Canadian Graphic: Picturing Life Narratives presents critical essays
on contemporary Canadian cartoonists working in graphic life narrative,
from confession to memoir to biography. The contributors draw on
literary theory, visual studies, and cultural history to show how
Canadian cartoonists have become so prominent in the international
market for comic books based on real-life experiences. The essays
explore the visual styles and storytelling techniques of Canadian
cartoonists, as well as their shared concern with the spectacular
vulnerability of the self. Canadian Graphic also considers the role of
graphic life narratives in reimagining the national past, including
Indigenous-settler relations, both world wars, and Quebec's Quiet
Revolution.
Contributors use a range of approaches to analyze the political,
aesthetic, and narrative tensions in these works between self and other,
memory and history, individual and collective. An original contribution
to the study of auto/biography, alternative comics, and Canadian print
culture, Canadian Graphic proposes new ways of reading the
intersection of comics and auto/ biography both within and across
national boundaries.