ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the anthology, Blood, published in 2018 by the Polish publisher Centrala, created by the comic author Beata Sosnowska. Sosnowska is known in the Polish comic world for her publications and activities in the fields of LGBT and feminist comics. With the anthology Blood she continues her exploration of gender in the comic form. This chapter contextualizes the anthology Blood within the production of Polish comics. The chapter focuses on historical comics published in Poland in the last 20 years as examples of the “masculine narration” emphasized by Sosnowska. The trace of blood is a leitmotiv which helps to articulate the gendered aspects of Polish historical representation. Since historical comics are the most thriving section of the Polish comic market today, it is interesting to take a closer look at the gender gap in this male-dominated range, using the motif of blood as a sort of litmus test for matters of nation and nationality.
