Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-sjtt6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-27T22:36:35.918Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Graphic Journalism

from Part I - History and Genre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2024

Jan Baetens
Affiliation:
KU Leuven, Belgium
Hugo Frey
Affiliation:
University of Chichester
Fabrice Leroy
Affiliation:
University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Get access

Summary

This chapter examines the nonfiction subgenre of graphic journalism or visual reportage. It first presents the major forerunners of the genre, including Kurtzman, Crumb, and Brabner and Merkle, then further addresses the characteristics of such graphic works from three perspectives: history, documentary, and authorial presence. The analysis of “history” highlights the difference between journalism as a report on recent, noteworthy events and the more distanced view presented in the graphic novel, which requires extensive research and comes much after the time of the events, thereby adding a historical perspective often lacking in journalism, even when the graphic works include a witness account of the authors themselves, as in Joe Sacco’s work, typically. The chapter studies the “documentary” aspect through the effort to represent the experience of others, with particular attention to the encounter between authors and cultural others. Finally, the chapter examines the pivotal role of the graphic “author-journalist” as curator and sometimes character in their own reportage, either directly (Delisle) or in more understated forms (Backderf).

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahmed, M. (2012). Historicizing in Graphic Novels: The Welcome Subjective G(l)aze. In Iadonisi, R., ed., Graphic History: Essays on Graphic Novels and/as History. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 184202.Google Scholar
Backderf, D. (2020). Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio. New York: Abrams ComicArts.Google Scholar
Baetens, J. (2017). Other Nonfiction. In Tabachnik, S. E., ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Graphic Novel. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 130143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brabner, J., and Merkle, L. A. (1987). A Long Time Ago & Today. Real War Stories #1. Forestville, CA: Eclipse Comics.Google Scholar
Chak, T. (2014). Undocumented: The Architecture of Migrant Detention. Montreal: Architecture Observer.Google Scholar
Crumb, R. (1965). Bulgaria: A Sketchbook Report. In Kurtzman, H., ed., Help! #25. Warren Publishing.Google Scholar
Davies, D. (2017). Hard Infrastructures, Diseased Bodies. Refugee Hosts, https://refugeehosts.org/2017/10/30/hard-infrastructures-diseased-bodies/ (accessed June 16, 2021).Google Scholar
Delisle, G. (2012). Jerusalem. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly.Google Scholar
Dong, L. (2016). Drawing the Troubled Artist Abroad: Guy Delisle’s Visual Travelogues. East Asian Journal of Popular Culture 2(2), 193208.Google Scholar
Duncan, R., Ray Taylor, M., and Stoddard, D. (2016). Creating Comics as Journalism, Memoir and Nonfiction. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Glidden, S. (2016). Rolling Blackouts: Dispatches from Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly.Google Scholar
Kavaloski, J. (2019). Discordant Discourses: History and Journalism in the Graphic Novels of Joe Sacco. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 10(1), 122139.Google Scholar
Koçak, K. (2017). Comics Journalism: Towards a Definition. International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies 4(3), 174199.Google Scholar
Kurtzman, H. (April 1959). Assignment: James Cagney in Ireland. Esquire.Google Scholar
Mickwitz, N. (2016). Documentary Comics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mickwitz, N. (2019). “True Story”: The Aesthetic Balancing Acts of Documentary Comics. ImageText 11(1), 152.Google Scholar
Mickwitz, N. (2020). Comics Telling Refugee Stories. In Davies, D. and Rifkind, C., eds., Documenting Trauma in Comics: Traumatic Pasts, Embodied Histories, and Graphic Reportage. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 277296.Google Scholar
Neufeld, J. (2009). A.D.: New Orleans after the Deluge. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Rifkind, C. (2010). A Stranger in a Strange Land? Guy Delisle Redraws the Travelogue. International Journal of Comic Art 12(2–3), 268290.Google Scholar
Rifkind, C. (2017). Refugee Comics and Migrant Topographies. Auto/Biography Studies 32(3), 648654.Google Scholar
Rifkind, C. (2020). Migrant Detention Comics and the Aesthetic Technologies of Compassion. In Davies, D. and Rifkind, C., eds., Documenting Trauma in Comics: Traumatic Pasts, Embodied Histories, and Graphic Reportage. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 297316.Google Scholar
Sacco, J. (2020). Paying the Land. New York: Metropolitan Books.Google Scholar
Salmi, C. (2016). Reading Footnotes: Joe Sacco and the Graphic Human Rights Narrative. Journal of Postcolonial Writing 52(4), 415427.Google Scholar
Schelly, B. (2015). Harvey Kurtzman: The Man Who Created Mad and Revolutionized Humor in America. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics.Google Scholar
Scherr, R. (2014). Framing Human Rights: Comics Form and the Politics of Recognition in Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza. Textual Practice 29(1), 111131.Google Scholar
Schmid, J. C. P. (2020). Comics as Memoir and Documentary: A Case Study of Sarah Glidden. In Davies, D. and Rifkind, C., eds., Documenting Trauma in Comics: Traumatic Pasts, Embodied Histories, and Graphic Reportage. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 317334.Google Scholar
Schmid, J. C. P. (2021). Framing Documentary Comics: Considering Prologues. In Schmid, J. C. P. and Bachmann, C. A., eds., Framing [in] Comics and Cartoons: Essays on Aesthetics, History, and Mediality. Berlin: Ch. A. Bachmann Verlag, pp. 87110.Google Scholar
Weber, W., and Rall, H.-M. (2017). Authenticity in Comics Journalism: Visual Strategies for Reporting Facts. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 8(4), 376397.Google Scholar
Woo, B. (2010). Reconsidering Comics Journalism: Information and Experience in Joe Sacco’s Palestine. In Goggin, J. and Hassler-Forest, D., eds., The Rise and Reason of Comics and Graphic Literature: Critical Essays on the Form. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, pp. 166177.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×