did not cause a
decline in the production of new graphic novel magazines. In fact, newspaper
publishers gave their support to the publishing of those magazines. Some of them
were translations such as Henge’s (George Remi) Tintin which appeared as Tenten
magazine in the late ‘50s and ‘60s. It did not attract the attention it deserved due to
its translation errors, black and white copies and mediocre print.9 Lucky Luck,
Capitan Miki, who became a hero for the Turkish youth, Kinowa and Captain
Swing are just a few of those magazines in the ‘70s. Although they were very
widely read, educationists were concerned about their content and quality. This
image of ‘low-brow literature’ in the cultural polysystem was due to the low status
graphic novels held in society despite their popularity. The ‘70s were the years in
which girls’ magazines gained great popularity. Among them, Tina had a unique
place. Its 1st class printing quality and attractive pictures and drawings lured many
Turkish girls of teenage years. The blonde, fair skinned girls with model-like
bodies became role models for the readers. The world created in Tina magazine
was one Turkish girls envied: independent young women or teenagers surrounded
by boyfriends and friends, cosy and comfortable surroundings, fashionable clothes,
cars, a life of luxury and ease. It was a visual feast for the teenagers.10
Film techniques, representations, scenes and frames became sources of
inspiration for Turkish comic artists in the ‘80s. Those years in Turkey were
marked by a regression in the production of graphic novels. After the boom in the
1960s and ‘70s, comics and graphic novels could not compete with the influx of
video and computer games and graphic films. The expectations of society changed
in line with social, economic, and scientific transformations. Comics found
themselves in a new medium of existence. The birth of the humour magazine
Gırgır enabled the evolution of a new set of comic production.11 Gırgır came into
the Turkish polysystem as a first example of its kind. Gırgır’s sales hit the ceiling
and paved the way for the production of a whole set of humour magazines where
generations of artists improved their skills and earned money. The style of the
Gırgır magazine resembled cartoon styles and became popular among other
humorous comic magazines such as Leman and Fırt. In On Comics in Turkey
Levent Cantek writes that under the influence of Gırgır,
all comics that have been published after the 70s and have
attained a place in the collective memory of the Turkish people
are of humorous characters... It goes without saying that this
windfall of sales and the variety of magazines had a great impact
on comics so that richness of visual style and narrative forms
rose to a level never reached before.12

N. Berrin Aksoy 9
__________________________________________________________________
The content of those magazines were very different from that of the children’s
magazines of the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s. Ironical situations, exaggerated characters,
anti-heroes, satirical and vulgar language filled the pages. Galip Tekin, Oğuz Aral,
Suat Gönülayare belonged to a new generation of artists who had a great influence
on the new comers in the field.
The increase in the demand and quality of comic magazines was not to last
long. Television caused a drop of 80% in the overall sales of the printed media in
the 1990s. Magazines had to turn against the dominant taste of the TV audience
and started to create stories which could not be produced in TV productions. ‘This
inevitable change marginalized the comics as much as they did the magazines and
gave them a grotesque and carnivalesque characteristic.’13 However, they have
managed to survive against all odds thanks to their loyal readers and their
adherence to the production of humour at all costs. Humour magazines now use
humour and funniness in order to criticize everyday characters: the smart, the
greedy, the gluttonous, the rich, the cruel, etc. Another track that the graphic novel
in Turkey has taken is the graphic reproduction of world and Turkish literary
works, an initiative supported by the Turkish Ministry of National Education. For
the place of the foreign graphic novels in the publishing sector, Japanese and
American graphic novels simultaneously produced with their film versions have
the largest chunk. Francophone albums, which regard graphic novels as an artistic
form, and American graphic novels are now almost instantly translated and printed.
They are no longer adapted or domesticated and the printing technique is
unsurpassed as compared to their originals. The initial role of the graphic novel in
Turkey as a tool for creating new values and frames of mind in the early years of
the Turkish Republic has now shifted towards becoming a global, late-capitalist era
product, to be quickly consumed by the new generation of the readers.
Notes
1
Jurij Tynjanov and Roman Jakobson, ‘Problems in the Study of Literature and
Language’, in Contemporary Translation Theories, ed. Edwin Gentzler (London:
Routledge, 1993), 109-114.
2
Itamar Even-Zohar, ‘The Position of Translated Literature within the Literary
Polysystem’, in Translation Studies Reader, ed. Lawrence Venuti (London and
New York: Routledge, 2000), 192-197.
3
EserTutel, ‘Okumayı Çizgi Romanlarda Söktüm’, Viewed 27 June 2014,
http://www.seruven.org/inceleme.php?id=57.
4
Levent Cantek, Türkiye’de Çizgi Roman (İstanbul:İletişim, 2012), 53-91.
5
Cantek, Türkiye’de Çizgi Roman, 58.
6
Ibid., 61.
7
Ibid., 95.

__________________________________________________________________
8
Levent Cantek, ‘On Comics in Turkey’, Viewed 27 June 2014,
http://www.seruven.org.
9
Cantek, Türkiye’de Çizgi Roman, 107.
10
Nurşen Güllüoğlu, ‘Çizgi Romanların Çocukları’, Viewed 27 June 2014,
11
Emre Gönen, ‘Türkiye’deÇizgi Roman’, Viewed 27 June 2014,
12
Cantek, ‘On Comics in Turkey’.
13
Ibid.
Bibliography
Cantek, Levent. Türkiye’de Çizgi Roman. İstanbul: İletişim, 2012.
———.‘On Comics in Turkey’. Viewed 27 June 2014. http://www.seruven.org.
Even-Zohar, Itamar. ‘The Position of Translated Literature within the Literary

Polysystem’. Translation Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti, 192-197.
London and New York: Routledge, 2000.
Gönen, Emre.‘Türkiye’de Çizgi Roman’.Viewed 27 June 2014.

Güllüoğlu, Nurşen.‘Çizgi Romanların Çocukları’. Viewed 27 June 2014.

Tutel, Eser. ‘Okumayı Çizgi Romanlarda Söktüm’.Viewed 27 June 2014.

N. Berrin Aksoy is a Professor at the Department of Translation/Interpretation,

Atılım University, Ankara, Turkey. Her research covers the fields of Translation
Studies, Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies.

Part II
Literature and the Graphic Novel

Shelley’s Progeny: Using the Comic to Re-Animate
Frankenstein’s Vision
John Harnett
Abstract
Given the high cost of life incurred by Victor Frankenstein’s maniacal conviction
to penetrate the secrets of nature it seems almost inconceivable that his dying wish
at the end of the novel is that, ‘yet another may succeed’, where he failed. This
chapter will argue that that gauntlet has been taken up by the medium of sequential
narrative in the guise of Alan Moore’s run on Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson’s
Swamp Thing. The unique narrative structure embodied within the page of the
comic represents the ideal evolutionary next step for a new generation of
readers/students to confront the issues raised in Shelley’s novel. Two of the
dominant themes in Frankenstein are the quest for identity and man’s relationship
to nature. Victor Frankenstein and his savage doppelganger are in awe of the power
of nature yet one abuses it through irresponsible scientific experimentation and the
other views it as his only hope for salvation. In Alan Moore’s run on Swamp Thing
the significance of a communion with nature reaches its apotheosis with the
Swamp Thing representing the evolutionary next step in this line of thinking as he
actually becomes nature itself. When the stability of this interdependent
relationship with nature and their respective desires to belong are threatened,
however, both monsters begin to perceive themselves in a godlike light that
justifies their eventual paths towards vengeance, paths that lead to ruin for them
both. Thus, by comparing Shelley’s Creature with Moore’s Thing it shall be
explored how Frankenstein’s dying wish did not fall on deaf ears, and that it is
alive and well within the multimodal creature known as the comic.
Key Words: Multimodal, identity, nature, legacy, outcast, sublime, apotheosis,

progeny.
*****
In Mary Shelley’s introduction to Frankenstein she bids her, ‘hideous progeny

to go forth and prosper,’1 and since the novel’s publication a growing catalogue of
material spread across a variety of media has answered her call. Shelley’s novel is
a mainstay on third level syllabi and remains a very effective entrance point into
both Romantic and Gothic literature. Subsequently, modern critical interpretations
have been applied to the novel that have used it as test site for discourse on topics
ranging from the nuclear age to man’s questionable relationship to nature.2
Frankenstein has successfully made the transition from novel to stage to film, with
each medium unveiling a new perspective from which to engage with the issues
that the original story created.3 In this vein, this chapter will highlight why the

14 Shelley’s Progeny
__________________________________________________________________
comic or graphic novel makes for a logical inclusion in this arena of multimodal
discourse. It will attempt to do this by drawing a close comparison between
Shelley’s Creature and Alan Moore’s handling of Len Wein and Bernie
Wrightson’s Swamp Thing. By highlighting the significance of elements such as
identity and place, as well as a communion with nature that both creatures are
attuned to, it will be demonstrated that Shelley’s hopes for her progeny have been
realised and even visualised. Subsequently, by examining what happens to both
monsters when the sense of harmony they desire is denied or taken away it will be
speculated that Moore’s Swamp Thing makes for the ideal test site to explore two
central ‘what if?’ questions that could be applied to Shelley’s creature. The first is -
What might have happened if Frankenstein’s creature had been granted his desire
for a companion? And the second is what might have been the result had he been
able to fully enact his declaration of war on mankind? In taking this approach it
will be demonstrated that the plight of the Swamp Thing makes for a very useful
accompaniment to Shelley’s classic by presenting a hypothetical furtherance to
some of that novel’s key issues.
Clarifying some of the key similarities between Shelley’s Creature and Moore’s
Thing is the best way of outlining a process of literary ‘genealogy’ for inheritors of
the Frankenstein legacy. With this approach in mind the first logical place to look
is at each creature’s genesis. Both Shelley’s Creature and Moore’s Swamp Thing
begin life in a blurring haze of sensory overload. Virtually embodying a kind of
accelerated birth each creature lacks the cognizance necessary to make sense of its
newfound existence. It is also an event devoid of guidance or nurture for either of
them. Frankenstein’s Creature notes how:
A strange multiplicity of sensations seized me, and I saw, felt,

heard, and smelt at the same time; and it was indeed, a long time
before I learned to distinguish between the operations of my
various senses.4
Indeed, if any word could be chosen to describe the Creature’s experience it

would be confusion. He recounts how he gazed around him, ‘with a kind of
wonder’, on how, ‘no distinct ideas occupied my mind,’ and that, ‘all was
confused.’5 When Alec Holland reawakens after his death, or to be more precise,
when the creature with Alec Holland’s memories and soul reawakens, the process
is no less confusing and he suffers from the same degree of sensory overload. The
Swamp Thing ‘dies’ and is resurrected a number of times in Alan Moore’s run on
the series and significantly, when identifying connections to Frankenstein’s
Creature, each death is brought about by fire. Alec Holland’s first reincarnation on
Moore’s run happens in a laboratory, where his body has been frozen for study.
This process of reawakening is documented by the series’ very own mad scientist,
Dr. Jason Woodrue, as he speculates in his notes on, ‘that cloudy, confused

John Harnett 15
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intelligence, possibly only with the vaguest notion of self, trying to make sense of
its new environment.’6 Similarly, the Swamp Thing itself expresses confusion and
fear in relation to its own rebirth at a later stage as it asks:
What am I becoming? I bide my time in this place until I am

grown and I consider this organism that I am. Sometimes I am in
awe at its strangeness and complexity. Sometimes I am almost
frightened by my own possibilities.7
In her analysis of Frankenstein Anne K. Mellor argues that:
Victor Frankenstein substitutes solitary paternal propagation for

sexual reproduction . . . he engages in a concept of science that
Mary Shelley deplores, the notion that science should manipulate
and control rather than describe, understand, and revere nature.’8
Victor Frankenstein may be the paternal propagator but he is also an absent

father and it is up to the Creature to fill this absence in order to establish a sense of
self. Similarly, as a creature who can no longer lay a genetic claim to humanity
Moore’s Swamp Thing also needs to re-orientate his world in order to locate a
sense of identity, place, and belonging. Thus, in a move that counteracts their
irresponsible scientific genesis they embody an ideological reversal that
reprioritises and, in actual fact highly reveres, nature over science. Basically, they
both need to find a place to call home, and they both opt for the same choice,
nature. As a monstrous outcast Moore’s Swamp Thing reflects on a time when:
there was once a world we could have belonged to, maybe

somewhere in Europe, back in the fifteenth century. The world
was full of shadows then, full of monsters, not any more.9
Thus, seeking a sense of belonging he turns from the company of man to find
peace in the community of nature:
Somewhere quiet . . . somewhere green and timeless . . . I drift . .

. The cellular landscape stretching beneath me . . . eerie . . . silent
. . . beautiful. My awareness . . . expanding out through the
forgotten root systems. Am I at peace? Am I . . . happy? Oh yes. .
. I want to walk here forever. I want to struggle with the
alligators turning over and over in the mud. I want to be alive
and grow and rise up and meet the sun.’10

__________________________________________________________________
Moore’s creature imagines the fifteenth century as the most suitable period to
house monsters but meanwhile, in the eighteenth century, Shelley’s creature also
expresses a similar sense of reverie bordering on the sublime when his thoughts
turn to nature:
Happy, happy earth! Fit habitation for gods, which, so short a

time before, was bleak, damp, and unwholesome. My spirits
were elevated by the enchanting appearance of nature; the past
was blotted from my memory, the present was tranquil, and the
future gilded by bright rays of hope, and anticipations of joy.11
Having come to terms with being rejected by the world of man, Frankenstein’s
creature’s designs on the next best thing marries this sense of location within
nature alongside the primal desire for a mate. If he could sign off on these two
basic needs he states quite clearly that:
I will go to the vast wilds of South America . . . . I swear to you,

by the earth which I inhabit, and by you that made me, that with
the companion you bestow I will quit the neighbourhood of man,
and dwell as it may chance, in the most savage of places.12
Thus are laid out the two conditions upon the satisfaction of which Shelley’s
story would have traversed a much different route. But what if Victor Frankenstein
had created a mate for the Creature? Once again a return to Swamp Thing pays
dividends on this hypothetical level of enquiry. Unlike Shelley’s Creature Moore’s
Swamp Thing does not need to theorise on a proposed sanctuary, he has already
found it in the swamp he resides in. In fact, in Moore’s major tour-de-force on his
run on the series, the creature actually is the swamp, a self-regenerating,
metonymic representation of the environment he loves so much. Additionally, he
does acquire a mate in Abby Cable, a human woman who remarkably accepts him
for what he is, weeds and all.13 Frankenstein’s creature is hopeful of a day when he
will experience a sense of joint union with both a mate and his environment, and
thus, ‘become linked to the chain of existence and events.’14 By granting both of
these conditions to his own creature Moore takes this sense of blissful union to its
physical and spiritual apotheosis.
A brief aside is necessary here in relation to a pivotal component to both
stories, the concept of sublimity. In his approach to the sublime comics theorist
Douglas Wolk notes that, ‘sublime things give a kind of pleasure that’s also a kind
of terror . . . they’re too big to wrap one’s head around.’15 This pleasure/terror
dichotomy and aforementioned sense of spiritual and physical apotheosis – the
epitome of Shelley’s Creature’s hopes and dreams – is achieved when the Swamp
Thing and Abby make love for the first time. In a fitting testament to the

John Harnett 17
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polysemiotic structure of the medium it is captured in, the moment is as stunningly
visual as it is poetically literal. The union is conveyed through Abby’s thoughts as
she notes how:
Through him, I sprawl with the swamp, sopping, steaming,

dragonflies stitching neon threads through the damp air
surrounding me . . . Beyond him I wrestle the planet, sunk in
loam to my elbows as it arches beneath me . . . the bark encrusts
my flanks. The moss climbs my spine to embrace my shoulders.
We . . . are . . . one . . . creature . . . and all . . . that there is . . . is
in us . . . We are the world.16
So for Moore’s Swamp Thing the desire to become linked to the chain of
existence and events, as Frankenstein’s Creature would put it, is conclusively
achieved. Thus, the concept of a harmonious existence is established in both
worlds. For Shelley’s Creature it is a hoped-for-ideal and for Moore’s Swamp
Thing it is actually realised. But in the spirit of all good stories a sense of either
obstacle or disruption is essentially introduced to shatter such harmony. Victor
Frankenstein eventually concludes that in no way can he create a companion for
his Creature, fearful of his progeny’s retribution as he wonders, ‘Had I a right, for
my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations?’17 In Moore’s
story, on the other hand, Abby Cable is arrested for her relationship with the
Swamp Thing and charged with ‘crimes against nature’ under laws, ‘usually
reserved for people who have carnal relationships with farm animals.’18 So the
door to happiness remains shut for Shelley’s Creature and it is obstructed for
Moore’s Swamp Thing through Abby’s imprisonment.
This results in an important, and shared, aspect of vengeance that further
influences their sense of identity and elevates both monsters to a higher, mythic
level. One of the most influential sources of Frankenstein’s Creature’s impressive
articulation and command of language is John Milton’s Paradise Lost and indeed
he even likens his predicament to Milton’s fallen Lucifer as he becomes more and
more aware of his outcast state. An overwhelming current of fury seeps into his life
and he begins to speak with the elevated tone of a deity on the verge of war. He
points out to his neglectful creator that his feelings have become, ‘those of rage
and revenge.’19 Recognising a powerful biblical precedent to his castigated
existence he sympathises that:
I, like the archfiend, bore a hell within me, and finding myself
unsympathised with, wished to tear up the trees, spread havoc
and destruction around me, and then to have sat down and
enjoyed the ruin.20

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Thus, denied all access to happiness the Creature bitterly commits the
remainder of his life to a self-imposed quest for vengeance and in that spirit his
only recourse is to declare war on mankind, just as Lucifer declared it on heaven.
He issues a decree of, ‘ever-lasting war against the species’21 and, notably, one of
his last comments to Victor before he tears his creator’s life apart is, ‘Man, you
shall repent of the injuries you inflict.’22 In the context of this chapter this warning
acts as an ideal opener for the similar transformation of Moore’s Swamp Thing
into a Swamp ‘God’. Again and again in Shelley’s novel we see Victor’s
irresponsible and fervent, ‘longing to penetrate the secrets of nature.’23 In his
introduction to Book Four of Moore’s collected run on the series Charles Shaar
Murray notes Moore’s:
very real ecological concern which is one of the strongest

underpinnings of his work on the series – what will be the
consequences of humanity’s short-sighted and one-sided
relationship with the Earth, with the green?24
Moore himself explains in an interview with George Khoury that he was

attempting to depict a sense of ascendancy in his monster that emulated godhood,
‘I was trying to have the character slowly evolve into a kind of vegetable god.’25
Just like Victor Frankenstein’s vengeful ‘Lucifer’ Moore’s Swamp Thing inherits a
proud and articulate sense of indignation to man’s reckless abuse of nature, and
when he in turn passes judgement on mankind his language embodies the same
level of conviction as he declares:
I have tolerated ... your species ... for long enough. Your cruelty
... and your greed ... and ... your insufferable arrogance. You
blight the soil ... and poison the rivers. You raze the vegetation ...
till you cannot ... even feed ... your own kind ... A ... and then
you boast ... of man’s triumph ... over nature. Fools, if nature
were to shrug ... or raise an eyebrow ... then you should all be
gone.26
Thus, Moore outlines a very similar establishment to Shelley of battle lines

between creature and man. Concluding that, ‘The wrath ... of nature ... is not wrong
...nor is it unjust ... that man ... should bear its brunt,’27 the Swamp Thing declares
all out war on Gotham City, the place where Abby is being held prisoner. Shelley’s
Creature evokes the Miltonic language of divine retribution and yet his actions are
more stealth assassin than god of war. Moore’s Swamp Thing, however,
manipulates his extensive command of the power of nature to bring an entire city
to its knees as his war is fully realised. Indeed, in the chapter where he attacks
Gotham City he is referred to as a ‘swamp god’ over ten times.28 Through Moore’s

John Harnett 19
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‘vegetable god’ Victor Frankenstein’s desire to penetrate nature is reversed and it
is instead the urban environment which is penetrated as the Swamp Thing
triumphantly notes how, ‘This city cannot contain me...Unimpeded...I dance along
the cracks in the sidewalks...I erupt from a grating ... beautiful. Invincible. I have
broken the city softly.’29
Enacting a more comprehensive assault on mankind, however, does not save
the Swamp Thing from the same fate experienced by Frankenstein’s Creature. Just
like Milton’s Lucifer, notions of godhood instigate the sin of pride and initiate a
process of cause and effect which results in a fall. Frankenstein’s Creature’s
obsession with destruction acts as a dark reflection of his creator’s obsession with
animation. His fate, like Lucifer’s, is ultimately consigned to flame:
I shall collect my funeral pile, and consume to ashes this

miserable frame, that its remains may afford no light to any
curious and unhallowed wretch, who would create such another
as I have been.30
For Moore’s Swamp Thing, too, the hubris that inspires all out war on
humanity ends in the blistering heat of a napalm strike. His physical form is
reduced to ashes and his consciousness is exiled to a distant, barren planet that
initially takes on the guise of an isolated and personalised hell and ultimately
becomes the launch point for a form of subconscious odyssey in a quest for
corporeal reincarnation.31
As noted at the beginning of this chapter in the closing remarks of her
introduction to her novel Mary Shelley bids her hideous progeny to, ‘go forth and
prosper.’ Just like the cycles of nature itself and in accordance with the cyclical
nature of cause and effect that defines all stories concerning pride and a fall both
Shelley’s Creature and Moore’s Swamp Thing ‘die’. But in the wake of this
passing a vibrant level of discourse is reborn and does go forth and prosper, ready
to engage a future generation of readers, no matter what medium it takes root in.
Notes
1
Mary Shelley, ‘Introduction’, Frankenstein (London: Penguin Books, 2003), 10.
2
Maurice Hindle, Introduction to Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (London: Penguin
Books, 2003), xlvi.
3
George Levine, ed., The Endurance of Frankenstein: Essay’s on Mary Shelley’s
Novel (London: University of California Press, 1982), 243.
4
Shelley, Frankenstein, 105.
5
Ibid., 106.
6
Alan Moore, et al., Saga of the Swamp Thing (New York: DC Comics, 2012),
Book One, 49.

