The Graphic Novel

The essays collected in this volume were first presented at the international and interdisciplinary conference on the Graphic Novel hosted by the Institute for Cultural Studies (University of Leuven) on 12-13 May 2000.

Actually, the issues discusses by the conference are twofold. Firstly, that of trauma representation, an issue escaping by definition from any imaginable specific field. Secondly, that of a wide range of topics concerning the concept of 'visual narrative', an issue which can only be studied by comparing as many media and practices as possible.

The essays of this volume are grouped here in two major parts, their focus depending on either a more general topic or on a very specific graphic author. The first part of the book, "Violence and trauma in the Graphic Novel", opens with a certain number of reflections on the representation of violence in literary and visual graphic novels, and continues with a whole set of close readings of graphic novels by Art Spiegelman ("Maus" I and II) and Jacques Tardi (whose masterwork "C'était la guerre des tranchées" is still waiting for its complete English translation). The second part of the book presents in the first place a survey of the current graphic novel production, and insists sharply on the great diversity of the range in the various 'continental' traditions (for instance underground 'comix', and feminist comics, high-art graphic novels, critical superheroes-fiction) whose separation is nowadays increasingly difficult to maintain. It continues and ends with a set of theoretical interventions where not only the reciprocal influences of national and international traditions, but also those between genres and media are strongly forwarded, the emphasis being here mainly on problems concerning ways of looking and positions of spectatorship.

"The Graphic Novel" was written by Jan Baetens.

Jan Baetens is professor of Literature and Cultural Studies at KU Leuven.

Yes, "The Graphic Novel" is part of the "Symbolae Facultatis Litterarum Lovaniensis - Series D: Litteraria" series. It's book 13 in the series.

Introduction

Part 1
Trauma and Violence Representation in the Graphic Novel

Section A

Laurie Kaplan
Over the Top in the Aftermath of The Great War: two Novels, Too Graphic

James Reibman
Fredric Wertham, Spiegelman's Maus, and Representations of the Holocaust

Ed Tan
The Telling Face in Comic Strip and Graphic Novel

Section B

Sue Vice
"It's about time": the Chronotope of the Holocaust in Art Spiegelman's Maus

Ole Frahm
"These papers had too many memories. So I burned them". Genealogical Rememberance in Art Spiegelman's Maus. A Survivor's Tale

Gene Kannenberg Jr.
"I looked Just Like Rudolph Valentino": Identity and Representation in Maus

Anke Gilleir
"Et il n'y eut plus d'espoir". On Fiction and History in Jacques Tardi's Les Aventures Extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec

Michael Hein
What Haunts a Soldier's Mind: Monsters, Demons and the Lost Trenches of Memory. Representations of Combat Trauma in the Works of Jacques Tardi

Part II
Contemporary Graphic Novels and Practices

Section A

Marni Sandweiss
Redrawing the West: Jack Jackson's Comanche Moon

Heike Elisabeth Jüngst
Carol Lay's Joy Ride: How to Become Yourself By Being Someone Else

Jeffrey Lewis
The Dual Nature of Apocalypse in Watchmen

Jean-Louis Tilleuil
Narrative Specularity and Sociocritical Stakes in the Contemporary French-Speaking Comic Strip Production

Libbie McQuillan
Texte, Image, Récit: The Textual Worlds of Benoît Peeters

Section B

Mario Saraceni
Relatedness: Aspects of Textual Connectivity in Comics

Jack Post
Hypertextual Experiences of World War I

Patrick Maynard
The Time It Takes