ABSTRACT

This book is part of a nuanced two-volume examination of the ways in which violence in comics is presented in different texts, genres, cultures and contexts.

Contexts of Violence in Comics asks the reader to consider the ways in which violence and its representations may be enabled or restricted by the contexts in which they take place. It analyzes how structures and organising principles, be they cultural, historical, legal, political or spatial, might encourage, demand or prevent violence. It deals with the issue of scale: violence in the context of war versus violence in the context of an individual murder, and provides insights into the context of war and peace, ethnic and identity-based violence, as well as examining issues of justice and memory.

This will be a key text and essential reference for scholars and students at all levels in Comics Studies, and Cultural and Media Studies more generally.

chapter |14 pages

Introduction

part |1 pages

History and Memory

chapter 1|17 pages

Doing Justice to the Past through the Representation of Violence

Three and Ancient Sparta

chapter 2|15 pages

Comics Do Not Forget

Historical Memory and Experiences of Violence in the Spanish Civil War and Early Francoism

chapter 3|15 pages

Legacies of War

Remembering Prisoner of War Experiences in French Comics about the Second World War

chapter 4|15 pages

‘I think we’re maybe more or less safe here’

Violence and Solidarity during the Lebanese Civil War in Zeina Abirached’s A Game for Swallows

part |1 pages

War and Peace

chapter 5|16 pages

In a Growing Violent Temper

The Swedish Comic Market during the Second World War

chapter 6|16 pages

Will Eisner and the Art of War

Educational Comics in the American Defence Industry

part |1 pages

Urban Conflict

chapter 7|13 pages

Bringing the War Back Home

Reflecting Violence in Brian Wood’s DMZ

chapter 8|17 pages

Infrastructural Violence

Urbicide, Public Space and Post-War Reconstruction in Recent Lebanese Graphic Memoirs

part |1 pages

Law, Justice and Censorship

chapter 9|19 pages

The Lives of Others

Figuring Grievability and Justice in Contemporary Comics and Graphic Novels

chapter 11|12 pages

Oink!

The Story of a Dangerously Funny Comic