__________________________________________________________________
7
Alan Moore, et al., Saga of the Swamp Thing (New York: DC Comics, 2010)
Book Three, 71.
8
Fred Botting, ed., Frankenstein: Mary Shelley (New York: St. Martin’s Press,
1995), 119.
9
Moore, Swamp Thing, Book One, 21.
10
Ibid., 89, 132.
11
Shelley, Frankenstein, 118
12
Ibid., 148/149.
13
Interestingly, as Moore’s run on the series draws to a close we see in the story
Reunion a young Abby enjoying her favourite passage from Shelley’s
Frankenstein. Alan Moore, et al., Saga of the Swamp Thing (New York: DC
Comics, 2014) Book Six, 60.
14
Ibid., 150.
15
Douglas Wolk, Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They
Mean (United States of America: Da Capo Press, 2007), 56.
16
Book Two, 216.
17
18
Book Five, 15.
19
20
Ibid., 138.
21
Ibid., 144.
22
Ibid., 173.
23
Ibid., 41.
24
Charles Shaar Murray, ‘Introduction’ to Saga of the Swamp Thing, by Alan
Moore, et al. (New York: DC Comics, 2010) Book Four, 2.
25
George Khoury, The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore (Canada:
TwoMorrows Publishing, 2008), 89.
26
Moore, Swamp Thing, Book Five, 50.
27
Ibid., 42.
28
Ibid., 35-55.
29
Ibid., 67.
30
31
Alan Moore, at al., Saga of the Swamp Thing (New: DC Comics, 2014) Book
Six.

John Harnett 21
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Bibliography
Alcala, Alfredo, Stephen Bissette, Alan Moore, John Totleben, Rick Veitch, and
Stan Woch. Saga of the Swamp Thing, Books 1 – 6. New York: DC Comics, 2009-
2014.
Botting, Fred. Frankenstein: Mary Shelley. New York: St Martin’s Press, 1995.
Levine, George. The Endurance of Frankenstein: Essays on Mary Shelley’s Novel.

Berkeley; London: University of California Press, 1982.
Khoury, George. The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore. Canada: Two Morrows
Publishing, 2008.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. London: Penguin Books, 2003.
Wolk, Douglas. Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They
Mean. United States of America: DA Capo Press, 2007.
John Harnett is a postgraduate student in Mary Immaculate College, Limerick

Ireland. His research focuses on correlating the medium of visual narrative with
traditional aspects of psychoanalytical discourse and critical theory.

Reimagination of Hell in Mike Mignola’s Hellboy in Hell
Joseph G. Altnether
Abstract
Descriptions of Hell have been carefully delineated in literary works, most notably
Virgil, Dante and Milton. These works create a perception of the underworld based
on descriptions found in and influenced by religious texts. The story of Hellboy has
the potential to add to these visions, thereby granting the character an opportunity
to expand the literary exploration and description of the underworld and
demonstrating the influence of sequential art. Exploration and confrontation with
Hell as an entity allow Hellboy to explore the various world interpretations of Hell
and show how an understanding of place goes beyond a particular culture. Hellboy
provides a mean through which the readers are able to encounter a number of
beliefs and world views, accentuating their world relevance and showing how all
these different views are actually integrated.
Key Words: Hellboy, graphic novel, hell, reimagination.
*****
Hellboy exists in a world saturated with mythology and folklore. Born in Hell
by human witch, Sarah Hughes, Hellboy comes to Earth when Rasputin and the
Nazi project Ragna Rok pull him through a mystical portal. Thus begins Hellboy’s
destiny to becoming the Beast of the Apocalypse. He refuses to accept that this is
his fate. Despite all attempts to reject his birthright, Hellboy falls at the hands of
Vivienne, the Blood Queen, who rips out his heart, sending Hellboy back to Hell.
With the death of his protagonist, creator Mike Mignola examines Hellboy's
response to death and his return to Hell. Hellboy discovers his origins and explores
Hell from a new perspective, one which challenges the stagnant and repetitive
version of fire and brimstone. Mignola erodes the established imagery of the
literary past and crafts a new interpretation. He creates a new vision which
emphasizes the difference from previous literary descriptions, and allows the
reader to see Hell rather than simply recognize it.
The similar incarnations of the underworld in literature and mythology create
some difficulties in imagining an environment that appears unique or innovative.
Strong Biblical influences pervade the cultural consciousness, such as the
apocalyptical prophecies from the Book of Revelations. The chief purpose of art,
however, is ‘to restore our capacity to see what habit and use have blinded us’.1
Russian Formalism provides a means to understand how Mignola’s Hell develops
into a new vision. Viktor Shklovsky writes in Theory of Prose that art should ‘keep
us from experiencing an object as something other than it is’.2 With the common
perception of Hell as a place of fire, and damnation, it is important to remove the

24 Reimagination of Hell in Mike Mignola’s Hellboy in Hell
__________________________________________________________________
conventional and formulaic image and endow it with strangeness.3 Shklovsky
describes this process as ‘enstrangement’,4 an idea that finds support in the words
of William Wordsworth. In his preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth explains
that imagination needs to play a role in altering our perception of objects because
we become too familiar with them and don't really see them. But change cannot
occur suddenly. Rather there is the need for ‘something to which the mind has been
accustomed in various mood...[which] cannot but have great efficacy in tampering
and restraining the passion’.5 Familiar recognition of attributes reduces anxiety and
creates a more accepting mood. Mignola gains acceptance by referencing past
literary descriptions from Milton, Dante and Virgil before altering the image of
Hell.
A visual interpretation of Hell can only occur in the imagination and the most
influential sources for imagination are found in literary works. Mignola slowly
integrates Hellboy and the reader to his version of Hell through literary similarities.
Greek mythology, particularly the tale of Proserpina, presents the underworld as a
‘gloomy land of darkness’.6 Virgil’s glimpse at the underworld reveals a ‘region of
the Shades, and Sleep/And drowsy Night’.7 The Book of Isaiah describes Hell as a
‘nether world [which] enlarges its throat and opens it maw without limit’.8 Dante is
led through the circles of hell, descending to the bottom where the most
reprehensible of crimes are punished. Milton’s origins of Hell reveal the common
feature in all these literary portrayals: the influence of cultural and religious belief.
Mignola recognizes these ‘many variations on hell, [and] the last thing I want to do
is say “I’m doing this mythology or version”’.9 Although these various influences
are apparent in Mignola’s interpretation, he utilizes these similarities as a way to
acclimate his readers in anticipation to a different interpretation.
Virgil’s description of Hell in the Aeneid influences later literary works, as
found in ‘Milton’s Hell and Dante’s local…[which] both have traces of the
geography of Virgil’s Hades’.10 Virgil returns to Hell in Dante Alighieri’s The
Inferno. He guides the poet Dante through the throng of shades as they navigate the
nine circles of Hell.11 Dante’s exploration builds upon the imagery created by
Virgil’s poetic descriptions. Milton adds to this portrait of Hell through his
theoretical explanation for the emergence of sin and death. These literary works
build upon their predecessors, and provide more depth to geographical and
physical description. Dante’s vivid and graphic imagery of the geography of Hell
recalls the apocalyptic visions from Revelations in which the dead will be judged
and those found wanting will suffer eternal damnation. These literary works also
reveal the influence of political and religious thought. Mignola’s representation of
Hell refrains from such influence, yet still manages to challenge the canonical and
long-standing perceptions of Hell.
When the Blood Queen rips out Hellboy's heart at the end of ‘The Fury’,
Hellboy falls through darkness into the Abyss, similar to Satan’s fall described by
Milton. Hell and Abyss may both be defined by the Hebrew word sheol. There are

Joseph G. Altnether 25
__________________________________________________________________
other literary similarities which Mignola utilizes to great effect. Hellboy’s arrival
in Hell seems familiar to Milton’s Satan, who lands in ‘Hell at last/Yawning
received them whole, and on them clos’d/Hell this fit habitation fraught with
fire/Unquenchable’.12 Hellboy lands just outside Hell, in what Sir Edward Grey
describes as the Abyss, an area not quite yet Hell.13 Sir Edward’s presence and
advice indicates that he is Hellboy’s guide. He serves Hellboy much as Dante
permits Virgil to ‘conduct me there where thou hast said/That I may see the portal
of Saint Peter’.14 As Hellboy becomes acclimated to Hell, certain descriptions
indicate that this Hell is ‘very much as a world; not far off from Milton’s Hell in
Paradise Lost’.15 These numerous literary references ease the reader to accepting
this version of Hell while building toward an unconventional presentation.
Hellboy eventually finds himself in the capital of Hell, which continues to
borrow from Milton and Dante. What Hellboy sees is a ‘general structure [of] the
Miltonian Hell. It’s set up in a specific way, with the capital city of
Pandemonium’.16 The city, though, is uninhabited, contrary to the Greek meaning
of ‘all demons/spirits’. In addition, as Hellboy moves through the city, he
encounters some cartographers who discover that they are stuck in the city that
continues to alter its physical shape.17 Hellboy even discovers that Satan has
remained in the bowels of Hell for two thousand years, a slight alteration from
Dante’s ‘Emperor of the kingdom dolorous/From his mid-breast forth issued from
the ice’.18 These alterations signal a change, which becomes apparent when
Hellboy is told that ‘for the first time [he is] truly free’.19 The appearance of hope
is contrary to Dante’s famous inscription on the gate of Hell which instructs ‘[a]ll
hope abandon, ye who enter in!’20 The idea of hope creates a new perception of
Hell through absence. The absence of the conventional creates a pause and focuses
the attention on the visual, or absence thereof. It creates a change in the perception
of Hell.
Through the first six issues of Hellboy in Hell, there has been no mention of
Dante’s circles of Hell. It is simply empty. It lacks definitive boundaries which is
intentional on the part of Mignola ‘because [Hell]’s real fluid and there’s always
going to be different kinds of areas to explore’.21 As Hellboy wanders from one
section to another, the physicality of Hell also changes. Hell becomes less familiar,
developing into a place ‘where [Mignola] get[s] to indulge. It’s [his] fantasy
land’.22 Mignola admits that he wants to create something new and different, with
Hell becoming ‘more and more abstract, until I dare anyone to keep buying [the
book]’.23 His version of Hell develops into ‘instances of translating obscure folk
material into popular consciousness’.24 Hell moves away from mythological and
expected conventions; it defies interpretation. There is anticipation for the new and
the undiscovered and a sense of universal appeal. With the absence of punishment
and misery found in Classical interpretations of Hell as a place of eternal
damnation, it evolves into an entity that challenges preconceived expectations. It
develops into a place that is not familiar or symmetrical, with ‘big areas where it

__________________________________________________________________
just [doesn’t] make any goddamn sense’.25 Mignola has taken the best parts and
ideas from various myths and folk tales to develop his own vision, one that
develops into a form that is in no way imitative of what has been presented before.
Hellboy moves through a hell that has no definitive shape or form, a hell that ‘has
specific locations and geography, but it’s an open-ended enough world’.26 Hell is
not a place of judgment, but one of exploration and understanding. Hellboy in Hell
creates an environment that encourages change in the genre and literary
interpretation, indicating that change has arrived.
Other differences emerge. Hellboy’s death alters the perception of the
protagonist, since he must display behaviour different from those normally
attributed to the mortal hero. His death departs from the expectations that the main
protagonist returns from Hell alive. Through this simple change, Mignola ‘turns
the standard heroic convention on its ear’.27 He escapes from the confines of
literature and the graphic novel in order to pursue a different interpretation.
Hellboy may yet face challenges, including ‘three things he’s still bound to do’.28
Regardless of the challenges, Hellboy is adamant in his refusal to accept the throne
of Hell and its crown.29 This shows that Hellboy has little concern over what may
lie in the future. This lack, or absence, of concern may result from his inability to
remember his past, which he simply does not recognize or remember.30 Hell is
completely unfamiliar to him. This unfamiliarity with place is reflected onto the
reader, and emphasizes Mignola’s innovation. Hellboy deviates from expected
actions of the protagonist, foregoing any type of quest or heroic acts. The absence
of heroism points toward a move away from Classicist interpretations of Hell.
Perhaps this indicates a new, ‘Romantic’ movement, one that investigates the
nature of Hell and why it exists in the first place.
Mignola presents a new myth to which his readers will give life. Albert Camus
writes that ‘[m]yths have no life of their own. They wait for us to give them
flesh’.31 Literature has influenced the interpretation of Hell. With the emergence of
the graphic novel, Mignola’s Hellboy in Hell embraces a more cosmopolitan
depiction of the world. Hell mimics Earth with varying personalities and people.
Mignola presents various cultural folktales and myths as Hellboy explores Hell,
with current plans entailing that Hellboy
roam around Hell the way he did on Earth. Roam around the
world and the feeling is there’s an Asian sector of Hell, an
Egyptian Hell, and an Eastern European neighborhood of Hell.32
Hellboy’s exploration will demonstrate how integrated mythological

interpretations really are, ‘remain[ing] open to the intricacies of the intersection of
language, class, race, and gender in literature’.33 It creates the potential to gain a
better appreciation for the shared attributes of cultures and beliefs, and develops
into a place where stories can be told from any perspective. This would indicate

__________________________________________________________________
that they do not have to be from the protagonist’s perspective, but from any
perspective, thereby lending itself for an opportunity to be told from post-colonial
narration. In addition to creating a sense of innovation with the setting of the book,
Mignola also creates the unfamiliar within the graphic novel, thereby making
Hellboy in Hell ‘one of the most experimental ongoing comics on the stands’.34
The exploration of the rich variety of mythology and folklore is one step toward
exposing the readers of Hellboy to as many different world views as possible. It
provides a more broad view of the world and negates the necessity for judgment.
Judgment in Hell is based on a particular belief. In the Hell of Dante and
Milton, a Christian judgment awaits those who arrive in the underworld. Even in
The Aeneid, the dead line up before Minios in order to be judged.35 There is no
consideration given for variance or differing beliefs or cultures. Up until now, the
influence of these past works allowed for only one dominant description of hell,
based on one particular belief system. Milton describes the fall of Lucifer and the
creation of Hell strictly from a Christian perspective, influencing the description
with his own thoughts on these beliefs, thereby making Paradise Lost ‘a
theological epic built on a theme of international importance’.36 Dante exposes the
hypocrisy of religion and politics through his victims in hell, yet fails to account
for the groups of believers of a different faith, demonstrating that ‘Christianity was
never from Dante’s mind’.37 Even Virgil, who describes the pagan gods, still only
accounts for those within his place in the world. Primacy is given to the Greeks and
Romans, one which ‘rests on a widely accepted belief, coming down from
antiquity’.38 The Hell of Hellboy departs from this interpretation, since Hellboy
seeks neither to judge the actions of others, nor does he look to find a belief that
proves to be dominant over all others. Mignola does not appear to explore the
aspect of eternal damnation partly because he professes ‘no solid belief about an
afterlife’.39 The absence of judgment and condemnation proves to be the biggest
indication that Hellboy pushes the graphic novel toward its own Romantic
movement. Much as the Romantics sought to appreciate life and nature through
observation and mental reflection, Mignola views his Hell as a ‘different
mythological version beyond the Christian or Miltonian Hell we’ve seen so far’.40
The observation of Hellboy’s activities in Hell encourages mental reflection on
what occurs in Hell and the reason for its existence.
Mignola encourages the reader to see Hell away from its usual context, which
exemplifies Shklovsky's idea of ‘enstrangement’. Hell constantly shifts and alters
its form, embracing all cultures rather than the singular version that has been
constantly propagated. Mignola also inserts literary references from this era to
emphasize the beauty one might find in ruin.41 The puppet show from Charles
Dickens’ A Christmas Story and the tale of Pinocchio distract the reader from the
unpleasant realities of Hell. But they also serve to make the setting of Hell
different and uncomfortable. Such contrast in this environment challenges past
preconceptions and redefine them. This occurs by ‘creat[ing] a special perception

__________________________________________________________________
of the object’.42 Mignola utilizes such insertions ‘in the same way that he uses folk
tales—as sources of inspiration and atmosphere, rather than untouchable canonical
texts’.43 Such insertions also demonstrate the freedom of creativity and freedom
from ‘restraints and rules…suggesting that phase of individualism marked by the
encouragement of revolutionary…ideas’.44 Mignola erodes the constraints of the
literary past, seen in his emphasis on ruin, which provides a means of showing how
from ruin arises the beauty of art. This occurs by making ‘objects “unfamiliar,” to
make forms difficult, to increase the difficulties and length of perception’.45 There
is more in Mignola’s version of Hell than a new, different description in which to
perceive it. Mignola provides a particular set of circumstances that defy the rules
and push the genre of the graphic novel into a new era.
Mignola’s version of the underworld seems to emphasize how Hell defies a
concise definition. It becomes a reflection of the reader’s vision. The ability of Hell
to change to any image or place reflects an ability to integrate cultures without
judgment or condemnation by means of a simple step. Such a vision of Hell is a
tribute to the imagination of Mignola and his ability to create an arena that allows
for its free expression. The freedom exhibited by Hellboy to wander and explore
the expansive landscape of Hell indicates the freedom of the artist to explore and
investigate new forms of expression rather than rely on tradition. This tends to
reflect the culture of the graphic novel. With the ubiquitous superhero starring in
nearly every comic and graphic novel, the reader becomes complacent. They no
longer see the graphic novel. Much as the Romantic movement of the 18th century,
imagination took precedent over reason as it sought ‘to find the Absolute, the Ideal,
by transcending the actual’.46 The lack of specific delineations in Hell, even by
geographical markers, disintegrates the structure of the past. The preconceptions
created by the past remain as markers of the foundation, but as Mignola pushes
forward with his story of Hellboy in Hell, he encourages the genre to move away
from conformity so that the reader can experience its form rather that merely
recognize it.
Hellboy in Hell presents an homage to the classic poets of Virgil, Dante and
Milton whose works help define Mignola’s version of Hell. Hellboy in Hell
investigates an underworld that offers a vision of integrated cultures, and provides
the opportunity for a post-colonial interpretation of myth and religion. Hell
becomes unfamiliar as Hellboy explores a land that continually shifts and
challenges the past to accept the unfamiliar. The exploration of the unconventional
mirrors the Romantic literary movement of the 19th century. Mignola utilizes
creativity and imagination to challenge our comfort with the status quo. The
incorporation of various cultural interpretations lend a more universal appeal to
this underworld, and presents a distinct feel that is not integral in previous
incarnations. The visionary depiction of Mignola’s Hell moves away from the
static interpretations of the past, and creates an evolving, fluid environment that
allows the imagination to become predominant and challenge the expectations and

