Seeing the Middle Ages Through Transnational Lenses in American Comics and Graphic Novels
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PALACKÝ UNIVERSITY IN OLOMOUC FACULTY OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN STUDIES SEEING THE MIDDLE AGES THROUGH TRANSNATIONAL LENSES IN AMERICAN COMICS AND GRAPHIC NOVELS DISSERTATION BY ELIZABETH ALLYN WOOCK SUPERVISED BY PROF. PHDR. MARCEL ARBEIT, DR. OLOMOUC, CZECH REPUBLIC MARCH 2020 1 I, Elizabeth Allyn Woock declare that this dissertation and the work presented in it are my own and have been generated by me as the result of my own original research. I confirm that where I have consulted and quoted from the published work of others, this is always clearly attributed. I have acknowledged all sources of help in bibliography. Part of the research for this dissertation was funded by two grant projects: IGA_FF_2019_037 “Youth literature in British and American culture: criteria, forms, and genres (Literatura pro dospívající mládež v anglické a americké kultuře: kritéria, formy, žánry) in 2019, and IGA_FF_2018_037 “From literature to film, television series and comics: new forms of British and American literary” (Od literatury k filmu, televizní sérii a komiksu: nové podoby děl anglické a americké literatury) in 2018. Signed: ___________________________ Date: ___________________________ 2 CONTENTS Contents .............................................................................................................................. 3 Abstract ............................................................................................................................... 5 Acknowledgments............................................................................................................... 6 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 1: Literature and Methods ................................................................................... 11 Comics Studies .......................................................................................................... 11 Medievalism .............................................................................................................. 13 Fan Studies ................................................................................................................ 17 Memes ....................................................................................................................... 18 Chapter 2: Medievalist Simulacra in Comics ................................................................... 21 The Leather Nun ........................................................................................................ 21 Lips Tullian................................................................................................................ 24 Analysis ......................................................................................................................... 28 Chapter 3: Simulacra of Place: Adaptations of Kafka’s The Castle ................................. 46 The Castle as a Medievalist Bildungsroman Based on Parzival ................................... 46 Adaptation Issues .......................................................................................................... 49 Introducing the Comics ................................................................................................. 54 Mairowitz and Crumb ................................................................................................ 55 Mairowitz and Švejdík............................................................................................... 63 The Land Surveyor’s Assistants ................................................................................ 65 The Castle as an Object ............................................................................................. 67 The Conversation With The Landlady ...................................................................... 70 Adaptation and Interpretation........................................................................................ 71 Saudek ....................................................................................................................... 74 Conclusions ................................................................................................................... 77 Chapter 4: Nuns in Comics ............................................................................................... 79 Nuns as Stock Characters .............................................................................................. 81 Medieval Sources ...................................................................................................... 85 Victorian Medievalism .............................................................................................. 87 Nuns in Contemporary Comics ..................................................................................... 89 3 Chapter 5: Pagans and Witches in Comics ....................................................................... 92 Hemlock, Vol. 1–4 ..................................................................................................... 96 Heathen, Vol. 1–4 .................................................................................................... 103 Rat Queens, Vol. 1–5 ............................................................................................... 109 1602: Witch Hunter Angela, Vol. 1–4 ..................................................................... 114 Conclusions ............................................................................................................. 121 Medievalist Pagans and the Pseudo-historic ............................................................... 122 Northlanders ............................................................................................................ 122 Black Road, Vol. 1 “The Holy North”..................................................................... 135 Medievalism as Permission for Brutality .................................................................... 138 Chapter 6: Medievalism in Comics And The Alt-Right ................................................. 157 Based Stick Man ...................................................................................................... 163 Alt★Hero ................................................................................................................. 165 The Iron Pill............................................................................................................. 168 Northlanders, Black Road and Briggs Land ............................................................ 177 Chapter 7: Medievalist Characters and Their Feminist Readers .................................... 181 Putting Males in Female Stereotyped Roles ............................................................... 196 Chapter 8: What Does This Mean for Fans? ................................................................... 198 Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 203 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 205 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 207 Appendix ......................................................................................................................... 220 Counts of violence and brutality ................................................................................. 220 1602: Witch Hunter Angela (128 pages) ................................................................ 220 Heathen (112 pages) ................................................................................................ 220 Rat Queens (128 pages) ........................................................................................... 220 Northlanders (464 pages) ........................................................................................ 221 Black Road (136 pages) .......................................................................................... 222 4 ABSTRACT This dissertation examines different manifestations of medievalism in anglophone comics produced primarily since the year 2000. Medievalism appears in the form of settings, character attributes, character tropes and story tropes. While aiming to produce a comprehensive catalogue and analysis of more popular comics featuring medievalist female characters with a religious calling, this project also considers the comics where just such characters are conspicuously absent, in an effort to map their presence and use utilizing a framework of the Actor-Network theory. On a final level, the dissertation considers what these comics mean to fans in different communities, by considering Fan Theory. This dissertation looks at case studies of simulacra of place as in the medievalization of space such as castles, monasteries, and crypts; and medieval tropes, such as the chivalric rescue., medievalist tropes of character and story, as well as ideological simulacra. Focusing on medievalist characters, there is a study on nun characters in comics, and argues that nun characters are a set trope, and are necessarily medievalistic. Following this and building on the trope of the nun character, pagan priestesses, witches and also magical beings are examined. In contrast to the comics which highlight female protagonists, there are also popular