Representing Multiculturalism in Comics and Graphic Novels

Multiculturalism, and its representation, has long presented challenges for the medium of comics. This book presents a wide ranging survey of the ways in which comics have dealt with the diversity of creators and characters and the (lack of) visibility for characters who don’t conform to particular cultural stereotypes. Contributors engage with ethnicity and other cultural forms from Israel, Romania, North America, South Africa, Germany, Spain, U.S. Latino and Canada and consider the ways in which comics are able to represent multiculturalism through a focus on the formal elements of the medium. Discussion themes include education, countercultures, monstrosity, the quotidian, the notion of the ‘other," anthropomorphism, and colonialism. Taking a truly international perspective, the book brings into dialogue a broad range of comics traditions.

About the Author

Carolene Ayaka has a doctorate in social policy from the University of Chichester. She did her MA in Gender studies and diversity at the University of Bradford. Her main area of interest is identity; how it is theorised and presented as well as its negotiations and diverseness (thus far having mainly focused on African female identity). Her interest in comics stems from her enjoyment of exploring how they are used to represent and translate people’s everyday lives and imagined lives.

Ian Hague is the director of Comics Forum (http://comicsforum.org), an academic organization that promotes the study of comics and related forms. He is the author of Comics and the Senses: A Multisensory Approach to Comics and Graphic Novels (Routledge 2014) as well as various articles and reviews, and he holds a PhD from the University of Chichester. He can be found online at www.ianhague.com and on Twitter @drianhague.