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Autobiographical comics, or Graphic Memoir, were established during the underground comix movement of the 1970s. The Comics Code Authority (CCA) was established in 1954 in response to public concern over the appropriateness of comic book content, especially for children. This publisher-imposed "code of ethics and standards" for the industry prevented many artists from producing their works with mainstream publishers. In the wake of censorship imposed by the CCA, many cartoonists turned to self-produced work and independent publishers, liberating themselves to create mature content for adult audiences. Autobiographical work took the alternative comix scene by storm during this period, becoming the prominent underground genre in much the same way that the superhero genre dominated American mainstream comics. Self-representation in autobiographical comics is often subversive, sexually explicit and challenges societal norms. Common themes include explorations of identity, body image, drinking and drugs, sexuality, transgressive behavior, childhood experiences, and mental and physical health.
While shorter autobiographical pieces had been appearing in the underground comix movement for a few years, Justin Brown’s Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary (1972) is credited as the first full-length graphic memoir in English. His confessional style is noted for it’s raw exposure of intimate personal details. Robert Crumb’s The Confessions of R. Crumb (1972) and Art Spiegelman’s Maus (1980) were soon to follow.
Unlike mainstream American comics in the 1970s, women dominated the graphic memoir genre. Aline Kominsky-Crumb was among the first to create autobiographical sketches in Wimmens Comix. Her early work focuses on her relationship with her father, issues of identity and self-esteem, everyday family life and explorations with drug use and the counterculture. Parting ways with the Wimmens Comix collective, she and Diane Noomin went on to publish their own title, Twisted Sisters in 1976.
As with traditional prose memoir, drawing a line between fact and fiction in graphic memoir can be difficult. Creators craft the narrative they wish to tell from memories that are selected and fluid. The stories told are often combinations of truth and self-reflection based on the current knowledge they bring to the interpretation of an event. In fact, Lynda Barry uses the term “autobifictionalography" to describe her work about growing up in a Filipina household, One! Hundred! Demons! (2002).
The format of graphic memoir allows the creator to revisit the past, reimagine trauma, and reclaim their own narratives. The visual-verbal form of comics allows both the author and reader to engage more completely in the narrative. Handwritten lettering also has a diary-like power that can aid the creator in healing from traumatic life experiences. Formal training as a cartoonist is not required or even expected of graphic memoirists.
Phoebe Gloeckner’s A Child's Life (1998) shares semi-autobiographical accounts of a young girl's explicit tale of child abuse, drug abuse and sex.
David Wojnarowicz’s Seven Miles a Second shares his response to the AIDS epidemic.
Joyce Farmer’s Special Exits (2010) gives us a peek into the struggles of coping with aging parents.
Explorations of how culture and racial identity are cultivated are prevalent in graphic memoir.
Riad Sattouf’s The Arab of the Future: A Childhood in the Middle East, 1978-1984 (2015) details his childhood growing up with a politically idealistic father in rural France, Gaddafi's Libya, and Assad's Syria.
Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis (2000) recounts her childhood and exile during the Iranian Revolution.
In GB Tran’s Vietnamerica : A Family's Journey (2011), an American-born son retraces the history of his family that fled Vietnam during the fall of Saigon.
Autobiographical comics often share themes of sexual orientation, same-sex relationships, and “coming-out” stories. Eisner Award winning Fun Home (2006) by Alison Bechdel shares her story of growing up with a closeted gay father and the self discovery of her own sexual orientation.
Written at an unusually young age, Ariel Schrag's tetralogy Awkward, Definition, Potential, and Likewise, was completed while she was in high school in the late 1990s, and shares her experiences coming out as bisexual and later as lesbian.
Samuel R. Delany’s Bread and Wine: An Erotic Tale of New York (1999) shares the love story of an African-American novelist/professor and a white homeless man on the streets of New York.
Another common theme tackled in graphic memoir are stories of physical and mental ableness.
Al Davison’s The Spiral Cage (1988) details his experience of living with spina bifida. David Small’s Stitches (2009) shares how he lost his vocal cords to cancer from repeated x-rays as a child, while
Madison Clell’s Cuckoo (1996-2001, originally published as single issues) gives the reader a candid look into the life of a woman with Dissociative Identity Disorder, more commonly referred to as Multiple Personality Disorder.
Curated by Pamela Jackson
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