__________________________________________________________________
preconceived notions of the reader. Hell is new, different and creative, while
remaining sympathetic to the past. With his version of Hell, Mignola emphasizes
the similarities in world cultures, yet allows for the reader to embrace them through
Hellboy’s exploits. The idea of Hell reflecting the real world makes the stories
more human and provides the opportunity to have relevance to everyone,
regardless of background or beliefs. The idea of such an underworld stimulates the
imagination and ushers in a new era in the form of the graphic novel by eroding the
constraints of the past and allowing the artist to embrace the freedom of creativity
and imagination on a more universal platform that brings the story to everyone.
Notes
1
Viktor Shklovsky, ‘Art as Technique,’ in The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts
and Contemporary Trends, ed. David H. Richter, trans. Lee T. Lemon and Marion
Reis, 3rd ed. (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007), 751.
2
Gerald L. Bruns, ‘Introduction’ to Theory of Prose by Viktor Shklovsky
(Champaign, IL: Dalkey Archive, 2009), xi.
3
Benjamin Sher, ‘Translator’s Introduction,’ Theory of Prose by Viktor Shklovsky
(Champaign, IL: Dalkey Archive, 2009), xix.
4
Ibid.
5
William Wordsworth, ‘Preface,’ Lyrical Ballads, 1802 ed. (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2013), 110.
6
‘Demeter,’ Classical Gods and Heroes: Myths as Told by the Ancient Authors,
trans. Rhoda A. Hendricks (New York City: Perennial, 2004), 49.
7
Virgil, The Aeneid, trans. Robert Fitzgerald (New York: Vintage Classic Edition,
1983), VI, 523-24.
8
Isaiah 5:14, The Catholic Study Bible: New American Bible (Oxford: Oxford,
1990).
9
Mike Mignola, ‘Mike Mignola Talks Hellboy in Hell at NYCC,’ Interview by
Shoshana Kessock, Tor, October, 2012. Viewed 11 November 2014.
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/10/mike-mignola-talks-hellboy-in-hell-at-nycc.
10
Merritt Y. Hughes, ‘Introduction’ to Paradise Lost by John Milton (New York:
The Odyssey Press, 1957), 182.
11
Dante Alighieri, The Inferno (New York City: Barnes and Noble Classics, 2005),
XXIX, 5-6.
12
John Milton, Paradise Lost, ed. Merritt Y. Hughes (New York: The Odyssey
Press, 1957), VI: 871, 874-77.
13
Mike Mignola, Hellboy in Hell: The Descent (Milwaukee, OR: Dark Horse
Books, 2014), 7.
14
Alighieri, The Inferno, I: 133-34.

__________________________________________________________________
15
Mike Mignola, ‘Mignola’s Hellboy in Hell: His Most Important Book,’
Interview by Chris Arrant, Newsarama, April 2, 2013.
16
Mike Mignola, ‘Hellboy’s on a One-Way Trip to Hell, and Mike Mignola’s Our
Tour Guide,’ Interview by Cyriaque Lamar, io9, May 9, 2012. Viewed 11
November 2014.
http://io9.com/5871165/mike-mignola-tells-us-hellboys-big-plans-for-2012.
17
Mike Mignola, ‘Hellboy in Hell – Mike Mignola’s Latest Effort Is a Visceral
Experience,’ Interview by Reid Vanier, Broken Frontiers, May 14, 2014.
18
Alighieri, The Inferno, XXXIV, 28-29.
19
Mignola, Hellboy in Hell, 86.
20
Aligheri. III, 9.
21
Mignola, Interview by Chris Arrant, Newsarama. Viewed 11 November 2014.
http://www.newsarama.com/17325-mignola-s-hellboy-in-hell-his-most-important-
book.html
22
Mike Mignola, ‘Hellboy: The First 20 Years: Mike Mignola Marks Two
Decades in Hell,’ Interview by Gina McIntyre and Justin Sullivan, LA Times,
March 26, 2014. Viewed 11 November 2014.
http://herocomplex.latimes.com/comics/hellboy-the-first-20-years-mike-mignola-
marks-two-decades-in-hell/#/0
23
Mike Mignola, ‘Mignolaversity: It All Goes to Hell with Mignola, Arcudi and
Allie,’ Interview by Brian Salvatore and David Harper, Multiversity, December 12,
2012.
24
Laura O’Connor, ‘The Corpse on Hellboy’s Back: Translating a Graphic Image,’
The Journal of Popular Culture 43.3 (2010): 542.
25
Mignola, interview by Cyriaque Lamar, io9.
26
Ibid.
27
Stephen Weiner, Jason Hall and Victoria Blake, Mike Mignola’s Hellboy: The
Companion (Milwaukee, OR: Dark Horse Books, 2008), 12.
28
Mignola, Hellboy in Hell, 89.
29
Ibid., 30.
30
Ibid., 40.
31
Albert Camus, ‘Prometheus in the Underworld,’ Lyrical and Critical Essays, ed.
Philip Thody, trans. Ellen Conroy Kennedy (New York: Vintage Books, 1968),
141.
32
Mike Mignola, ‘NYCC 2012: Mike Mignola Interview,’ Interview by James
Ferguson, Horrortalk, November 17, 2012.
33
Barbara Christian, ‘The Race for Theory,’ in The Critical Tradition: Classic
Texts and Contemporary Trends, ed. David H. Richter, 3rd ed. (Boston: Bedford/St.
Martin’s, 2007), 1860.

__________________________________________________________________
34
Mike Mignola, ‘Mike Mignola Gives a Tour of Hellboy in Hell’s Risky First
Five Issues,’ Interview by Oliver Sava, AV Club, March 31, 2014. Viewed 11
November 2014. http://www.avclub.com/article/mike-mignola-gives-tour-hellboy-
hells-risky-first--202809.
35
Virgil, The Aeneid, VI, 582-83.
36
Roy Flanagan, ‘Introduction’ to Paradise Lost by John Milton (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Co., 1998), 306.
37
Bondanella, ‘Introduction’ to The Inferno, xxix.
38
Merritt Y. Hughes, ‘Introduction’ to Paradise Lost by John Milton (New York:
The Odyssey Press, 1957), 183.
39
Mike Mignola, ‘Mike Mignola on Hellboy 3, Sending the Character to Hell, and
He’ll End up There, Too,’ Interview by Benjamin Leatherman, NewTimes, May 24,
2013. Viewed 11 November 2014.
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/jackalope/2013/05/mike_mignola_hellboy_pho
enix_comicon.php.
40
Mignola, interview by Chris Arrant, Newsarama.
41
William Harmon and Hugh Holman, A Handboook to Literature 11th ed.
(Uppsadle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2009), 481.
42
Shklovsky, Critical Tradition, 778.
43
Weiner, et al., Hellboy: The Companion, 216.
44
Harmon, Handbook to Literature, 481.
45
Shklovsky, Critical Tradition, 776.
46
Harmon, Handbook to Literature, 481.
Bibliography
Bondanella, Peter. ‘Introduction’ to The Inferno by Dante Alighieri. New York
City: Barnes and Noble Classics, 2005.
Camus, Albert. ‘Prometheus in the Underworld.’ In Lyrical and Critical Essays,

edited by Philip Thody. Translated by Ellen Conroy Kennedy, 138-142. New York:
Vintage Books, 1968.
Christian, Barbara. ‘The Race for Theory.’ In The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts
and Contemporary Trends, edited by David H. Richter, 3rd ed., 1858-1865. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007.
‘Demeter.’ Classical Gods and Heroes: Myths as Told by the Ancient Authors.
Translated by Rhoda A. Hendricks, 42-50. New York City: Perennial, 2004.

__________________________________________________________________
Flanagan, Roy. ‘Introduction’ to Paradise Lost by John Milton. Boston: Houghton

Mifflin Co., 1998.
Harmon, William and Hugh Holman. A Handboook to Literature. 11th ed. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2009.
Hughes, Merritt Y. ‘Introduction’ to Paradise Lost by John Milton. New York:

The Odyssey Press, 1957.
Mignola, Mike. Hellboy in Hell: The Descent. Milwaukee, OR: Dark Horse Books,
2014.
———. ‘Hellboy: The First 20 Years: Mike Mignola Marks Two Decades in
Hell.’ Interview by Gina McIntyre and Justin Sullivan. LA Times, March 26, 2014.
Viewed 11 November 2014. http://herocomplex.latimes.com/comics/hellboy-the-
first-20-years-mike-mignola-marks-two-decades-in-hell/#/0.
———. ‘Hellboy in Hell #6- Mike Mignola’s Latest Effort Is a Visceral

Experience.’ Interview by Reid Vanier. Broken Frontier, May 14, 2014.
———. ‘Hellboy’s on a One-Way Trip to Hell, and Mike Mignola’s Our Tour
Guide.’ Interview by Cyriaque Lamar. io9, May 9, 2012. Viewed 11 November
2014. http://io9.com/5871165/mike-mignola-tells-us-hellboys-big-plans-for-2012.
———. ‘Interview: Mike Mignola Explores Hellboy in Hell.’ Interview by Lonny

Nadler. Bloody Disgusting, December 6, 2012. Viewed 11 November 2014.
http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3206696/interview-mike-mignola-explores-
hellboy-in-hell/.
———. ‘Mignola Looks Back at 20 Years of Hellboy.’ Interview by Brian Truitt.

USA Today, March 21, 2014. Viewed 11 November 2014.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2014/03/20/mike-mignola-20-years-of-
hellboy/6666795.
———. ‘Mignola’s Hellboy in Hell: His Most Important Book.’ Interview by

Chris Arrant. Newsarama, April 2, 2013. Viewed 11 November 2014.
http://www.newsarama.com/17325-mignola-s-hellboy-in-hell-his-most-important-
book.html.

__________________________________________________________________
———. ‘Mignolaversity: It All Goes to Hell with Mignola, Arcudi and Allie.’
Interview by Brian Salvatore and David Harper. Multiversity, December 12, 2012.
Viewed 11 November 2014.
http://multiversitycomics.com/interviews/mignolaversity-it-all-goes-to-hell-with-
mignola-arcudi-and-allie-interview/.
———. ‘Mike Mignola Gives a Tour of Hellboy in Hell’s Risky First Five Issues.’
Interview by Oliver Sava. AV Club, March 31, 2014. Viewed 11 November 2014.
http://www.avclub.com/article/mike-mignola-gives-tour-hellboy-hells-risky-first--
202809.
———. ‘Mike Mignola on Hellboy 3, Sending the Character to Hell, and He’ll
End up There, Too.’ Interview by Benjamin Leatherman. NewTimes, May 24,
2013. Viewed 11 November 2014.
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/jackalope/2013/05/mike_mignola_hellboy_pho
enix_comicon.php.
———. ‘Mike Mignola Talks Hellboy in Hell at NYCC.’ Interview by Shoshana

Kessock. Tor, October, 2012. Viewed 11 November 2014.
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/10/mike-mignola-talks-hellboy-in-hell-at-nycc.
———. ‘NYCC 2012: Mike Mignola Interview.’ Interview by James Ferguson.

Horrortalk, November 17, 2012. Viewed 11 November 2014.
http://www.horrortalk.com/features/2966-nycc-2012-mike-mignola-interview.htm.
Milton, John. Paradise Lost. John Milton Complete Poems and Major Prose,
edited by Merritt Y. Hughes. New York: The Odyssey Press, 1957.
O’Connor, Laura. ‘The Corpse on Hellboy’s Back: Translating a Graphic Image.’

The Journal of Popular Culture 43.3 (2010): 540-563.
Shklovsky, Viktor. ‘Art as Technique.’ In The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts

and Contemporary Trends, edited by David H. Richter. 3rd ed. Translated by Lee
T. Lemon and Marion Reis, 775-784. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007.
Weiner, Stephen, Jason Hall and Victoria Blake. Mike Mignola’s Hellboy: The
Companion. Milwaukee, OR: Dark Horse Books, 2008.

__________________________________________________________________
Joseph G. Altnether received his M.A. in English Literature from Morehead State
University, and a B.A. in Russian Language from Arizona State University. He is
currently teaching first year composition at the college level. He plans to complete
his studies for PhD and teach English Literature overseas.

Part III
Identity and the Graphic Novel

From the Damsel in Distress to Kickass Babes: The Cultural
Expansion and Internationalization of the Heroine through
Sexuality in the Graphic Novel
Justin Oney
Abstract
Quentin Tarantino, whose rise as an artist and devoted raconteur was meteoric,
used graphic, violent imagery and witty dialogue to explore philosophy, ethics, and
morality in his acclaimed film Pulp Fiction. Like Tarantino and Frank Miller
(comic writer recently turned director), graphic novelists and their output have
become a pop cultural phenomenon. Similar to cinema, comics present stories in a
frame-by-frame sequence, juxtaposing imagery with narration in a deliberate
arrangement that elicits a response, leaving no part of us unaffected. Graphic
novels have been breaking box office records through film over the past decade.
With their super-hero laden titles, graphic novels have transformed the nature of
storytelling. However, the vast majority of comics still adhere to a male hero, and
it has not been until recently that the emergence of such roles as Jennifer Blood
and Hit-Girl have flipped the switch on tradition. That is not to say Wonder
Woman did not transcend the female role, but it is the evolution of the heroine –
and sometimes female villain – in the medium of graphic novels that has put a
stranglehold on traditional gender-based roles. This chapter explores the
transformation and evolution of female characters in the graphic novel, both past
and present, using sexuality as an impetus for their transcendence from
conventional stereotypes and subsidiary characters to their fashionably hip
ascendance to ‘ass-kickers’ and cultural icons. The impact of the femme fatale in
the late 1940s and early 1950s metamorphosed the female role in cinema, but why
has it taken so long in comics for the heroine to be recognized and idealized as she
is in film and television? How will female superheroes effect the medium, and how
will they shape new forms of narrative storytelling?
Key Words: Heroine, sexuality, pop culture, cinema, damsel in distress, graphic
novel.
*****
A fearsome young high school student and superhero, Dave Lizewski, strolls
into a dilapidated apartment complex in search of his girlfriend’s bully. After a
terrible and humiliating attempt to subdue his adversary, he is rescued. Yes, Dave,
the ‘superhero,’ our story’s male protagonist, is rescued by a sword-wielding,
nascent-caped crusader. She is Mindy McCready, also known as Hit-Girl – a foul-
mouthed, arrogant, assassin. ‘Okay you cunts…let’s see what you can do now.’1
After slicing up thugs like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, Hit-Girl scoffs at Dave and

38 From the Damsel in Distress to Kickass Babes
__________________________________________________________________
his pathetic attempt at heroism. As she flees the apartment, Hit-Girl leaves some
endearing and soothing words of wisdom for our old superhero, Dave:
[Want to get a hold of me?] You just contact the mayor’s office.
He has a special signal he shines in the sky. It’s in the shape of a
giant cock.2
Did I mention she is only 10 years old?

Shock. Disbelief. Awesome. Finally, there is a super-heroine, prepubescent at
that, amidst a chaotic world historically dominated by male superheroes. This is the
story of Kick-Ass by Mark Millar, a violently driven narrative with a witty tongue
about adolescent teenagers who happen to be fledgling superheroes. And although
Dave Lizewksi (Kick-Ass) is subsequently the protagonist and ‘hero’ in this
graphic novel, it is the female character, Mindy McCready, who has been
transformed and culturally expanded in the realm of comics. She is cocky. She is
fearless. She is badass. She is a damsel in distress.
Over the past few decades, primarily the 2000s, the symbiotic relationship
between cinema and graphic novel has certainly provided a globalized platform for
this new female sexual orientation. Through a cinematic perspective and a mild,
historical understanding of heroines through comics, I want to explore two ideas.
How has the evolution of the heroine – and sometimes, female villain – been
remodelled, or lack thereof, help shape contemporary super-heroines from damsels
in distress to kickass babes? And how has sexuality been used as an impetus to go
beyond the clichéd stereotypes and into cultural icons?
Whether it was Spider-Man saving Mary Jane from imminent disaster, or
Superman rescuing Lois Lane from kidnappers, the stereotypical gender role is
biased and blatantly obvious: women are subjugated pawns serving only one
purpose, that which is lust and desire, while men work autonomously, succeeding
as independent superheroes. Thus, the female role was set in stone, and the
archetype that followed became known by the derisive term, the ‘damsel in
distress’ – a victim who is often pursued by male protagonists whose love and
salvation is won by male heroes who save the day or by villains who destroy them.
In other words, the ‘damsel in distress’ is depicted as a one-dimensional, vapid,
sexual prize-for-the-taking. Surely, the female protagonist has blossomed beyond
the days of Torchy Todd. And of course with the third wave feminist movement of
the early 1990s and a present-day cultural push for agency, I’m certain the heroine
has developed into a rich, multifaceted character.
No one can argue that the role of women in society changed due to the effects
of World War II. The symbolism of patriotic characters like Captain America and
the female version, Miss America, captivated the interest of burgeoning readers.
And arguably, the most notable female character, Wonder Woman, became the
sole source of inspiration and transcendence of the super-heroine.3 Shortly after, a

Justin Oney 39
__________________________________________________________________
myriad of female characters surfaced, brandishing their weapons of power across
the covers of mainstream comics.
With the new emergence of strong and powerful feminist characters, so came
the inherent depictions of lust and sexuality, and who better than Wonder Woman.
Micheal Eury, former writer for Marvel and DC Comics says, ‘Wonder Woman
embodied feminine and masculine traits...and had a great pair of legs (comics have
never been shy about the sexual exploitation of the feminine form).’4 Super-
heroines were often depicted as pinups with protruding breasts, wearing skimpy
clothes, and sometimes in bondage. These ‘headlight comic books,’ as they were
called, traditionally focused on the stereotypical reference to the female anatomy.
Comic book historian Ron Goulart writes: ‘In the days before the advent of
Playboy and Penthouse, comic books offered one way to girl watch.’5 A prime
example of ‘headlight comics’ was in Bill Ward’s Torchy, a series that ran from
1946 to 1950. The comic books contained tasteless and uninteresting storylines
where the scriptwriters were merely making an excuse to draw and lambaste
Torchy as a tall, barelegged blonde, who walked around in her underwear.
If Wonder Woman was the cover girl to Glamour magazine, then Elektra6 was
the cover girl to Muscle and Fitness. She was the first to captivate audiences with
her tough, gritty, take-no-prisoners attitude. Her methods were generally anti-
heroic, killing the worst of the worst, but she did so donning a tight-skinned leather
bodysuit. Reckless, physically fit, and sexy, she was the epitome of a naughty but
vivacious action girl.
In 1992, the first of many graphic novel adaptations hit the big screen with the
blockbuster, Batman Returns, directed by Tim Burton. It was a marquee moment
for the super-heroine, an ode to the good-girl-gone-bad adage. Michelle Pfeiffer
was cast as Catwoman, and she popularized this concept by ‘taking charge, letting
no man interfere with her goal – revenge against the male tormentor and hero
(Batman).’7 Pfeiffer’s sexual prowess and domineering character made Catwoman
a mesmerizing villainess. ‘As Catwoman she carried the torch lit by Elektra and
helped transform the super-heroine: Superwomen could have new looks that kill,
and the power to kill.’8
Today, women in graphic novels have become increasingly more sexualized.
As described by Jones and Jacobs (2005):
…the Victoria’s Secret catalogue became the Bible of every

super-hero artist, an endless source of stilted poses ripe for
swiping by boys who wanted their fantasies of women far
removed from any human reality.9
Take for instance Frank Miller’s collected stories, Sin City, a crime noir set
narrative based on the exploitation of women or ‘dames,’ as he calls them. It can
be argued that many of his characters are depicted to denigrate the female sex, but

