Fall 08 LOOKING TO OR FROM THE MARGINS IN CONTEMPORARY GRAPHIC NOVELS QUEER THEORY, BIOPOLITICS, AND THE RISK OF REPRESENTATION: LOOKING TO OR FROM THE MARGINS IN CONTEMPORARY GRAPHIC NOVELS By: JOCELYN SAKAL FROESE, B.A.Hons, M.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy McMaster University Jocelyn Sakal Froese — PhD Thesis — McMaster University — English & Cultural Studies DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY JULY 2016 (English & Cultural Studies) HAMILTON, ON TITLE: Looking to or From the Margins, and the Risk of Representation: Queer Theory, Biopolitics, and Contemporary Graphic Novels AUTHOR: Jocelyn Sakal Froese, B.A.Hons (University of Winnipeg), M.A. (University of Winnipeg) SUPERVISOR: Dr. Nadine Attewell NUMBER OF PAGES: v, 196P ii Jocelyn Sakal Froese — PhD Thesis — McMaster University — English & Cultural Studies Abstract In my dissertation, I bring together the fields of comics theory, biopolitics, and queer theory in order to read contemporary coming-of-age graphic novels that represent characters (and sometimes lives) at the margins. Coming-of-age graphic novels in this category often depict complex engagements with trauma and history, and couple those depictions with the loss of attachments: the subjects represented in these texts usually do not belong. I make a case for productive spaces inside of the unbelonging represented in my chosen texts. In Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, Alison finds multiple nodes of attachment with her deceased father through the process of writing his history. Importantly, none of those attachments require that she forgive him for past violences, or that she overwrite his life in order to shift focus onto the positive. Jillian and Mariko Tamaki’s Skim features a protagonist, Skim, who is rendered an outcast because of her body, her hobbies, and eventually her process of mourning. Skim carves out a life that is survivable for her, and resists the compulsion to perform happiness while she does it. Charles Burns’s Black Hole depicts a group of teens who are excommunicated from their suburb after contracting a disfiguring, sexually transmitted disease, and who take to the woods in order to build a miniature, ad-hoc society for themselves. I concentrate on the question of precarity, and notice that safety and stability have a strong correlation with gender and sexuality: women and queers are overrepresented at the margins. iii Jocelyn Sakal Froese — PhD Thesis — McMaster University — English & Cultural Studies Acknowledgements This project is the fruit of many years worth of labour- my own, as well as that of my supervisor, committee, and external examiner. Thank you to Nadine Attewell, for always challenging me to do better, more rigorous work, and for supporting me all of the way through this process. Thank you, especially, for letting me be the first student you've worked with as a supervisor. You thoughtful questioning and detailed, careful feedback have helped immeasurably in the shaping of this document. Thank you to Melinda Gough and Mary O'Connor, whose support as readers has been bolstering and reassuring. Your questions and corrections have strengthened my writing, in this piece and beyond it. Thanks also to my external examiner, Candida Rifkind, whose meticulous review of and commentary on my work has helped to rekindle my excitement for the project. Thanks to Nadine and Mary, who I've worked with in a teaching capacity: you are both brilliant, elegant teachers, and I am lucky to have you as teaching models. Thank to Chantelle Thauvette, who demonstrated poise and professionalism, even in very early teaching days; I am thrilled to have been one of your first TAs. Melinda and Nadine- the classes that I was able to take with you as a graduate student modded the foundations of my work. Thanks, Melinda, for encouraging me to take risks. I've been privileged to work with many engaged, bright, and hard-working students, whose eagerness in the classroom has been a source of energy. Thanks especially to Abeer Siddiqi, Rita Reid, Aelya Salman, Taylor Flett, and Julia Empey. Special thanks to Amber Cook, whose thoughts on Skim helped me determine the final direction for chapter two. I owe many thanks to those that have helped me to maintain focus, excitement, and sometimes sheer endurance through this process. Lisa Kabesh and Emily West have been lovely colleagues, good friends, and amazing role models. Others that are deserving of thanks for their role in supporting me include Laura Buzzard, Matthew Dorrell, Alissa Bender, Elizabeth-Anne Johnson, Sarah D’Adamo, Zak Edwards, Emily Tyler, Gena Zuroski Jenkins and Derek Jenkins. Special thanks to Ruby Jenkins, who showed me her monster book and changed the trajectory of chapter three. Thanks to Matthew Froese, my spouse, for being willing to make the move to Hamilton that made the entire process possible. I am grateful to my larger support network as well. Thank you, to English and Cultural Studies department for facilitating the leave that I took in 