__________________________________________________________________
I, however, see them voluptuously drawn to articulate a sense of power and
aggressive strength.
The dominatrix character Gail, in The Big Fat Kill, is our so-called heroine in
this escapade between mobsters and prostitutes. She is a modern version of Bill
Ward’s, Torchy. Dressed like a tramp, de facto ruler of the ‘Old Town Prostitutes’
and armed with an Uzi, Gail is the queen bee with a Denzel Washington (Training
Day) attitude. She is vicious, yet playful. She is ordinary. Gail does not possess any
martial arts training or superpowers, but she is a character with strengths that John
Truby describes through his ‘Mother’ archetype as: ‘[the female who] provides the
care and protective shell within which the child or people can grow.’10
Frank Miller’s portrayal of the heroine in the graphic novel, Sin City, is
complemented by Rosario Dawson’s performance. As the novel’s starlet, Rosario
certainly exudes a formidable sense of defiance and nurturing comfort. She’s the
embodiment of sexual power. While female sexuality is often perceived as
treacherous to the hero, it is positive to the women in Sin City. Dwight, the story’s
protagonist, calmly states: ‘There’s no use arguing with her [Gail]. The ladies are
the law here, beautiful and merciless.’11 In Sin City, Gail and her band of call girls
use sexuality as leverage to control the section of Old Town. The influence of their
sexual power garners them autonomy, both politically and economically. On the
surface, these naughty heroines seemingly have what Torchy did not:
independence. However, that old Lois Lane/Mary Jane archetype resurfaces when
Old Town becomes compromised. Gail panics and averts to the role of damsel in
distress to genuflect, which involves submitting to the male hero, Dwight,
depending on his powers to save the women of Old Town. She pleads with him,
‘They’ll come gunning. It’ll be the bad old days all over again! The pimps! The
drugs! The beatings! The rapes!’12 Despite her sexual power throughout the story,
in the end, Gail demonstrates her inability to control a male dominated structure.
While the women of Old Town exhibit a sense of autonomy through violence and
independence to a certain degree, and while the hero, Dwight, can marvel at Gail’s
beauty and sexual prowess, eventually they are rejected as equals, no more than a
damsel in distress. And Dwight vocalizes this by saying, ‘Dizzy dames! Dizzy,
scared, stupid dames.’13
So, the evolution of the heroine continues. Maybe sexual power is not the
alternative. What if comic writers omitted the busty babe and focused on character
development, avoiding the pitfalls of clichéd stereotypes? Perhaps the answer is
Hit-Girl – a progressively new heroine that is the quintessential badass akin to Kill
Bill’s O-ren Ishii. As O-Ren aptly says in the film,
The price you pay for bringing up either my Chinese or

American heritage as a negative is... I collect your fucking head.
Just like this fucker here. Now, if any of you sons of bitches got
anything else to say, now’s the fucking time!14

Justin Oney 41
__________________________________________________________________
And like O-ren, her colourful language and beguiling sensibility can easily be
translated through Millar’s depiction of Hit-Girl. The fact that she is not sexually
exploited and is a female character kicking ass without being the clichéd ‘hot’
assassin is what makes her unique and refreshing. She is acerbic. She is blunt. She
is badass. Quite frankly, her pubescence as a feminist character and heroine have
shattered whatever mold Wonder Woman may have made, yet Hit-Girl’s
vulgarities and obscene gestures is something that pop culture has certainly
embraced.
When the Kick-Ass comic series was adapted into a movie in 2010, Hit-Girl
wasn’t the sidekick archetype that non-graphic novelist audiences were
accustomed to. In fact, renowned film critic, Roger Ebert, openly lambasted the
movie’s content and its violent character, Hit-Girl:
Let’s say you’re a big fan of the original comic book, and you
think the movie does it justice. You know what? You inhabit a
world I am so very not interested in.15
She was not Lois Lane yearning for Superman’s attention. Nor was she Poison Ivy
trying to seduce billionaire playboy, Bruce Wayne. Hit-Girl was the diametric
opposite. Yet Ebert fails to see beyond the blood-soaked carnage and inside the
character’s vulnerability. At school, Mindy McCready is a social pariah, the class
freak. And all the tough, kickass things she does as Hit-Girl have been suddenly
striped away when she is out of her element and in a strange environment. She is
cool as a cucumber as Hit-Girl, but while at school, she is fragile and sometimes
weak. She cannot go rogue, assassin Uma Thurman style on her fellow classmates
because it is unethical. Besides Dave (Kick-Ass), Mindy does not have many
friends. She does not mix well with others, and she is definitely not into Facebook
or MTV. In fact, I doubt she cares whether Steve in biology is having a Coke Zero.
After Big-Daddy (Mindy’s father) is savagely murdered, Hit-Girl goes rogue,
certifying her independence. Like Gail and the women of Old Town, she is acting
autonomously, using violence for her rage, revenge against the thugs that killed
Big-Daddy. First came her vulnerability at school, followed by the ultimate
sadness with her father’s death, and now retribution – finally, there is some
delineation, real character development; a tangible character arc from our super-
heroine. In the film, Kick-Ass is captured and his murder is about to be live-
broadcasted over the Internet when Hit-Girl breaks in and kills his captors.
‘Show’s over motherfuckers!’16 she retorts. Hit-Girl has done it; she has defied all
odds by rescuing the male protagonist, breaking the proverbial wall that heroines
can be more than dames: they can be icons. They can be superheroes. Too bad that
is not the story’s ending. Both in the movie and graphic novel, Hit-Girl is reduced
to playing the Lois Lane role, the damsel in distress when she runs out of bullets.
And to no avail Kick-Ass saves the day, rescuing her from the nefarious gangster,

__________________________________________________________________
Genovese.17 With progressive steps towards a truly feminist character, Hit-Girl is
meant to be shocking and vulgar. Millar made a courageous attempt at solving this
ongoing dilemma between the persecuted maiden and the strong female protagonist
with Hit-Girl’s subversive language and explicit violence. She is a satirical
superhero of the action genre, and her domineering presence, both on screen and in
narrative form, is supposed to be this personal testimony of wrath against the
damsel in distress. But Hit-Girl, like the myriad of heroines before her, becomes
marginal, relegated to the superfluous victim role.
Maybe American graphic novelists have it all wrong. Perhaps the concept of
the heroine is drastically different abroad. What if the violence and vulnerability of
Hit-Girl met the sexual prowess of a dame like Gail? Hailing from Northern
Ireland, Eisner Award winner,18 Garth Ennis, is known for developing intense,
compelling protagonists: male protagonists. These divergent heroes include the
likes of Punisher, Hellblazer and Preacher. However, he has a new series out
called Jennifer Blood,19 a story about a loving soccer mom and devoted wife by
day, and a violent, raging assassin by night. Depicted as a homebody, Jen Fellows
is your average housewife, but every night she becomes ‘Jennifer Blood,’ a
vigilante Hell-bent on revenge and keeping the city safe. What appears to be
seemingly boring, Ennis’ interpretation of a heroine becomes interesting, and the
female role once again is reprised through a unique perspective.
Albeit, Jennifer Blood is visually constructed as your contemporary clichéd
assassin – the skin-tight body suit, the protruding breasts, the knives, and enough
guns and ammo to start a revolution. However, I would argue that Ennis is
deliberately embellishing on that notion in order to poke fun at the female
archetype. He even goes as far to have ancillary antagonists in the story called the
‘Ninjettes,’ hit-women dressed like Catholic-school girls who pretend to be Asian
ninjas, but are really a bunch of ditsy blondes. Sound familiar? This is a narrative
that parodies an action genre stating: even an innocuous housewife can be an
assassin. But there is far more substance to Jennifer Blood’s character that goes
beyond the sexy, assassin façade. The fact that she is a homebody encapsulates her
family values and strengthens her moral ethics as a saviour, which makes her a
revolutionized super-heroine. It is unfortunate that the kickass heroine Jennifer
Blood is under-developed and lacks agency, the kind of normal attributes that
constitute a hero. That is not a stab at Ennis’ attempt to create a heroine, but more
of how societies across the globe view female protagonists. Throughout the story,
Jennifer Blood is never in a quagmire in which she needs to be rescued or saved,
nor do evil villains ever seriously threaten her family. Although she acts as an
autonomous assassin, and the sole hero in the story, she is just kind of there, doing
kickass things with no purpose. In cinema, this is called plateauing; when a
character has no resolution or tangible character arc, he/she is a McGuffin of sorts,
a plot device.

Justin Oney 43
__________________________________________________________________
It is no secret that the metamorphosis of women in the graphic novel has
undoubtedly been exploited through sexuality. Film theorist, Laura Mulvey wrote
an essay on ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.’20 She expounds on the theory
of the male gaze and how camera movements rudely focus on the contours and
curvatures of the female body. Furthermore, Mulvey validates that because of a
predominately male industry, cinema has craftily captured women as objects of
desire. The same can be declared throughout other mediums, especially graphic
novels. I argue, however, that despite the revealing outfits and clad attire, female
characters have certainly evolved, shifting into more cerebral and aggressive roles.
Hit-Girl and Jennifer Blood reveal that the transformation since Wonder Woman
has undoubtedly changed, but are graphic novels closer to finding a solution to the
damsel in distress archetype that is so evident in today’s heroine? And as Mulvey
further reiterates in her essay, the male gaze and scantily clad costumes reduce
women to baseness and denies them agency.21 However in the form of today’s
graphic novels, isn’t that what the super-heroine is all about: being the object of
desire, manipulating men using sexuality and violence to gain autonomy? Is it not
the purpose of the kickass heroine to be the babe, the male fantasy?
In an industry once dominated by males, more recent studies suggest that now
perhaps as much as 40% of all graphic novel readers are female. With the growing
popularity of novels like Jennifer Blood and Hit Girl,22 the role of the female
heroine seems to be an upward trend. Fearing the current role of today’s objectified
heroine, one can argue that female readers will simply stop reading due to the
unattractiveness of the clichéd ‘hot’ assassin roles. I, like many other visual
narrative enthusiasts, am beginning to find the shift of damsels in distress to
assassin babes and kickass heroines hackneyed and trite. This idea that the heroine
has truly evolved into a more sustainable, strong female character has become a
downtrodden mockery, with the likes of Twitter hash tags, #sexysidekick and
#damestodiefor. With the emergence of Hit-Girl and a few others, we are starting
to see a slightly more diverse and appealing brand of female protagonists. With
that being said, the question still remains: looking at the kickass babe, the so called
super-heroine, are we – the graphic novelists, artists, filmmakers, and comic
aficionados – starting to see a breakthrough in female protagonists? If the heroine
is deemed to be super than we should stop hiding them behind the sexuality façade
that seems to be branded in conjunction with the assassin role. Until the sexy
super-heroine becomes less damsel in distress, then maybe, we will see an upward
trend in a diversified female archetype that rivals its male counterpart.
Notes
1
Kick-Ass, dir. Matthew Vaughn. Universal Pictures, 2010, Blu-Ray.
2
Kick-Ass.

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3
Wonder Woman graced the cover of Sensation Comics#1 in January 1942. The
heroine epitomized patriotism – as men fought overseas, a nation of working
women became ‘wonder women.’
4
Gina Misiroglu, The Superhero Book: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Comic-Book
Icons and Hollywood Heroes. 2nd Edition (Visible Ink Press, 2012), 339.
5
Ron Goulart, Comic Book Culture: An Illustrated History (Collectors Press,
2000).
6
Elektra Natchios was first seen in Marvel’s Daredevil #168 (1981). Frank Miller
named her after the Greek mythological character of the same name. Electra falls
for her father early in her life. Today, psychologists often refer to this as an Electra
Complex.
7
Gina Misiroglu also states, ‘…that the emergence of the beautiful ‘bad girl’
protagonists with martial arts have certainly transcended comics into mass media
omnipresence.’ Misiroglu, The Superhero Book, 344.
8
Misiroglu, The Superhero Book, 344.
9
Gerard Jones and Will Jacobs, The Comic Book Heroes, rev. ed. (Prima
Publishing, Rocklin: CA, 1995), 233-235.
10
John Truby, The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller
(Macmillan, 2007), 68. Truby expounds on the various types of cinematic heroes
and their archetypes. One of them being the ‘queen or mother.’ He uses the film,
American Beauty as an example in which Annette Bening’s character symbolizes
the lustful, controlling female protagonist.
11
Frank Miller, Frank Miller’s Sin City Volume 3: The Big Fat Kill. 2nd ed.
(Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse Books, 2005), 46.
12
Miller, Sin City Volume 3: The Big Fat Kill, 81.
13
Ibid., 87.
14
Kill Bill, dir. Quentin Tarantino. Miramax Films, A Band Apart, 2003, DVD.
15
Roger Ebert, ‘Kick-Ass,’ rogerebert.com, April 14, 2010, viewed 3 June 2014,
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/kick-ass-2010. Review.
16
Kick-Ass.
17
For clarification, in the film Kick-Ass, Genovese’s name was changed to the
character name, Frank D’Amico, played by Mark Strong.
18
1998 recipient for Best Writer (for Hitman, Preacher, Unknown
Soldier and Blood Mary: Lady Liberty)
19
There are four volumes in this series. However, Garth Ennis only wrote the first,
Jennifer Blood: Volume 1. A Woman’s Work Is Never Done. For the purpose of this
chapter, I only reference material from this specific volume.
20
Laura Mulvey, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, The Feminism and
Visual Culture Reader, ed. Amelia Jones (London: Routledge, 2003), 44-53.
21
Mulvey, ‘Visual pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, 44-53.

Justin Oney 45
__________________________________________________________________
22
In 2012, the Hit-Girl spin off series was the top selling indie title in comics.
Bibliography
Ebert, Roger. ‘Kick-Ass,’ rogerebert.com, April 14, 2010, viewed 3 June 2014,
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/kick-ass-2010. Review.
Goulart, Ron. Comic Book Culture: An Illustrated History. Collectors Press, 2000.
Jones, Gerard and Will Jacobs. The Comic Book Heroes, rev. ed. Prima Publishing,
Rocklin: CA, 1995.
Kick-Ass. Directed by Matthew Vaugh. Universal Pictures, 2010. Blu-Ray.
Kill Bill. Directed by Quentin Tarantino. Miramax Films. A Band Apart, 2003.
Blu-Ray.
Lavin, Michael R. ‘Women in Comic Books.’ Serials Review 24.2 (1998): 93-100.
Millar, Mark, John Romita, Tom Palmer, Dean White, and Chris Eliopoulos. Kick-
Ass. Marvel Pub., 2010.
Miller, Frank. Frank Miller’s Sin City Volume 1: The Hard Goodbye. 2nd ed.
Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse Books, 2005.
———. Frank Miller’s Sin City Volume 2: A Dame to Kill For. 2nd ed.
Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse Books, 2005.
———. Frank Miller’s Sin City Volume 3: The Big Fat Kill. 2nd ed. Milwaukie,
OR: Dark Horse Books, 2005.
Misiroglu, Gina. The Superhero Book: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Comic-Book

Icons and Hollywood Heroes. 2nd Edition. Visible Ink Press, 2012.
Mulvey, Laura. ‘Visual pleasure and Narrative Cinema.’ In The Feminism and
Visual Culture Reader, edited by Amelia Jones, 44-53. London: Routledge, 2003.
Truby, John. The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller.

NY: Macmillan, 2007.

__________________________________________________________________
Justin Oney has a B.A. in Theatre and a B.A. in Film from University of New
Mexico and UNLV. He also has a M.F.A. in Film Production from Florida State
University. His short films as a producer, director, and editor have been selected
into over 25 international film festivals. He is currently working on applying for a
PhD in Film.

Non-Normative Identity and Construction of Reality in Serena
Valentino’s and Ted Naifeh’s GloomCookie
Juliane Regener and Kathrin Muschalik

Abstract
Identity is always constructed, it does not exist a priori. But how is it created,
conveyed and shared by different groups of people? Trying to find an answer, one
might consult reputable experts of various fields or read scholarly essays.
Sometimes, however, it is far more productive to look at cultural products shared
by many people and to examine how they create a common identity. Beside rather
obvious things like major music events, where fans of a certain music style come
together, dress and act in similar ways, there are other identity-establishing media.
Although these might be less obvious, they are not to be considered less valuable.
One medium that belongs to this category of identity-establishing media is
certainly that of comic books or graphic novels, respectively. Here, identity is
constructed on different levels: First of all, by reading comics, the recipient
becomes the member of a certain group, in this case the one of comic readers as
such. Second, comic books are able to create different identities within the actual
storyline. Serena Valentino’s and Ted Naifeh’s GloomCookie (published in 2001),
for instance, takes place in the goth scene. It deals with different topics such as
love, jealousy as well as the hierarchy and ‘politics’ within this particular
subculture. It provides an insight into the way of living, different ways of body
modification and fashion as well as the attitude of life and aesthetics as it is
regarded as being typical of that group. The idea behind our chapter is to look at
how non-normative identity is created in GloomCookie on narrative, visual and
textual levels. It is supposed to show how collective identity is both depicted as
well as produced.
Key Words: Non-Normative Identity, Goth Scene, Sub-Culture, Collective

Identity, Fairy Tales, Construction of Reality.
*****
If you ask ‘common people’ what they associate with goths, they usually
describe pale, black-wearing, cat-killing freaks hanging out at night-time
graveyards. However, if you take a closer look at works like Serena Valentino’s
and Ted Naifeh’s GloomCookie, which is set in the goth scene, it soon becomes
obvious that non-normative identities1 and lifestyles that are said not to be
consistent with society are not far from what is considered ‘normal’. Therefore,
this graphic novel is supposed to serve as an example of the depiction of non-
normative identity and the construction of reality closely connected with it.

48 Non-Normative Identity
__________________________________________________________________
Since comics possess the ability to draw a connection between narrative and
visual levels, it seems advisable to begin with taking a closer look at one of the
most prominent aspects: the comic book’s style. Against the common
understanding of what comics are, namely colourful pieces of art, the graphic novel
discussed here confines itself to the colours black and white. It therefore takes up
the most important colours of this particular subgroup.
These frequently used colours, however, are not the only characteristics
allowing an identification of the comic book’s characters as goths. It is also the
detailed depiction of their clothes. Different than one might assume, goth clothing
comprises various styles, like the romantic-, deathrock-, cybergoth-, or candygoth-
style, which can all be found in GloomCookie. Thus, the graphic novel does not
depict this subculture as homogeneous but rather as diverse. The production,
selection, combination and presentation of cloths, hair styles and jewellery as
shown in the comic constitute a large part of the scene’s activity.2 This creates a
collective identity3 because it enables in- as well as outsiders to identify what is
depicted as part of the goth scene.
The detailed depiction of the protagonists’ cloths, however, forms a huge
contrast to the rather abstract depiction of their faces. Focusing on the most
important details that make a human face human,4 the comic book allows the
reader to identify with the characters, in this particular case with members of the
goth subculture.
Besides visual aspects such as clothing, readers are also able to identify the
protagonists of the comic as members of the goth scene by considering the
narrative level since it shows activities and attitudes towards life as it is regarded as
being typical of this particular subculture. One example could be the repeatedly
mentioned and depicted poetry sessions.5 In a sequence of panels, you can not only
see the poet presenting his work to an insider audience, but you can also see that
the content of what he is presenting is rather cliché: His piece of art – as he calls it
– is full of melancholy and pathos. Words like ‘doom,’‘pain,’ or ‘black’ are printed
in bold type and thereby once again stress what is regarded as being typical of the
goth scene, namely a proclivity for what is considered negative by mainstream
society. It is striking, however, that by overusing the cliché, he asks for the insider
audience’s displeasure. According to GloomCookie, it is not sufficient to borrow a
stereotype to become a genuine member of a subculture. Instead, the graphic novel
communicates that the interest in topics and aesthetics of a particular group comes
from a person’s inside and cannot be forced; the way into a subculture leads, for
instance, from a certain taste of music into the non-normative identity.
Another example of activities that are said to be typical of the goth scene is
spending time at graveyards. In GloomCookie, readers get to know that this is
indeed not uncommon but – other than a large part of dominant society might
assume – not connected with any criminal activity. Instead, it depicted as
something rather peaceful and romantic. The protagonists use a place usually

Juliane Regener and Kathrin Muschalik 49
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causing unease and transform it into the scenery for a romantic picnic.6 Despite
the, what members of mainstream society would at best call ‘unusual’ setting, the
activity itself is very normative. This is not only true for the social interactions
depicted in GloomCookie but also for the protagonists’ attitude towards life. It is
striking that their moral values and dreams resemble those of normative society.
Sebastian, for instance, yearns for the missing father, Lex dreams of a working
relationship and Max longs for the love of a woman, who rejects him.7
These dreams make the protagonists desire an ideal and fairytale-like world.
Therefore, it is not astonishing that in her longing, Lex is repeatedly depicted as a
princess similar to those of Grimms’ Fairy Tales.8 This is furthered by a contrast
between drawing and language: The chapter dealing with Lex attending a nightclub
is introduced by the classic fairytale phrase ‘Once upon a time…’9. In the
following panel, it becomes apparent that on a language level the comic is set in
the world of fairytales, while on a visual level it remains within the contemporary,
diegetic world of the comic: An ordinary taxi, for instance, is referred to as ‘royal
carriage,’ Isabella’s nightclub becomes a ‘castle keep’ and the It-girl herself a
fairytale character by calling her ‘Queen’.10
Furthermore, goths have to earn money and pay their rent. In order to do so,
they have jobs within normative society. However, they remodel them in
accordance with the scene. Lex, for example, works at a clothing store, which
specialized in dressing up members of the goth scene. Beside the products,
especially the name of the shop – ‘Shadow of the Bat’, which are two standardized
elements of the twilight and the night – hints at its non-normative character.
Thereby, these ‘horror elements’ are demystified. This is also true for the sales
items: Although they have a rather mystical character, they are treated like
ordinary objects.11 Lex shows normative behaviour when advising and informing
customers, indicating that also goth stores are liable to market-based rules. Due to
the similarity of the rules and values shared by members of both, mainstream as
well as subcultural society, readers could come to the conclusion that both
‘cultures’ could easily get connected.
This idea, though, is scrapped several times in the comic book. Max’s attempt
to find a new girlfriend via internet is one example of this phenomenon. Due to the
anonymity of the World Wide Web, however, both characters do not learn
anything about the real lives of the respective other. Although both are doing
something very normative, which is chatting online, both are not only in different
rooms but also in different spaces/realties.12 If you take a closer look at both
rooms, it is striking that Max’s is depicted in more detail. B (the reader does not
get to know her full name which can be regarded as a hint at her mainstream
character) is sitting in a room marked by plush toys, a dressing table as well as
posters showing different pop stars. These posters entail critique of mainstream
society on different levels: One the one hand, their mere depiction denies B an
individual character since she is only one of millions idolizing one and the same

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singer; on the other hand, they hint at existing artist by disparaging their names:
Ricky Martin becomes ‘Icky Martin’ and the Spice Girls are called ‘Spice Sluts’.
In contrast to B’s room, Max’s is characterized by certain diversity. Here,
particularly the great number of books by historical and contemporary authors,
such as Percy Shelley, H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King, who are very popular
among goths, is striking. Additionally, there are more decorative, goth scene
related accessories than in B’s room. Max subcultural identity is thus depicted as
the more diverse one; the character not consistent with the norm is the more
educated, more profound one.
Although both characters decide to meet in real life, it – during the date –
becomes clear that their respective identities and realities are not compatible.13
This also becomes apparent on a visual level: In a club of her choice (identifiable
by the other guests’ outward appearance), B dances wildly and far-away.
Representing mainstream society, she is positioned in the foreground. Max, for his
part, is not only at the edge of the panel but also at the edge of society. He does not
only fill a niche, his body becomes one itself. B is in the centre of a group of young
man, which she seems to be enjoying. This leads to Max losing interest in B.
Although he is turned towards her, he is looking at her feet, which do not only
cross the panel but also the gutter and thereby literally hint at the end of the
evening as well as the date. By assimilating into the mainstream culture, B
becomes an unattractive, faceless woman.
Another important aspect when it comes to analyzing GloomCookie is the
construction of reality. In many cases, it is up to the reader to decide whether or not
the depicted world is fantastic reality or a metaphor. The argument between
Isabella and Damion in their preferred nightclub is a good example of this
‘problem’.14 While the argument is flaring up, the reader can see their shadows
shaped as those of two demons. Sebastian, however, perceives more than the other
guests do: In the emotionally charged situation, both opponents show their ‘true
faces’ – that is at least what Sebastian thinks. He sees the fight of two winged
demons. Alarmed, he makes his girlfriend Chrys aware of the situation, who only
recognizes two people arguing. Due to the fact that Sebastian does not mention two
monsters fighting but just says ‘Are you blind? They’re ripping each other apart,’
which can be applied to each and every heated quarrel, it is up to the readers to
decide whether or not they adopt Sebastian’s perception of reality or Chrys’.
Something similar is true for the ‘reliability’ of dreams. In the course of the
graphic novel, one and the same dream is depicted repeatedly. Initially, readers are
most likely to interpret theses dreams as Lex processing fairytales she has read
during the day. Later, however, the reader might get the idea that what is depicted
are not just mere dreams but memories of a former life. In one panel, we can see
Lex falling asleep while reading a book.15 The mirror in the background becomes a
gateway to her dream. In it, one can see the first panel of the following dream
sequence. Here, it is striking that Lex is also the protagonist of her dream. This is

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also true for other characters in her dream world: The evil witch, who – again
similar to a Grimms’ tale – keeps her hostage in a tower, is Isabella’s similitude.
The gargoyle, giving his life to rescue Lex from the witch’s clutches, resembles
Damion.
In the course of the plot, it is implied that it is not just a dream but a past
reality. This is done in different ways: On the one hand, Damion is increasingly
often depicted as a demon; on the other hand, this – in most cases – happens when
Lex is asleep, a fact the reader gets to know in retrospect only. Therefore, readers
cannot be 100 percent sure if what they see is a dream or the diegetic world of the
comic book. Furthermore, Lex discovers the statue of a historical personality
looking exactly like her and she starts taking into account that she might have lived
once before.16 Moreover, Damion and Isabella are increasingly often and in most
cases uncommented depicted as demons during their escalating conflict. Here,
again, it resides with the reader to decide whether it is a metaphor for strong
emotions (in this case hate and anger) or the characters’ ‘true faces’.
As a conclusion it can be said that in Serena Valentino’s and Ted Naifeh’s
GloomCookie non-normative identity is shown as being diverse. The goth scene is
characterized as varied and – despite its limitation in colours – colourful, which is
not only true for their outer appearance, but also for their interests and concepts of
life. Here, however, it is striking that – with regard to their values and dreams – the
subculture does not differ to a great extent from mainstream society. If possible,
goths remodel the points of contact with the normative world according to their
needs. This assimilation of the world to one’s own non-normative ideals can lead
to a glorification of reality. In GloomCookie, this reality is mystified by elements
taken from fairytales as well as fabulous creatures. This is done to such an extent
that it is up to the readers to decide if what they see originates from the
protagonists’ dreams and imagination or if the fantastical elements are part of the
diegetic world of the graphic novel. Readers who are members of the goth scene
would most likely tend to accept the mystical version of reality since it is
consistent with their wish for living in a world inhabited by gargoyles, princesses,
and witches. Therefore, readers as well as the protagonists are united in their desire
for such a ‘reality’.
Notes
1
In cultural studies, most scholars would agree that identities do not exist a priori.
They are always constructed and need an ‘Other’ to be identifiable. One can, for
example, only ‘poor’ if there is ‘rich’, too: Frank E. Pointner ‘Teaching Comics as
Comics.’ In Teaching Comics in the Foreign Language Classroom, edited by
Christian Ludwig and Frank E. Pointner, 27-69 (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag
Trier, 2013), 52. In this essay, the Goth subculture (here also referred to as non-
normative or subcultural identity) is distinguished from the larger culture it belongs

__________________________________________________________________
to (here referred to as normative, mainstream or dominant society/culture). None of

the terms is supposed to be judgmental.
2
Klaus Neumann-Braun and Axel Schmidt, Die Welt der Gothics. Spielräume
düster konnotierter Transzendenz (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für
Sozialwissenschaften, 2005), 80.
3
Jan Assman, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische
Identität in frühen Hochkulturen (München: Beck, 2013), 131.
4
Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics. The Invisible Art (New York: Harper
Perennial, 1993), 30.
5
Ted Naifeh and Serena Valentino, GloomCookie Collection (San Jose: Slave
Labor Graphics, 2001), 72.
6
Ibid., 170.
7
And even more: To distinguish from the dominant culture, members of a
subgroup have to strictly stick to a set of characteristics (outward appearance,
modes of behaviour etc.), making them maybe even more ‘normative’ than
mainstream society, a fact that remains most widely uncommented in
GloomCookie.
8
Ted Naifeh and Serena Valentino, GloomCookie Collection, 30.
9
Ibid.
10
Ibid., 31.
11
Ibid., 146.
12
Ibid., 111f.
13
Ibid., 117.
14
Ibid., 51.
15
Ibid., 77.
16
Ibid., 172.
Bibliography
Assman,Jan. Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische
Identität in frühen Hochkulturen. München: Beck, 2013.
Farin, Klaus. Generation kick.de – Jugendsubkulturen heute. München: C.H. Beck,

2002.
Janalik, Heinz and Doris Schmidt. Grufties – Jugendkultur in Schwarz.

Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Verlag Hohengehren, 2000.
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. The Invisible Art. New York: Harper
Perennial, 1993.

__________________________________________________________________
Naifeh, Ted and Valentino, Serena. GloomCookie Collection. San Jose: Slave
Labor Graphics, 2001.
Neumann-Braun, Klaus and Schmidt, Axel. Die Welt der Gothics. Spielräume
düster konnotierter Transzendenz (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für
Sozialwissenschaften, 2005)
Pointner, Frank E. ‘Teaching Comics as Comics.’ In Teaching Comics in the

Foreign Language Classroom, edited by Christian Ludwig & Frank E. Pointner,
27-69. Trier: WissenschaftlicherVerlag Trier, 2013, 52.
Schüwer, Martin. Wie Comics erzählen:

GrundrisseinerintermedialenErzähltheorie der grafischenLiteratur. Trier: WVT-
Verlag,2008.
Voltaire: What Is Goth? Music, Makeup, Attitude, Apparel, Dance, and General
Skullduggery.Boston: WeiserBooks, 2004.
Juliane Regener is an independent researcher.
Kathrin Muschalik is a doctoral researcher at the Ruhr-University of Bochum

currently working on the Rodney King Incident and Race Relations in Los
Angeles. Besides, she is a lecturer at the University of Duisburg-Essen teaching
cultural studies.

Looking through the Enemy’s Eyes: Point-of-View Editing and
Character Identification in Manga Naruto
Yi-Shan Tsai
Abstract
Various cinematic traditions have influenced manga, thanks to the ‘god of manga,’
Osamu Tezuka, who brought this revolutionary change to the creation of manga1
in Japan. Cinematic views give artists freedom to vary angles, perspectives, and
distances of shots as if they were holding a camera. They serve to direct readers’
attention to specific details in order to achieve the purposes of a narrative. This
chapter explores how manga artists employ point-of-view editing to engage readers
by broadening the range of identification with characters. The reader is positioned
in a double structure of the viewer (through whom they see) and the viewed (the
one under the reader’s gaze). Both agents invite the reader to join their experiences
in the fictional world. Thus, there is a kind of tension between the viewer and the
viewed as both seem to allure the reader to identify with them. In this chapter, I
will draw on examples from Masashi Kishimoto’s famous work, Naruto, and from
students’ responses in a case study. During the interviews with the students, I
noticed that they actively imagined themselves to be in the situations of the
characters. Their ‘situational identification’ with the characters was affected both
by whom they saw and through whom they saw.
Key Words: Cinematic techniques, perspectives, point-of-view, identification,

manga, reader, Naruto, engagement.
*****
1. Introduction
There is a history of using cinematic cuts to present images in manga. Osamu
Tezuka, being called ‘god of manga,’ was the first person to introduce this
revolutionary change to manga.2 Up to Tezuka’s time, manga was drawn in a
theatrical approach – pictures were framed from the same repeated point of view as
if from someone seated in the audience. Adopting cinematic techniques in the
composition allowed Tezuka to tell his stories from different angles, distance and
perspectives, which gave him advantages in depicting physical power and
characters’ psychological states. This technique has been widely employed by
contemporary manga artists due to Tezuka’s continuous influence. It increases the
accessibility of meanings in manga because manga artists now have more ways to
direct readers’ attention to the right details for narrative purposes. It also broadens
the range of character identification due to the adoption of various first-person
points of view. In this chapter, I will draw on cinematic and literary theories to

56 Looking through the Enemy's Eyes
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discuss the relationship between perspectives of images in manga and readers’
identification with characters.
2. Methodology
This research project was conducted by employing a qualitative approach.
Sixteen students from two secondary schools in London were invited to participate
in this research during May and June in 2013. The participants were selected from
experienced manga readers in year seven to ten (age between ten and fifteen).
Students from each school were separated into gender groups, resulting in a total of
four groups for this study. Each group received three semi-structured interviews;
each student received a further semi-structured individual interview. The students
were given two manga to read. One was a shōnen3 manga, Naruto volume six; the
other was a shōjo4 manga, Vampire Knight volume four. Apart from these two
titles, the students were asked to read one additional manga of their own choice.
They were required to keep their reflections of each manga in a double-sided A4
form that I provided. The reading reflections could be done by writing or drawing
alone, or in both ways. Data collected from the students was analysed using content
and discourse analyses.
3. Techniques of Perspectives in Cinema and Literature

Point-of-view editing can place the audience in different characters’ positions
and enable them to see through different characters’ eyes. Carroll5 asserts that
point-of-view editing serves the purposes of movie narration and guarantees “fast
pickup and a high degree of accessibility to mass untutored audiences.” In other
words, point-of-view editing makes films easy to access and to engage with. By
aligning the audiences’ views with the actor’s, the movie director attempts to blur
the boundary between the actor and the audience. The audience may feel as if they
were in the same place as the character, or even as if they had taken on the role of
the character. I call this ‘situational identification’ to distinguish it from
‘ideological identification’ with which the audience projects themselves on the
character whom becomes their alter ego.
‘Situational identification’ occurs during the vicarious experiences that the
audience gains from conflating their own space and subjectivity with the
character’s. Such experiences feel like an illusion that can easily cease when the
film is over. The ‘ideological identification,’ however, usually requires the
audience to find relevance between them and the character, and to judge the
credibility and reliability of the character. The audience who agrees with the
character’s moral ethics or actions may identify with the character. What
differentiates ‘ideological identification’ from ‘situational identification’ is that it
stays after the film is finished. The audience feels that the character is able to

Yi-Shan Tsai 57
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represent part of their real or ideal selves. The two types of identification do not
conflict or exclude each other. The audience can form ‘ideological identification’
with one character, whilst the camera aligns their views with another character’s,
and therefore induce ‘situational identification’ which makes the audience feel as if
they had taken on the identity of this character. In this chapter, I will focus on
‘situational identification’ with characters that manga readers experience through
reading and viewing the story from various characters’ points of view.
Discussions of perspectives in literature often involve character identification.
A novel of first-person narration invites the reader to identify with the narrator
through whom the reader sees and feels. Focalization is the literary device that
works through perspectives. It limits the information that is allowed to reach the
reader. A first-person narrator may be a focalizing character (the one that tells the
story) through whose eyes and mind the reader experiences the character’s world.6
The focalizing character is capable of evoking ‘situational identification’ in readers
because they experience the fictional world through this character’s viewpoint as if
through their own. It is possible to have more than one focalizing character in a
story. Yannicopoulou7 uses the term variable internal focalization to describe this
mechanism of a narrative. Stories that adopt variable internal focalization do not
limit readers to one character’s point of view, but expose them to several characters’
interests. Such a mechanism allows readers to form ‘situational identification’ with
various characters by experiencing the story through their eyes. However, when it
comes to the development of ‘ideological identification,’ readers have to judge the
reliability of each focalizing character and to decide which character(s), if any, to
trust, and perhaps further to identify with as their alter ego.
4. Techniques of Perspectives in Manga

Reader-character identification, however, is more complicated when it comes to
the reading of manga. There is not only variable internal focalization working in
the verbal narrative, but also the disembodied camera’s point of view through
which the visual narrative is constructed. As manga stories are based on dialogue,
they are told by at least two focalizing characters. Each interlocutor is given a
chance to present his or her vision from within, and to draw readers to identify with
him or her. A sense of intimacy may develop between the speakers (the focalizing
characters) and the listeners (the readers) due to the characters’ disclosure of their
secrets, thoughts, and emotions.8
The tradition of employing cinematic editing in presenting pictures in manga
complicates readers’ experiences of identification with characters as the
disembodied camera also takes on a perspective through whom readers see
whatever happens in this fictional world. The disembodied camera may take on a
character’s point of view or an omniscient point of view. Whichever it is, the

__________________________________________________________________
reader has to read through two perspectives at a time, one from the verbal text and
one from the visual – each tells a story according to the narrator’s interests.
A cinematic device, reverse-angle shot, can be used to explain how this
double-dimensional perspective works. A reverse-angle shot is a cinematic device
that alternates the camera’s perspective between two interlocutors.9 Normally the
shots are taken from the point of view of the listener. The spectator is positioned as
the listener whilst the speaker on the screen tells his or her story. Thus, a filmic
story is told by two agents, the character who speaks on the screen and the
character (or an omniscient narrator) who sees through the camera. The audience is
placed in two imagined positions at the same time. Browne 10 argues that
identification,11 in a filmic experience, implicates the spectator in the positions of
both the one seeing and the one being seen. This is a double structure of viewer and
viewed. The double alignment broadens the range of identification that is available
for the spectator to take on during the viewing of the film.
A similar experience can be gained from the reading of manga. The viewer
(whose viewpoint is followed by the disembodied camera) attempts to incite
‘situational identification’ in readers, whilst the viewed (the character perceived in
the picture) may beg readers for empathy by telling his or her stories and
displaying his or her feelings in a visual form. The viewed is capable of evoking
both ‘situational identification’ and ‘ideological identification’ in readers. He or
she speaks directly to readers as if he or she is a real person. ‘Situational
identification’ happens in this vicarious experience. However, the beliefs that the
viewed character holds or the actions he or she performs can also evoke
‘ideological identification’ when readers agree with the character. Thus, there is
tension between the viewer and the viewed character as the former intends to make
the reader displace his or her subjectivity in the character, whilst the latter tries to
‘seduce’ the reader to give empathy and identification.
5. Readers’ Experiences of Character Identification in Naruto Volume 6

I have argued that the technique of point-of-view editing in manga serves to
engage readers by providing them with a vicarious experience. It allows the
audience to see through a character’s eyes (whose viewpoint is followed by the
disembodied camera); in the meanwhile, it invites them to respond to the viewed
character that is under the viewer character’s/the reader’s gaze. The tension
between the viewer character and the viewed character made the students that I
interviewed experience character identification in different ways.
Page 164 in Naruto volume 6 (Image 1, recto) shows that the artist varies the
disembodied camera’s perspectives between the two characters to place readers in
their positions.

Yi-Shan Tsai 59
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Image 1: Presentations of point-of-view editing in Naruto vol. 6 NARUTO © 1999.