2012, when my mother passed, so seamlessly, and especially to Mary O'Connor, Nadine Attewell, Lorraine York, Sarah Brophy, and Peter Walmsely for their kindness (and patience) at that time. I would also like to acknowledge the congregation at HMC, who have graciously folded my family into their numbers. Finally, thank you to Gwen Sakal, for making me promise not to quit. iv Jocelyn Sakal Froese — PhD Thesis — McMaster University — English & Cultural Studies TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: Readings from the Gutter………………………………………………1-25 CHAPTER ONE: “I ached as if he were already gone:” Queer Memory as a Tool for Survival in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home ………………………………………………… ..26-64 CHAPTER TWO: “Julie Peters is telling people that you are showing classic signs of someone who is suicidal:” Social Exclusion and the Management of Grief in Jillian and Mariko Tamaki’s Skim ………………………………………………………………...……65-117 CHAPTER THREE: “I felt like I was looking into the future … and the future looked really messed up:” White Monsters and the (Re)Distribution of Risk in Charles Burns’s Black Hole ………………………………………………………………………………….118-174 CONCLUSION: The Place Where the Personal and Political Meet ……………….175-179 WORKS CITED….....................................................................................................180-191 APPENDICES: Appendix I: figure one.................……………………………………………………..192 Appendix II: figure two…………………………………………………………………193 v Introduction: Readings From the Gutter In the late 1960s, North America saw a proliferation of underground "comix”:1 small-run comics that depicted sex, drug use, and violence in an attempt to provide a counter perspective to the squeaky-clean narratives demanded by the Comics Code.2 Though the majority of comix creators were straight white men, gay and lesbian comix artists rose in number and popularity over the same period. Gay comics found cultural purchase in the space created by the readership of underground comix and the gay newspapers, such as The Advocate, that began circulating around the same time. Gay papers, along with their gay comic strips, rode (and contributed to) the same political groundswell as Stonewall and other queer anti-police riots (Hall np). The 1980s saw another surge in the production of gay comix (including the magazine Gay Comix, which began circulating in 1980), one that paralleled a further increase in gay newspapers and 1 Comix are distinguished from comics mainly in their content and method of circulation. Where comics tended to be family-friendly, and to circulate in newspapers and as mass- produced comic books, comix aimed to represent that which was taboo, and to act as a 2binary to the Comics Code. Because of their content, larger comics presses and specialty stores The Comicswere hesit Code,ant aboutput in carrying place by them, the Comics and so Code comix Authority circulated of in America, small-run was batches a out censorship policy that allowed the comics industry to avoid government oversight by way of self regulation. Though the Code was specifically applicable to American comics, it impacted Canadians as well. In the 1940s, Canada passed the “Fulton Bill,” a piece of legislation that prohibited obscenities along the same lines as the Code, which remains on the books to this day (Greyson 131). The Fulton Bill was predominantly used to censor American comics coming over the border, which had a wide-reaching impact, as the majority of comics widely-available in Canada were American produced. Canada experienced a similar surge in underground and indie comix publications in response to both the Fulton Bill and the Code. Academic scholarship on comics tends to treat the Code in cursory way. For a more detailed examination of the Comics Code Authority of America, see Dr. Amy Kiste Nyberg’s “Comics Code History: the Seal of Approval” on the Comics Books League Defense Fund website, and for a detailed account of the impact of the Code in Canada, see the archived page “Comix Rebellion: 1967-1974,” on the Library and Archives Canada website. Jocelyn Sakal Froese — PhD Thesis — McMaster University — English & Cultural Studies zines. The second increase in production was followed closely by the onset of the AIDS epidemic, and thus accompanied by a stark change in tone. Gay and lesbian comix (and comics) began to depict material that demonstrated a distinct focus on affect, as in Rupert Kinnard’s Cathartic Comics (Greyson 131), which provided "an intimate look into people's fear, anger, despair, as well as courage and precarious hope in the face of such a profound challenge" (Hall np). Both comix and comics have been an important piece of queer history in North America, just as GLBTQ* artists and auteurs have made important contributions to those field. Or, as Jerry Mills, notable gay cartoonist and creator of the comic strip "Poppers," suggests, "Comics and gays. They go together well; after all they have one major thing in common: both tend not to get any respect" (qtd in Hall np).