Courtesy of Masashi Kishimoto/SHUEISHA Inc.12
Travis: You get to see [it] from [the] enemy's perspective [...]
Sakura is almost like the hero in this one [panel 1]. Here is the
good side, that’s the bad side. You get to see from the enemy’s
point of view. That’s the narrator’s view. You can see everything.
She just looks like that [panel 5]. But this [panel 6] shows that
you're looking through the enemy’s eyes, what the enemy would
see. It helps you imagine, like, ‘Wow! That’s what it would look
like. She’s coming at me!’ Yes.
Interviewer: Right, how does that make you feel?
Travis: It makes you feel more inside the story.
[…]

__________________________________________________________________
Arthur: Yeah, it’s like you are Sakura basically, and you are
coming towards the enemy and the enemy is looking right at you
[panel 2-4].
Travis: It gives you both points.13
Travis seemed to be in a detached position when he interpreted the first and the
fifth panels. However, when it came to the last panel, the extreme close shot
reinforced the enemy’s emotions, which incited Travis to respond with his own
emotions as if he were the character in shock of the coming danger. Whilst he was
very clear about the position of the viewer in the first and the fifth panels, he
seemed to be confused by whom he was looking at and through whom he was
seeing when he interpreted the sixth panel. He did not seem to realise that he was
looking ‘at’ the enemy as a reader through Sakura’s point of view rather than
‘through’ the enemy’s. By saying that he was looking through the enemy, Travis
placed himself in this character’s position and interpreted this picture as if he were
one of the participants in this battle. It shows that the viewed (the enemy in the
picture) foregrounded Travis’ experience of character identification here whilst the
subjectivity of the viewer (Sakura through whom Travis saw the enemy) receded.
On the contrary, Arthur identified with the viewer (Sakura) when he interpreted the
second to the fourth panels. The two students’ reading experiences of this page
show the tension between the viewer character and the viewed character as both
attempt to invite readers to identify with them.
Wesley’s interpretation of the same page shows that a reader may form
‘situational identification’ with more than one character as the perspectives of
pictures change from one panel to another. His absorption into the characters can
be noted from the frequent use of ‘we’ in this quote:
Um, the way in this one, it shows how we are on his side. We’re
like, we’re in his shoes [panel 2-4]. [It] show[s] how scared we
are, and that it shows that we’ve got, we’ve got him that way. We
are kind of excited, but then next, you really know, we're gonna
get killed […] [panel 5], but then you realise afterwards, like, the
tension, after when you read it, like, ‘Oh, someone is on top of
me.’ But then you realise [that] it wasn’t you, because of the way
he [the manga artist] shows it.14
Wesley’s reading of panel 2 to 5 shows that he shifted his situational

identification with the enemy to Sakura, and then back to the enemy. Finally, his
own subjectivity awoke and detached him from both of the characters. As Wesley’s

Yi-Shan Tsai 61
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attention was directed to the enemy’s facial expression in panel 4, he was drawn to
respond with the same feeling because of emotional contagion. It then made him
feel as if he were the character, feeling scared of Sakura. The subsequent panel
shows both characters through an omniscient narrator’s point of view. The viewer
(Sakura) of the previous shot/panel now joins the viewed (the enemy). Both
characters are exposed to examination by the reader. Instead of continuing to see
himself as the enemy, Wesley’s identification with the characters became
inconsistent.
Firstly, he displaced his subjectivity in Sakura and therefore felt the excitement
of being about to catch the enemy. Perhaps due to the reading direction (up to
down) that guided his eyes from Sakura to the enemy, he turned to identify with the
enemy shortly after. Moreover, the low-angle-shot that was taken from behind the
enemy placed Wesley in the position of this character, and thus stitched his
subjectivity to the enemy’s, making him feel as if he were about to be killed.
However, seeing both characters in the picture made him realise that the
disembodied camera had taken up an omniscient narrator’s point of view, and that
he was not seeing through any of these characters’ eyes. This recognition freed him
from the illusion of being someone else. He realised that he was a ‘voyeur’ after all,
who observed rather than participated.
6. Conclusion
Statements from interviews with these students show that both the viewer and
the viewed are capable of drawing readers to identify with them. When the camera
takes up a character’s point of view, readers see through the character’s eyes as if
seeing through their own. It gives readers vicarious experiences and evokes
‘situational identification’ with the characters. However, it is possible that the
reader does not identify with the viewer but the viewed who speaks directly to the
reader and begs the reader for empathy. Thus, cinematic editing in manga positions
readers in a double structure of the viewer and the viewed. Both agents attempt to
draw readers’ identification by telling stories according to their own interests. The
reader may experience a sense of intimacy with the characters when imagining
himself or herself to be one of them, to participate in the story. A wide range of
identification with various characters can occur during the reading of manga
because of various first-person narrators both in words and pictures. Thus, the
technique of point-of-view editing allows manga artists to engage readers by
placing them in characters’ positions all the time, and making them feel as if they
were ‘there’ experiencing what the characters go through. Such a reading
experience can be highly engaging and imaginative.

__________________________________________________________________
Notes
1
Ada Palmer, ‘“Film Is Alive: The Manga Roots of Osamu Tezuka’s Animation
Obsession,” Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga, Father of Anime,’ Smithsonian Freer
and Sackler Galleries, viewed on 28 September 2014,
http://www.asia.si.edu/film/tezuka/essays/Tezuka_Palmer.pdf; Frederik L. Schodt,
Manga! Manga!: The World of Japanese Comics (New York: Kodansha
International, 1983).
2
Palmer, ‘Film Is Alive’; Schodt, Manga! Manga!: The World of Japanese Comics;
Matt Thorn, ‘A History of Manga,’ Matt-Thorn.com, viewed on 28 September 2014,
http://www.matt-thorn.com/mangagaku/history.html.
3
Shōnen is a Japanese term for boys.
4
Shōjo is a Japanese term for girls.
5
Noël Carroll, Theorizing the Moving Image (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1996), 134.
6
Maria Nikolajeva, The Rhetoric of Character in Children’s Literature (London:
The Scarcrwo Press, Inc., 2002).
7
Angela Yannicopoulou, ‘Focalization in Children’s Picture Books: Who Sees in
Words and Pictures,’ Telling Children’s Stories: Narrative Theory and Children’s
Literature, ed. Michael Cadden (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010),
65-85.
8
Sara K. Day, Reading like a Girl: Narrative Intimacy in Contemporary American
Young Adult Literature (USA: The University Press of Mississippi, 2013).
9
Susan Hayward, Key Concepts in Cinema Studies (London: Routledge, 1996).
10
Nick Browne, ‘The Spectator-in-the-Text: The Rhetoric of Stagecoac,’ Film
Theory and Criticism, ed. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2004), 118-34.
11
Browne defines identification as the experience of imagining oneself in a
character’s position without necessarily having to share the same experience.
12
Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto, 6 (CA: VIZ Media, 1999), 164-165. Numbers next
to the panels are inserted by the author of this chapter. Image used courtesy of
SHUEISHA Inc.
13
First group interview of one of the boy groups by myself, 21 May 2013.
14
First group interview of the other boy group by myself, 8 May 2013.
Bibliography
Browne, Nick. ‘The Spectator-in-the-Text: The Rhetoric of Stagecoac.’ Film

Theory and Criticism, edited by Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. 118-34. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2004.

Yi-Shan Tsai 63
__________________________________________________________________
Carroll, Noël. Theorizing the Moving Image. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1996.
Day, Sara K. Reading Like a Girl: Narrative Intimacy in Contemporary American

Young Adult Literature. USA: The University Press of Mississippi, 2013.
Hayward, Susan. Key Concepts in Cinema Studies. London: Routledge, 1996.
Kishimoto, Masashi. Naruto, Volume 6. CA: VIZ Media, 1999.
Palmer, Ada. ‘“Film Is Alive: The Manga Roots of Osamu Tezuka’s Animation
Obsession,” Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga, Father of Anime,’ Smithsonian Freer
and Sackler Galleries. Viewed on 28 September 2014.
http://www.asia.si.edu/film/tezuka/essays/Tezuka_Palmer.pdf.
Schodt, Frederik L. Manga! Manga!: The World of Japanese Comics. New York:
Kodansha International, 1983.
Thorn, Matt. ‘A History of Manga,’ Matt-Thorn.com. Viewed on 28 September

2014. http://www.matt-thorn.com/mangagaku/history.html.
Yannicopoulou, Angela. ‘Focalization in Children’s Picture Books: Who Sees in

Words and Pictures.’ Telling Children’s Stories: Narrative Theory and Children’s
Literature, edited by Michael Cadden, 65-85. Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 2010.
Yi-Shan Tsai has been a primary school teacher in Taiwan for three years. She is
currently working on her PhD at the University of Cambridge. Her PhD research
looks at British young people’s engagement with manga.

Part IV
War and Reverberation

Graphic Adaptation of the 9/11 Commission Report: Relevance,
Risks and Responsibilities
Sudha Shastri
Abstract
In his introduction to Orientalism, Edward Said observes that ‘even the simplest
perception of the Arabs and Islam’ by the West constitutes a ‘highly politicized
raucous matter.’1 This chapter aims to examine this proposition with respect to the
graphic narrative version of the 9/11 Commission report, co-adapted from the
written format by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon. Historical tracings of the graphic
novel rarely overlook the struggle of this genre to be recognized as a serious
medium; although the literary competence of comics or, in Eisner’s words,
‘graphic novels’ was established incontrovertibly with Spiegelman’s Maus,
scepticism regarding the ability of this form to convey seriousness of theme
remains in general public perception. These and related questions drive this
chapter, such as: what challenges are likely to be faced in the graphic adaptation of
a governmental report? How is the process of selection inevitable in a compression
of this magnitude (585 pages of the report are compressed into 138) determined?
What risks lie in the representation? Said becomes relevant here to ask whether the
same attention to neutrality was deemed necessary in the representation of the
Arabs in the narrative, or whether the need for acknowledging neutrality in
representing Arab nationals was conditioned by the projected readership –
‘American people’ – of the graphic text. How is this ambivalent space recognized
and negotiated by the illustrators? In what way(s) will a reader, neither Arab nor
American, interpret this graphic narrative?
Key Words: Ambivalence, challenge, graphic, medium, neutral, possibilities,

reader, risk.
*****
This chapter will read the graphic adaptation of the 9/11 Commission report in
the light of Edward Said’s description and analysis in his study Orientalism, of the
fraught relations between the Occidental West and the Arab Orient, and examine
its implications.
Questions regarding challenges in the graphic adaptation of a governmental
report, questions of selection, inevitable in a 138-page retelling of a 585-page
report, and more pertinently, the question of risks in representation drive this
chapter. Concurrently, the struggle of the graphic novel, in its attempts to be
recognized as a serious medium, will find place as well in my reading of the 9/11
graphic text.

68 Graphic Adaptation of the 9/11 Commission Report
__________________________________________________________________
1. Terminology: ‘Comic’/’Graphic Novel’
In contradistinction to the comic which is associated with child readership and
arguably non-intellectual reading, the ‘graphic novel’ as a term suggests that the
text in question is not necessarily funny or frivolous. Anxiety on the part of the
graphic novel to be taken as a serious narrative mode was laid to rest with Art
Spiegelman’s Maus, which won the Pulitzer Prize the year after it was published.
With Maus, the boundaries of the genre of graphic novel came to be re-drawn in
the way the horror of enduring and surviving the Nazi atrocities was recounted in
the form of a personal memoir, articulated by a father to his artist son. Maus also
showcased the potential of the genre for self-reflexivity in the way Vladek
Spiegelman’s recital of his experience of the Holocaust was accompanied by Art’s
parallel story of his narration of Vladek’s reminiscences.
Equally persuasively, the advent of postmodernism may also have helped along
the prevalence and popularity of the graphic novel. First, with its upturning of
hierarchies, especially between ‘high-brow’ and ‘low-brow’ literature,
postmodernism would argue the case of the graphic novel in literary circulation,
discussion, etc. by reinstating it as a literary form as worthy of regard as, say, the
epic. Second, postmodernist narratives project multiple worlds and juxtapose them:
a principle that works at the core of graphic narratives, which simultaneously
present language and pictures, and invite the reader to explore their interaction. In
theory, the graphic medium presents greater narrative opportunities than the
textual, not just because of pictures accompanying words, but also because of the
interplay between them. One obvious offshoot of this is economy, since pictures
can take the place of words, even if this results in a partial restriction of the
reader’s imagination.
2. The 9/11 Graphic Adaptation

The graphic version of the 9/11 commission report, created by Sid Jacobson
and Ernie Colon, was published in 2006. In an interview, Jacobson declares that
‘we both object – to the whole thought of this as a comic book. This is not a comic
book. It’s a graphic presentation, using many, many devices…’ and ‘[W]e have
sort of come up with the idea that it’s graphic journalism.’2
So the graphic version of the 9/11 Commission Report may perhaps be more
properly termed a graphic narrative, conflating the world of news/history/
governmental policy with the question of representation. The title is suggestive
enough: The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation (emphasis added). However, it
can equally be argued that by these terms, Maus, which I evoke as a precursor-text
for a reference-point, is not a graphic novel either, strictly speaking. It is less
fiction, and more an imaginative reconstruction of the past and personal history.
But more pertinently for the focus of my chapter, Maus engages with the question
of representation. On a literal level, the epigraph quoting Hitler is used by
Spiegelman as a subversive tool whereby to negotiate the problem of bias in

Sudha Shastri 69
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representation. All Jews are pictured as mice; all Germans are represented as cats.
This choice of the beast-fable genre confronts the issue of bias in representation by
replacing humans with animals that are natural enemies. The potential danger of
over-simplification caused by this move is effectively pre-empted by the
complexity in the characters of Vladek, his narrating son, and the relationship
between them, pointing to how race and religion are hardly necessary to create
people very different from each other.
3. From Word to Picture

The 9/11 commission report, with Thomas H. Kean as Chair and Lee H.
Hamilton as Vice Chair, besides eight other members of the commission, was
released in 2004. Following the terrorist attacks on the twin towers and the
Pentagon in September 2001, Congress and the President of the United States
established a commission in 2002, with the mandate to produce an official report of
the events leading to the attacks. The 585-page commission report has a preface,
13 chapters, and three appendices and notes. The graphic version which came out
two years later has retained all the 13 chapters, but in reduced form, with the
number of pages per chapter being fewer than in the original report. For instance,
chapter 2 in the report runs into about 24 pages; in the graphic version, it has 9
pages. Pages 238-239 of the original display the photographs of all the hijackers of
all flights. Significantly, the graphic adaptation has no photographs of men; it has
only pictures resembling the people of the photographs, whether of the hijackers or
President Bush, implicitly posing a question regarding representation.
Pages 32-33 of the report feature the flight timelines in two columns per page,
each column showing the map of the take-off of the respective airplane on top,
followed below by the timeline of the hijacking of the respective airplane. It is
perhaps here, in its use of figures, that the report comes closest to a graphic
narrative. The graphic version covers this ground from pages 20-25, preserving the
timeline grid faithfully, additionally supplying visuals that function like cryptic
signals, such as a red splash to indicate the crashing of an airplane.
The graphic report transforms the representation into a visually more impactful
one not only by sizing the information down into symbols but also by using colour
imaginatively. The pervasive use of the colour black for background, for instance,
contrasts with the red dramatically.3 Similarly, the scattered jigsaw pieces in
different colours suggest the splintering of the terrorism concerns across different
committees, and the lack of a cohesive and integrated policy on terrorism, from all
the pieces being of the same shape, foregrounding inability to fit into each other.4
Economy, as indicated in an earlier section, is a forte of graphic representation.
To illustrate: while the introductory passages of both texts talk about a cloudless
morning, ‘Tuesday, September 11, 2001, dawned temperate and nearly cloudless in
the eastern United States’ and ‘For those heading to an airport, weather conditions
could not have been better for a safe and pleasant journey,’5 the graphic version

__________________________________________________________________
makes a passing reference to ‘a pleasant and cloudless morning in Boston.’6 The
clear sky forms the background to the panels.
The commission report meticulously and painstakingly narrates the names of
the hijackers and their passage through security to the respective aircrafts, and
which of them, proceeding to which aircraft at which airport, triggered off alarms.
The graphic version shortens this to ‘Three of them set off an alarm and were
directed to a second metal detector, but they quickly passed inspection,’7 retaining
only the point that the report wants to make emphatically through this incident, that
‘[T]he screener should have ‘resolved’ what set off the alarm;’ and ‘in the case of
both Moqed and Hazmi, it was clear that he did not.’8 Analysis is less the focus of
the graphic version: thus the commission report examines the ‘inaccurate
government accounts [of] events’9 which does not find place in the graphic
adaptation.
4. Risking Graphic Representation

The circumstances of the 9/11 report are particularly critical, being the account
of a hostile attack on a nation. Two questions that come up here resist definitive
answers: a) is the representation likely to be impartial and subjective? b) how is
bias, if any, to be detected?
That objectivity is an issue was recognized by the illustrators. In a report in
USA Today, Colon is quoted saying that when faced with an ‘unflattering’ photo of
Cheney, he would look for a more ‘neutral’ one.10 He had recourse to photographs
of the president, officials, and the hijackers when he drew them into his adaptation,
and his attention to likeness is reflected in the graphic report.
This, in turn begs the question of comics and the ‘good guy versus the bad guy’
outline. Graphic novels perhaps try to outgrow this oversimplified distinction; and
yet, neutrality can hardly be an aim of this report. Apart from the outrage that is a
natural response to the entire event, there is also an indictment of the acts of
omission that allowed the tragedy to happen. For instance, one of the commission’s
conclusions was that ‘the airlines faced an escalating number of conflicting and
erroneous reports of other flights as well as a lack of vital information from the
FAA about the hijacked flights.’11 This is done more exhaustively in Chapter 11,
titled ‘Foresight-and Hindsight’,12 which begins with the sentence:
The commission has tried to remember that they write with the
benefit and the handicap of hindsight…. the 9/11 attacks
revealed four kinds of failure: in imagination, in policy, in
capabilities, and in management.13
If the good guy/bad guy dichotomy is an oversimplification, how then does one
draw hijackers without suggesting their evil intent?

Sudha Shastri 71
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My answer to this question is that the graphic adaptation has been by and large
‘politically’ correct. It withholds an unequivocal answer to this problem in the way
it imagines the bad guys pictorially. If men wielding knives look threatening in the
visuals, that can be ascribed to the general understanding that knives do impart an
ominous outlook when used as weapons, turning the question into a factor of
realism and verisimilitude rather than specific bias. Conversely, if there is bias, it is
less explicit than consists in drawing men who look evil and laugh menacingly,
after the stereotype. But there are exceptions: Conspirators Hazmi and Mihdhar
exchange malevolent looks, looking very much like villains.14 Or take the top
right-hand panel that features two conspirators inside an aircraft deliberating attack
on a nuclear facility; one of them, rather unnecessarily, is shown brandishing a
knife, while the other cautions him with his hand. Aside from stamping them as
‘bad guys’ this visual does not serve any purpose, and certainly not the expected
aim of reinforcing the narrative comment on top of the panel: ‘Atta mentioned he
had considered targeting a nuclear facility, but the other pilots thought that the
restricted airspace around it made it too difficult.’15
5. Relevance in Visual Representation: Who Reads?

The projected readership of the commission report finds mention in the
foreword to the graphic report: ‘It was the goal of the commission to tell the story
of 9/11 in a way that the American people could read and understand.’ Although
Kean and Hamilton, authors of the foreword, do go on to state that the events need
‘to be accessible to all,’ their stated goal is ‘not only to inform our fellow citizens
about history but also to energize and engage them on behalf of reform and change,
to make our country safer and more secure.’16
At this juncture, it is useful to bring together three of Said’s claims: first, that
knowledge is rarely non-political; second, that ‘no production of knowledge in the
human sciences can ever ignore or disclaim its author’s involvement as a human
subject in his own circumstances;’17 and last, that it is an imaginative (as much as
intellectual) territory within which the writing, which he calls Orientalist, is
produced.
Let me illustrate points two and three of the above from the graphic report,18
documenting ‘Some of the Commission’s Conclusions:’
The conflict did not begin on 9/11. It had been publicly declared
years earlier, most notably in a declaration faxed early in 1998 to
an Arabic-language newspaper in London by the followers of a
Saudi exile gathered in one of the most remote and impoverished
countries on earth.19
The graphic version retains the language from the commission report, and the
accompanying pictures reinforce a group of benevolent-looking and happy white

__________________________________________________________________
men and women. The West, specifically the United States, seems to be the point of
reference, with respect to the choice of the word ‘remote’ in the quoted sentence.
A similar point is made by the graphic of an Arab, dressed qua Arab, seated
inside a car, which is stopped by an officer, a White man trying to check his
credentials. The officer’s colleague, a soldier, tells him to ‘[L]et them through.
Their names aren’t on the list,’ to which the officer responds with ‘Frankly, I can’t
even read their names.’20 The officer’s inability to read the names comes from the
sense that these names constitute the ‘other,’ whose culture and civilization are
alien to the ‘self.’ This excerpt is supposed to illustrate the limitations in the
system, or the attitude called ‘the wall,’ which prevented information from being
shared by the National Security Agency and the CIA with criminal investigators.
But it also, maybe inadvertently, reveals an attitude that reinforces the self/other
divide, and as an instance of demonstrating the failure of communication of
information between two bodies, this statement becomes politically coloured.
Another instance of the ‘other’ may be located in the visual of Ahmed Shah
Massoud in conversation with George Tenet, the head of CIA. Tenet asks Massoud
to ‘capture’ Bin laden and ‘not to kill him.’21 Massoud is smiling, ostensibly in
disbelief, and has a hand raised. A caption on the same panel observes that ‘His
body language was translated as ‘you guys are crazy.’’ The need felt for this gloss
suggests that cultural/religious body language requires to be interpreted for the
audience of the graphic narrative. This is a case in point of a comment functioning
in an intrusive manner into the otherwise smooth narrative that largely lets its
pictures do the talking.
The question of representation, particularly where it carries political overtones,
is interesting to consider alongside the graphic medium’s acknowledged forte of
economy. The conflation of economy with stereotyping is remarkable in a panel
representing Pakistan: two men are engaged in a discussion in the background,
while the foreground shows a woman wearing a burqa or veil.22 While only some,
not all Pakistani women wear a burqa, the choice of the costume even though it is
not ubiquitous is significant, because it indicates a selection of not so much the
type, as the assumption from the author’s viewpoint as to what constitutes the type.
It appeals to the Western imagination of what Pakistan can be most recognizably
reduced to, to the Western point-of-view. As a neighbour of Pakistan’s, I as an
Indian would not need a burqa-clad woman to stamp authenticity on the idea of
Pakistan. Conversely, many Muslim women in India wear the veil. Contrast this
with the representation of London in a less ‘marked’ fashion, with Big Ben in the
background.23
To revert here to questions that I posed in my abstract: did the attention to
neutrality that Colon mentioned in the context of drawing Cheney extend to the
representation of the Arabs or non-Whites in the narrative? Was it deemed
necessary at all for the projected readership? How does the graphic version
negotiate this ambivalent space?

Sudha Shastri 73
__________________________________________________________________
6. Responsibilities: Positioning the Reader
And finally, how would a reader, neither American nor Arab, read this graphic
adaptation? Writing myself into this chapter as reader of this graphic report, I
reflect that my country, India, shares with the United States the traumatizing
experience and consequences of terrorist attacks. In November 2008, the city of
Mumbai, where I live, was the focus of terrorist attacks, only different from the
September 11 attacks in that this time a whole city, instead of four airplanes, was
taken hostage. A hospital, a cinema, the residence of a Rabbi, a café, a hotel, and
the iconic Chattrapati Shivaji Rail Terminus (erstwhile Victoria Terminus) and the
Taj Mahal Palace and Hotel were under siege for over two days, before the
situation could be brought to normal.
I might therefore be no different from the projected American reader of the
9/11 graphic report. Imagine my sense of disorientation, then, when I find a figure
standing alongside ‘top Pakistani officials’ wearing a turban in a way only a Sikh,
and definitely not a Muslim, would wear it.24 The visual could have been factually
persuasive only if the Sikh official had been part of an Indian team. The Sikh
turban has a peak, and is markedly different from the turban wrapped around a cap
as worn by Muslims. While Muslim and Hindu men wear turbans, the distinctive
style of the Sikh turban cannot be mistaken for any of those worn by Muslims
anywhere.25
It is a case of tragically ironic coincidence that, post September 2001, many
Sikhs in the United States were targeted for attacks by self-proclaimed patriotic
Americans, who mistook them for Muslims on account of their turbans.
7. Conclusion
This chapter has admittedly raised more questions than given answers, at least
conclusive ones. But perhaps questions such as these are best retained as such,
rather than provided closure, for as questions they help us reflect in the direction of
dichotomies, otherness-es, and our own roles and responsibilities.
Notes
1
Edward W. Said, ‘Introduction’, Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient
(New Delhi: Penguin. 1978, 2001), 34.
2
‘The Sept. 11 Commission Report as Graphic Novel‘, Transcript of interview,
NPR, 22 August 2006, Viewed 17 September 2014,
http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=5690970.
3
Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon, The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation (New
York: Hill and Wang, 2006), 1-4, 6-25.
4
Ibid., 44.
5
‘The 9/11 Commission Report’, 1, Viewed 18 September 2014, http://www.9-
11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf.

__________________________________________________________________
6
Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon, The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation, 5.
7
Ibid., 5.
8
‘The 9/11 Commission Report’, 3.
9
Ibid., 34.
10
‘9/11 Gets a Graphic Retelling’, USA Today, 21 August 2006, Viewed 4 October
2014, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2006-08-21-9-11-report-
book_x.htm?csp=34.
11
‘The 9/11 Commission Report’, 11; Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon, The 9/11
Report: A Graphic Adaptation, 29.
12
‘The 9/11 Commission Report’, 339-360.
13
14
Ibid., 56.
15
Ibid., 76.
16
Ibid., ix, emphases added.
17
Edward W. Said, ‘Introduction’, 11.
18
19
‘The 9/11 Commission Report’, 339-360, 46, emphasis added.
20
21
Ibid., 51.
22
Ibid., 75.
23
Ibid., 30.
24
Ibid., 102.
25
I am obliged to the students of the undergraduate minor course that I offered
some years ago for this discovery, in the course of a test assigned to them.
Bibliography
‘9/11 Gets a Graphic Retelling’, USA Today, 21 August 2006, Viewed 4 October
2014,
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2006-08-21-9-11-report-
book_x.htm?csp=34.
Herman, David, Manfred Jahn and Marie-Laure Ryan eds. Routledge Encyclopedia
of Narrative Theory. Oxon: Routledge, 2008.
‘History of Hate: Crimes against Sikhs since 9/11’. Huffington Post, 8 July 2012.
Viewed 4 October 2014.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/07/history-of-hate-crimes-against-sikhs-
since-911_n_1751841.html.

Sudha Shastri 75
__________________________________________________________________
Jacobson, Sid, and Ernie Colon. The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation. New
York: Hill and Wang, 2006.
Said, Edward W. ‘Introduction’. Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient.

1-28. New Delhi: Penguin. 1978, 2001.
Sanders, Eli. ‘Understanding Turbans: Don’t Link Them to Terrorism’. The Seattle
Times. September 27, 2001. Viewed 18 September 2014.
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20010927&slug=turba
n270.
Spiegelman, Art. Maus: A Survivor’s Tale and My Father Bleeds History. Penguin,
2005.
‘The 9/11 Commission Report’. Viewed 18 September 2014.

http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf.
‘The Sept. 11 Commission Report as Graphic Novel’. Transcript of interview.

NPR, 22 August 2006. Viewed 16 September 2014.
http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=5690970.
‘Understanding Turbans’. The Seattle Times. Viewed 18 September 2014.

http://seattletimes.com/news/lifestyles/links/turbans_27.html.
Sudha Shastri is Professor of English at the Department of Humanities and Social

Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India. Her research interests lie
in narratology, intertextuality, Indian writing in English, film and graphic novel.
Sudha Shastri is also an accomplished dancer of the classical Odissi style.

The Vietnam War: Not a Space for Superheroes
Björn Hochschild
Abstract
The popularity of the US-American superhero-comic seems to rise and fall with the
military actions of the US. Again and again, superhero-stories take place within
wars that bring back forgotten superheroes or generate new ones. The Vietnam
War however is mostly avoided as a setting for superhero-comics. This
circumstance can’t be justified solely by the good vs. evil morals of the superhero
in relation to an internationally and nationally controversial military action. This
presentation aims to demonstrate that the Vietnam War as an aesthetic space – both
as a physical war zone and a thematic conflict – does not accommodate the (visual)
concept of superhero-comics. The starting point is an analysis of war-stories about
Iron Man and Captain America, which are fantasized by GIs in issue 41 of ‘The
‘Nam’. These fantasies will then be compared to issues from the official Iron Man
and Captain America series. The few existing appearances of Iron Man in Vietnam
will show why the Vietnam War zone is a problematic space for the superhero.
Furthermore the NOMAD story of Captain America – in which he questions his own
identity, deconstructs it and reconstructs it, again – will be used as an example for
how the ideological conflicts of the war are displaced onto the superhero’s inward
struggles. As represented in the US media, the Vietnam War is known as a
guerrilla war taking place in a thick and impenetrable jungle. The superhero
however needs a transparent arena to fight his opponent, whose physical figure is
just as visible as its ethical values. The assumption is, that a superhero-story in and
around the Vietnam War can only ever be a compromise: either the jungle is made
transparent and the opponent is made visual again, or the impotence of the
superhero within the war zone is subverted by a conflict of the superhero with
himself, which is linked to the conflicts of war. This inner conflict is then displaced
into the characters memory and then eliminated as a visual setting.
Key Words: Superheroes, Vietnam War, Captain America, Iron Man, The ‘Nam,
Nomad.
*****
1. Thor, Iron Man and Captain America Guest Starring in Vietnam

This promise made on the front cover of #41 of THE ‘NAM,1 a self-proclaimed
realistic2 Vietnam War comic book series, is a hollow promise. The superheroes
appear only in the fantasies of a group of GIs, who mourn for a fallen soldier that
loved superhero-comics. They wonder: what if these superheroes actually fought in
Vietnam? Considering that superhero-comics seem to flourish especially during
times of military actions of the US, this question seems reasonable. Again and

78 The Vietnam War
__________________________________________________________________
again superhero-stories take place within these wars, like Captain America during
the Golden Age of comic books around WWII.3 The reason why the GIs have to
fantasize about superhero-interventions, instead of being able to read about them is
that the Vietnam War seems to be an exception to this standard convention. Thor
only ever appears once in Vietnam4 and Captain America has only three on site
missions within 46 years.5 Even Iron Man, who was born in Vietnam, returns to his
birthplace for only three actual missions.6 In addition, there is a re-telling of his
origins7 and three issues that mention Vietnam as a subsidiary setting.8 The
Vietnam War seems to be a place uninhabited and even avoided by superheroes.
This comes as no surprise: superheroes with their traditionally binary moral
codex, usually champion the dogmatic ideals of the romanticized society from
which they emerge. The Vietnam War however, questioned the ideals of the entire
nation. In a time of the Tet-Offensive and the massacres in My Lai, the US
citizen’s trust was shattered.9 It seems logical that superhero-comics, which often
showcase clear ideologies with their simplistic good/evil morality, would avoid
such a controversial setting as the Vietnam War. This does not mean that the war
doesn’t concern the comics of its time: ‘the crisis in ideological confidence of the
70s is visible on all levels of American culture’.10
This chapter aims to show that ideological controversies where not the only
factor that kept the superhero-comic away from the Vietnam War. The ideological
controversies blended with the aesthetical influence the war had on them.
Comparing Iron Man’s fantasized intervention in #41 with his actual war-
appearances demonstrates that the Vietnam War, understood as an aesthetic space,
fundamentally conflicts with the visual conception of superhero-comics.
Additionally, a Captain America series published during the war is examined as an
attempt to bypass these conflicts by eliminating the Vietnam War as a visual space
and displacing the conflict onto the superhero’s inward struggles.
2. The Vietnam War as an Aesthetic Space

How can the Vietnam War be described as an aesthetic space and what are the
visual conceptions of the superhero that contradict it? An answer can be found in
Iron Man’s fantasized intervention in #41, in which he first averts North
Vietnamese missiles11 and then joins Thor and Captain America to capture the
warlord Comrade Ho.12 The staging of the fantasized interventions in #41 differs
distinctly from the established formal principal of representation of the war, as is
seen not just in movies and television, but also in the rest of the comic series THE
‘NAM. The cover of its first issue summarizes this principle.13 It shows a montage
of war images of a search and destroy mission. It shows a thick jungle that
becomes bleak and impenetrable in the background where bombs hit hostile areas.
There are severe differences in how the war-zone is staged in #41, apart from the
omnipresent military technology. Iron Man fights in a much more open battlefield
than the soldiers on #1’s cover. His body, just like missiles and airplanes, stands

Björn Hochschild 79
__________________________________________________________________
out from plain background surfaces: blue skies, white clouds and ploughed green
fields. The staging of the enemy is just as different: #41 shows nameless Vietcong
that hide neither themselves nor their antiaircraft gun, while the cover of #1 does
not show an enemy at all. Unlike Iron Man, the GIs on the cover aim their strength
at an invisible target. This raises – be it direct or indirect – questions that are
related to the basic controversies surrounding the Vietnam War: Why are the GIs
intervening? Who or what is to be searched and destroyed? What do the village
people on the cover need to be protected from?
#41 fails to raise any of these questions. Instead, the battlefield, the enemy, and
the Superheroes’ purposes are made transparent and singular. They are fighting to
win over North Vietnam and here war and peace depend only on defeating an
individualized enemy – Comrade Ho – who easily proclaims: ‘I will do as you
wish! I will stop the war! Just put me down!’ This is a far more typical setting for
superhero-stories: the hero moves through spaces in which his physical presence
can constantly be expressed and he competes with opponents that are as visible as
himself – if not physically than in their strength, their personality or the clear and
indisputable evil of their morality.
The Vietnam War however is usually staged as an impenetrable and
unfathomable space, inhabited by a completely invisible and de-personalized
enemy moving as a mass of guerrilla-soldiers.14 Warlords like Comrade Ho did
exist, but they operated almost as invisibly as their guerrilla warriors. It seems that
there was no historical figure with a personality so distinct that it would become an
example for a supervillain.15
Therefore a superhero-appearance in Vietnam can only ever be a compromise.
Its visual conception has to be enforced against a war-representation that is
accepted as realistic: either the jungle is made transparent or the enemy is made
visible. But with every step of its realization, this compromise results in a deviation
from the accepted representation of the Vietnam War.
3. Rejection, Repression and Reprocessing: Iron Man in Vietnam

The three appearances of Iron Man in Vietnam are failed attempts to reverse the
contradiction of the superheroes visual conception and the Vietnam War aesthetics.
1963’s TALES OF SUSPENSE #39 shows how Iron Man’s identity emerged in
Vietnam.16 Warlord Wong-Chu, who captured Tony Stark while he wanted to test
his newly developed weapons on site, forces Stark to produce a super-weapon.
Stark however, secretly develops an iron armour that helps him escape and lets him
become Iron Man. The enemy that Iron Man faces in his first Vietnam War
appearance is not a mass of invisible guerrilla-warriors, but instead a highly
individualized lone fighter. The war-zone is staged just as transparent, as the
enemy is visible. The jungle, which at first seems impenetrable – but never really
poses a threat – disappears almost completely from the comic shortly thereafter. It
is replaced by monochrome surfaces that make the Vietnam War a disposable

80 The Vietnam War
__________________________________________________________________
backdrop. In its mode of staging this Vietnam-appearance matches the fantasy
made in THE ‘NAM 30 years later, where again the space was made transparent and
the enemy visible. The fact that #39 was published at a time when the criticism of
the US intervention in Vietnam was far from its peak at the end of the 60’s,
underlines that this compromise in the mode of staging is not entirely based on
ideological differences, but mainly an aesthetical phenomenon.
Eleven years later, Iron Man returns to his birthplace. At this time the war-
traumas have been given an airing and the US has officially lost the war. The
realpolitik changes left their mark on the comic book: THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN
#68 depicts the jungle as a chaotic mixture of plants for the first time. Also, images
of doubt arise for the first time when Iron Man refers to past political disarrays:
The village I fought to ‘save’, winds up in my former ’enemies’

control – and destroyed by my previous ’allies’! I used to feel
proud of my support of the war – but things like this – first hand
– really fog up one’s thinking.17
However, this doubt is repressed just as quickly, as it appears. While the issue
maintains the impenetrability of the jungle, it also alienates itself from the Vietnam
War as a specific setting. No more soldiers appear, instead Iron Man fights a Tiger
and later on, the first supervillains: the Japanese Sunfire and the Chinese The
Mandarin. The issue ends far away from the war in an underwater station,
abandoning and ignoring the specificity of its beginning in the Vietnam War.
One year later, #78 correlates much closer with Iron Man’s doubts and the
initial aesthetic problem is now heightened by ideological complications which
means the Vietnam War can no longer be used as an interchangeable backdrop.
The issue shows Stark remembering an intervention by Iron Man in the war that
has never before been mentioned. The present Stark seems to have internalized the
doubt of #68 and looks back on his former support of the war with misgivings. A
flashback shows Iron Man galloping through the stereotypical experience and
trajectory of a broken Vietnam War veteran: from the initial proud entry into the
war and a fascination with the jungle and its exoticized dangers; to grief over the
death of a companion, disorientation of misdirected attacks and trauma over the
killing of innocent civilians. Here Stark no longer fights against external agents,
but an internalized evil and therefore dismisses the question of the enemy’s
visibility. When Stark does not see his own face but that of Iron Man reflected
back to him in the mirror,18 it is because his own past becoming his enemy,
splitting his identity in half. The flashback rejoins the two sides of the hero by
letting Iron Man catch up with the process of coming to terms with his past that
Stark has already gone through.19 At the end of the issue, Stark’s face returns in the
mirror and Iron Man’s suit returns on his body.20

__________________________________________________________________
It seems that Iron Man’s repressed doubt from #68 rose to the surface and
evolved to and changed his perspective. Instead of dismissing the war as a space,
Stark reverses the polarity of his attitude towards his birthplace. However, that
reversion happens in a very specific scenario: it happens within a retroactive
fabricated memory. Since this past has never been told outside of that memory, it is
seen through a perspective of remorse from the moment it is revealed. In fact it is a
memory that was created just to serve as a platform for such change in perspective
on the superheroes problematic birthplace. If Iron Man had actually fought in
Vietnam, this reversion probably would have been much more complicated. After
#78 Iron Man never returns to Vietnam.
4. A Present Past: Captain America vs. the Nomad

Captain America also struggles with inner conflict during the Vietnam War.
This conflict is depicted in #41 when Captain America proclaims: ‘I’ve been
fighting folks like you longer than you’ve been alive! Seems like there’s always
someone who wants to force people to do things his way!’21 Here speaks a
superhero that observes the present with the eyes of a soldier from the past. His
inner conflict comes from his inability to adopt to present reality after being frozen
in ice for decades: ‘Even when he embarks on adventures set in the 1960s, he often
has difficulty in separating past from future’.22 His problems with temporal
adaption become especially clear in the NOMAD series23 published in 1974/75. This
series depicts his change of heart, after the president is unmasked as corrupt and
commits suicide in front of his eyes. Captain America loses faith in his country and
disposes of his uniform. As the plain Steve Rogers however, he increasingly feels
without prospect and so creates a new superhero-identity that distances himself
from the now problematic, formerly patriotic, features: ‘The Nomad: A Man
Without A Country’. This new identity fails, as Rogers realizes that his former
fight for the American Dream is different from the fight for the present American
government.
The results of the ‘White House Suicide’ recall the Watergate scandal rather
than the Vietnam War. Correspondingly, the interpretation of the NOMAD story by
Shawn Gillen fails to include the war in its observations.24 Instead, Gillen reads the
series as a healing account for a superhero’s suffering. Frozen in ice, Captain
America was unable to process his WWII trauma and therefore suffers ‘from an
array of symptoms that can be best described as a psychological disorder, in Cap’s
case Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)’.25 According to Gillen, dismissing
his identity in the NOMAD story was the only thing allowing Captain America to
reconstruct it: ‘his discovery of corruption at the highest levels of government
shatter him, but also allow him to reconstitute his identity.’26
In contrast with Gillen’s reading, this examination shows that the NOMAD story
is in fact not a healing account but instead the place where Rogers’ inner conflict
of temporal adaption is negotiated. This conflict with the present reality is always

82 The Vietnam War
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connected to the presence of the Vietnam War, as Rogers mentions himself: ‘From
the moment I returned to life in 1964 at the beginning of our Viet Nam War, I felt
out of my time’.27 By avoiding Vietnam as a setting, the problematic aspect of the
staging of the enemies is eluded. Yet the composition of the series’ supervillains
exhibits his inner conflict.
The first villain Lucifer symbolically introduces the two sides that struggle
within Rogers. After returning to earth, Lucifer needs to clone himself to share
some of the extraterrestrial power that has become too much for him to bear on his
own.28 But his clone soon becomes his rival and they ultimately destroy each other.
This dissociative identity matches Rogers’ inner conflict: the dissolving of Captain
America’s identity leaves Rogers’ civilian body behind with a potential of power
that is too much for him to bear. One half of him wants to use the past’s potential
while the other half has to admit that this potential lacks clear ideals.29
The second villain – the Golden Archer – is revealed to actually be a masked
friend of Rogers. In a Robin-Hood-like disguise he embodies the heroic counter-
image to the plain Rogers. His appearance and language give the impression that
he belongs in the past30 and his name alludes the time-period he is meant to evoke:
the Golden Age. He inspires the nostalgic side of Rogers and drives him to divert
his unused potential into a new identity. His doubting side makes sure this identity
goes adrift of all his former ideals and creates the Man without a Country.31
Nomad’s first enemies are the members of the Serpent Squad – a formation of
villains under the leadership of The Hydra – who strive for the global propagation
of nihilism. Their first fight takes place inside a cinema showing a documentary on
Captain America’s disappearance from the world.32 Captain America’s figure on
the screen follows the Nomad like a shadow, which constantly recalls the recent
loss of a national symbol: ‘recently, the people of America suffered a great loss,
with the retirement of the most impressive symbol of liberty ever conceived -- --
Captain America!’33 Facing a group that strives for nihilism, Nomad’s own
forsaking of all former ideals becomes his weak spot. His failure is foreshadowed
in one panel:34 while the foreground shows him baring his teeth while fighting with
a snake, Captain America proudly holds up an American flag in the background.
Instead of winning with a symbol of the American nation in the right hand, Nomad
struggles with his left hand against a symbol of meaninglessness. A moment later
his failure becomes evident: he stumbles over his own cloak.35 Rogers’ inner
conflict takes an important turn: it becomes clear that a hero ‘without a country’ is
without function in the universe of Captain America. Correspondingly, his next
enemy does not lack national identification: Warlord Krang’s strongly focused red
dot on his chest makes him a Japanese villain, just like Sunfire in Iron Man #68.36
Shortly after Krang’s appearance two passages reconnect the story to the
present of the Vietnam War. Once, when a speech of Abraham Lincoln is cited in
which he speaks out in favour of using yourself to symbolize the ideals of your
country in foreign countries37 and again when Nomad faces a mob of communist

__________________________________________________________________
Hippies.38 But the appearance of the series’ last villain quickly displaces these
connections. The Red Skull who is clearly marked as a Nazi-Villain39 guarantees
Captain America’s comeback. He provides a fitting counterpart for Captain
America that does not ask him to adapt his identity to the present, but instead
adapts the present to his identity. What Gillen named a reconstruction of identity
does not take place. The ‘new’ Captain America does indeed detach himself from
the present American government, but that does not mean that he is all ‘new’. He
remains a superhero from the past for whom a present past is created that
corresponds to his identity. The controversial aspects of the Vietnam War are
replaced by connections to a former far less ambiguous war, which fits much better
to the traditional binary moral codex of superheroes. This was made possible by
ignoring Vietnam as a visual setting and thereby arranging a composition of
supervillains that create a figure of movement that the inner conflict of Captain
America is executed upon. It seems far more fitting to say that the NOMAD series
tries to reconstruct nostalgia.
5. The Vietnam War: An Unpopular Space amongst Superheroes

Iron Man tried to overcome his problematic place of birth by a trick: he created
a fictitious space of the past, in which he was able to elude the contradiction of the
superheroes’ visual conception with the Vietnam War as an aesthetic space and
transform it into an inner conflict that could be overcome. Whereas Captain
America did not invent a past but instead infused his present space with objects
from a far less controversial past until the present itself becomes a space of that
past. In this case however, the Vietnam War controversy is even less successfully
overcome than with Iron Man’s trick. At the end of the NOMAD series the faith in
the nation state can once again be an operational mode of thinking, but only
because the shadow side of that thinking has been repressed and forgotten.
Both superhero-comics showed that the setting constantly mixes ideological
controversies with aesthetical conflicts. At the end of #41, when the GIs of THE
‘NAM realize that ‘real heroes rarely think of themselves as anything special’40 a
final question is raised, which remains open: Is there a difference between a
Vietnam-Hero and a Vietnam-Superhero? If so, is it the superheroes’ need to
demonstrate their power that makes the difference? Does this make them unable to
lose against themselves, unless they become someone else like Captain America
did? When the last panel of #41 shows busts of Thor, Captain America and Iron
Man appearing in the sky, it begs not only the question whether there can actually
be a type of hero that can lose against themselves, but also, if there is any type of
hero at all that finds their space within the Vietnam War?

84 The Vietnam War
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Notes
1
Doug Murray, The ’Nam #41: Back in the Real World (New York: Marvel
Comics Group, 1990).
2
In the first issue of THE ‘NAM, author Doug Murray proclaims on the comics last
page: ‘I will promise that we will show, [...] what the War was really like for those
who fought in it.’ Doug Murray, The ’Nam Vol. 1 #1: First Patrol (New York:
Marvel Comics Group, December 1986), 31.
3
Cf. Matthias Kniep, Die Drei Zeitalter des Superhelden-Comics (Gold, Silber und
Bronze). Von der Geburt, Demontage und Wiederbelebung eines amerikanischen
Mythos (Kiel: Ludwig, 2009).
4
Stan Lee, Journey into Mystery #117: Into the Blaze of Battle! (New York:
Marvel Comics Group, June 1965).
5
Stan Lee, Tales of Suspense #61: The Death of Tony Stark (New York: Marvel
Comics Group, January 1965); Stan Lee, Captain America #125: Captured in
Vietnam! (New York: Marvel Comics Group, May 1970); Jason Aaron, Ultimate
Captain America #2 (New York: Marvel Comics Group, April 2011).
6
Mike Friedrich, The Invincible Iron Man #68: Night of the Rising Sun! (New
York: Marvel Comics Group, June 1974); Mike Friedrich, The Invincible Iron Man
#74: The MODOK Machine! (New York: Marvel Comics Group, May 1975): Bill
Mantlo, The Invincible Iron Man Vol. 1#78: Long Time Gone (New York: Marvel
Comics Group, September 1975).
7
David Michelinie, The Invincible Iron Man #122: Journey! (New York: Marvel
Comics Group, May 1979).
8
David Michelinie, Bob Layton, The Invincible Iron Man #144: Sunfall (New
York: Marvel Comics Group, March 1981); Stan Lee, Tales of Suspense #92:
Within the Vastness of Viet Nam! (New York: Marvel Comics Group, August
1967); Stan Lee, Tales of Suspense #94: The Tragedy and the Triumph! (New
York: Marvel Comics Group, October 1967).
9
Cf. Reinhard Schweizer, Ideologie und Propaganda in den Marvel-
Superheldencomics. Vom Kalten Krieg zur Entspannungspolitik (Frankfurt a.
Main; Bern; New York; Paris: Lang, 1992), 117.
10
Robin Wood, Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan (New York: Columbia Univ.
Pr., 1986), 162.
11
Doug Murray, The ‘Nam #41, 13-16.
12
A character inspired by the Vietnamese politician and revolutionist Hồ Chí
Minh. Ibid., 17-19.
13
This principle is shaped by medial war-representations within the US-media and
does not necessarily correspond with an actual impression of the war.

__________________________________________________________________
14
Not only in the rest of the THE ‘NAM series, but also in countless Vietnam War
movies (such as Apocalypse Now, dir. Francis Ford Coppola. Berlin: Studiocanal
GmbH, 1979, Blu-ray Disc; The Deer Hunter, dir. Michael Cimino. Leipzig:
Kinowelt Arthaus, 1978, Blu-ray Disc; Platoon, dir. Oliver Stone. Frankfurt:
MGM / 20th Century Fox, 1986, Blu-ray Disc) and TV Reports.
15
Such as Adolf Hitler during the Golden Age.
16
Later on, Iron Man’s story of origin finds a new interpretation, replacing his
birth into the war in Afghanistan, swapping the Vietcong with terrorists. Warren
Ellis, Iron Man, Extremis #1 (New York: Marvel Comics Group, January 2005).
17
Mike Friedrich, The Invincible Iron Man #68, 7.
18
Bill Mantlo, Iron Man #78, 2.
19
Stark’s voice spreads chastened comments over the panels of Iron Man’s
flashback, constantly pointing out how different the present Stark is from the past
Iron Man. That the process of overcoming his past happens for him alone is made
clear in the end. Iron Man digs a mass grave for the victims of the unnecessarily
destroyed village and labels it with the inscription: ‘WHY’ (Bill Mantlo, Iron Man
#78, 27). The only survivor left to read the heroic pronouncement of Iron Man’s
doubt is a boy unable to read, because he is blind.
20
Ibid., 30-31.
21
Doug Murray, The ‘Nam #41, 12.
22
Shawn Gillen, ‘Captain America, Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, and the
Vietnam Era’, in Captain America and the Struggle of the Superhero. Critical
Essays, ed. Robert G. Weiner (Shutterstock: Mcfarland & Co Inc, 2009), 106.
23
Steve Englehart and John Warner, Captain America and The Falcon: Nomad
(New York: Marvel Publishing Inc., 2006. First published as Captain America and
the Falcon #177-#186, September 1974-June 1975).
24
Gillen refers to ‘some readers’ conclusion that Marvel dogged the topic of
fighting communism, maybe because of their own disapproval with it and that this
is the reason for the almost complete absence of the war in the series. Shawn
Gillen, ‘Captain America, Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, and the Vietnam Era’,
105.
25
Shawn Gillen, ‘Captain America, Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, and the
Vietnam Era’, 105-106.
26
Ibid., 113.
27
Steve Englehart and John Warner, Nomad, 133.
28
Ibid., 20-21.
29
This dissipation of his identity is summarized in one panel of #178. Ibid., 30:
The foreground shows Rogers’ doubting side, commenting in speech bubbles why
Captain America fell out of his time. In the background Captain America’s head
flies like a giant shadow on a red surface, representing his other side that strives to

86 The Vietnam War
__________________________________________________________________
use Captain America’s potential. Between these layers Steve Rogers’ body
demonstrates how much he is in odds with himself. Rogers is without his costume,
dressed like a civilian and yet doing multiple saltos with the strength of a
superhero.
30
Ibid., 47.
31
Ibid., 73.
32
Ibid., 76-79.
33
Ibid., 76.
34
Page 77, Panel 7.
35
Ibid., 78.
36
Ibid., 80.
37
Ibid, 82. It is a passage from Lincoln’s speech of Edwardsville (from September
13th 1858). ‘He began this address as an impromptu response to a question from a
man in the crowd who had asked him to distinguish between Republicans and
Democrats on key issues of the campaign.’ Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Lincoln on
Race and Slavery (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton Univ. Press 2009, 152).
38
Steve Englehart and John Warner, Nomad, 122-123. The mod is staged as a
chaotic mass of bodies in hippie-like colourful dresses. The mod holds shields with
words of protest, but also with slogans like ‘Power to the People!’, which are
clearly communist and find no counterpart inside the story besides its few mentions
of the Vietnam War.
39
Not least with phrases like ‘Adolf Hitler, Mein Führer!’ and ‘Heil Hitler’. Ibid.,
139.
40
Doug Murray, The ‘Nam #41, 27.
Bibliography
Aaron, Jason. Ultimate Captain America #2. New York: Marvel Comics Group,
April 2011.
Apocalypse Now. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Berlin: Studiocanal GmbH,

1979. Blu-ray Disc.
Ellis, Warren. Iron Man: Extremis #1. New York: Marvel Comics Group, January
2005.
Englehart, Steve and John Warner. Captain America and the Falcon: Nomad. New
York: Marvel Publishing Inc., 2006. First published as Captain America and the
Falcon #177-#186, September 1974-June 1975.

__________________________________________________________________
Friedrich, Mike. The Invincible Iron Man #68: Night of the Rising Sun! New York:
Marvel Comics Group, June 1974.
–––. The Invincible Iron Man #74: The MODOK Machine! New York: Marvel
Comics Group, May 1975.
Gates, Jr., Henry Louis. Lincoln on Race and Slavery. Princeton, New Jersey:
Princeton Univ. Press, 2009.
Gillen, Shawn. ‘Captain America, Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, and the

Vietnam Era’. In Captain America and the Struggle of the Superhero. Critical
Essays, edited by Robert G. Weiner, 104-115. Shutterstock: Mcfarland & Co Inc,
2009,
Kniep, Matthias. Die Drei Zeitalter des Superhelden-Comics (Gold, Silber und
Bronze). Von der Geburt, Demontage und Wiederbelebung eines amerikanischen
Mythos. Kiel: Ludwig, 2009.
Lee, Stan. Captain America #125: Captured in Vietnam! New York: Marvel
–––. Journey into Mystery #117: Into the Blaze of Battle! New York: Marvel
Comics Group, June 1965.
–––. Tales of Suspense #61: The Death of Tony Stark. New York: Marvel Comics
Group, January 1965.
–––. Tales of Suspense #92: Within the Vastness of Viet Nam! New York: Marvel
Comics Group, August 1967.
–––. Tales of Suspense #94: The Tragedy and the Triumph! New York: Marvel
Comics Group, October 1967.
Lee, Stan and Don Heck. Marvel Milestone Edition: Tales of Suspense #39: Iron
Man Is Born! New York: Marvel Comics Group, 1994, originally published March
1963.
Mantlo, Bill. The Invincible Iron Man Vol. 1#78: Long Time Gone. New York:
Marvel Comics Group, September 1975.

88 The Vietnam War
__________________________________________________________________
Michelinie, David and Bob Layton. The Invincible Iron Man #144: Sunfall. New
York: Marvel Comics Group, March 1981.
Michelinie, David. The Invincible Iron Man #122: Journey! New York: Marvel
Murray, Doug and Michael Golden. The ’Nam Vol. 1 #1: First Patrol. New York:
Marvel Comics Group, December 1986.
Platoon. Directed by Oliver Stone. Frankfurt: MGM / 20th Century Fox, 1986.
Blu-ray Disc.
Schweizer, Reinhard. Ideologie und Propaganda in den Marvel-

Superheldencomics. Vom Kalten Krieg zur Entspannungspolitik. Frankfurt a. Main;
Bern; New York; Paris: Lang, 1992.
The Deer Hunter. Directed by Michael Cimino. Leipzig: Kinowelt Arthaus, 1978.
Blu-ray Disc.
Wood, Robin. Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan. New York: Columbia Univ.
Press, 1986.
Björn Hochschild is a student of the M.A. film studies program at the Freie
Universität Berlin. While interested in the diverse cinema of North America,
Europe and Southeast Asia, currently his research focuses on cult movies, graphic
novels and genre theory.


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Ana Maria Borlescu

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Kathrin Muschalik and Florian Fiddrich

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Inter-Disciplinary Press, Priory House, 149B Wroslyn Road, Freeland,

Kathrin Muschalik and Florian Fiddrich - 978-1-84888-447-2

Part I Frames, Styles and Authenticity

The Adventures of the Graphic Novel in Turkey 3

Part II Literature and the Graphic Novel

Shelley’s Progeny: Using the Comic to Re-Animate 13

Reimagination of Hell in Mike Mignola’s Hellboy in Hell 23

Part III Identity and the Graphic Novel

From the Damsel in Distress to Kickass Babes: The Cultural 37

Non-Normative Identity and Construction of Reality in Serena 47

Looking through the Enemy’s Eyes: Cinematic Views and 55

Part IV War and Reverberation

Graphic Adaptation of the 9/11 Commission Report: Relevance, 67

The Vietnam War: Not a Space for Superheroes 77

Kathrin Muschalik and Florian Fiddrich - 978-1-84888-447-2

Florian Fiddrich and Kathrin Muschalik

Kathrin Muschalik and Florian Fiddrich - 978-1-84888-447-2

Kathrin Muschalik and Florian Fiddrich - 978-1-84888-447-2

Frames, Styles and Authenticity

Kathrin Muschalik and Florian Fiddrich - 978-1-84888-447-2

Key Words: Graphic novel, translation, appropriation, identity-making, Turkish

Adventures of the Graphic Novel offers an examination of ways and means in

Kathrin Muschalik and Florian Fiddrich - 978-1-84888-447-2

Kathrin Muschalik and Florian Fiddrich - 978-1-84888-447-2

Kathrin Muschalik and Florian Fiddrich - 978-1-84888-447-2

Kathrin Muschalik and Florian Fiddrich - 978-1-84888-447-2

Kathrin Muschalik and Florian Fiddrich - 978-1-84888-447-2

Kathrin Muschalik and Florian Fiddrich - 978-1-84888-447-2

Kathrin Muschalik and Florian Fiddrich - 978-1-84888-447-2

———.‘On Comics in Turkey’. Viewed 27 June 2014. http://www.seruven.org.

Even-Zohar, Itamar. ‘The Position of Translated Literature within the Literary

Gönen, Emre.‘Türkiye’de Çizgi Roman’.Viewed 27 June 2014.

Güllüoğlu, Nurşen.‘Çizgi Romanların Çocukları’. Viewed 27 June 2014.

Tutel, Eser. ‘Okumayı Çizgi Romanlarda Söktüm’.Viewed 27 June 2014.

N. Berrin Aksoy is a Professor at the Department of Translation/Interpretation,

Kathrin Muschalik and Florian Fiddrich - 978-1-84888-447-2

Literature and the Graphic Novel

Kathrin Muschalik and Florian Fiddrich - 978-1-84888-447-2

Key Words: Multimodal, identity, nature, legacy, outcast, sublime, apotheosis,

In Mary Shelley’s introduction to Frankenstein she bids her, ‘hideous progeny

Kathrin Muschalik and Florian Fiddrich - 978-1-84888-447-2

A strange multiplicity of sensations seized me, and I saw, felt,

Indeed, if any word could be chosen to describe the Creature’s experience it

Kathrin Muschalik and Florian Fiddrich - 978-1-84888-447-2

What am I becoming? I bide my time in this place until I am

In her analysis of Frankenstein Anne K. Mellor argues that:

Victor Frankenstein substitutes solitary paternal propagation for

Victor Frankenstein may be the paternal propagator but he is also an absent

there was once a world we could have belonged to, maybe

Somewhere quiet . . . somewhere green and timeless . . . I drift . .

Kathrin Muschalik and Florian Fiddrich - 978-1-84888-447-2

Happy, happy earth! Fit habitation for gods, which, so short a

I will go to the vast wilds of South America . . . . I swear to you,

Kathrin Muschalik and Florian Fiddrich - 978-1-84888-447-2