Comparing Spiegelman's Maus And The Golden Age Of Comics
“The histories of vampires and people are not so different, really. How many of us can honestly see our own reflection?” (Barry, 94). Any research into the history of autobiography will expose elements of fiction materializing into truth. Perhaps it’s the fogginess of memory, and sometimes it’s a lie a writer has been telling themself for decades. Nevertheless, autobiography has become a pivotal theme in comics. From Spiegelman’s Maus (which is near equal parts autobiography and biography) to Cece Bell’s El Deafo, comics has provided an expansive and multisensory medium with which to narrate reality.
The multimodality of comics is what lends the medium to autobiography so successfully; allowing the reader to see, not simply read from the perspective …show more content…
Wertham’s cause made it to Senate, and eventually inspired the institution of The Comics Code. The Comics Code enacted a litany of rules and guidelines for comics to adhere to, which ultimately induced a highly censored and squandered era of comics. “The Comics Code decimated a previously booming commercial industry and a culture of visual-verbal exploration in which taboos (sexual, violent, villainous) could be explored and outrageousness given form” (Chute, …show more content…
What she found when she arrived was an exclusive “boys club,” with no desire for female input. “...it became really, really clear that I was not welcome in the comic scene—that’s when it really showed...no one phoned me and asked me to contribute. It wasn’t the publishers, it was the guys....” (Robbins as qtd. in Stewart, 113-116). Despite a general disregard for women, the seventies began an influx of women producing content they wanted but couldn’t find due to a lack of female creators.
By 1971, Trina Robbins was writing feminist comic strips for the publication, The Berkeley Barb. While writing the strip The Adventures of Belinda Berkeley, Robbins began It Ain’t Me Babe: Women’s Liberation comic book. It Ain’t Me became the first comic book developed exclusively by women. This was her first triumph, as Robbins’ objective became the promotion of women’s voices in comics. According to Hillary Chute in Graphic Women, the publication of It Ain’t Me Babe marked the conception of women’s underground comics. (Chute,
The multimodality of comics is what lends the medium to autobiography so successfully; allowing the reader to see, not simply read from the perspective …show more content…
Wertham’s cause made it to Senate, and eventually inspired the institution of The Comics Code. The Comics Code enacted a litany of rules and guidelines for comics to adhere to, which ultimately induced a highly censored and squandered era of comics. “The Comics Code decimated a previously booming commercial industry and a culture of visual-verbal exploration in which taboos (sexual, violent, villainous) could be explored and outrageousness given form” (Chute, …show more content…
What she found when she arrived was an exclusive “boys club,” with no desire for female input. “...it became really, really clear that I was not welcome in the comic scene—that’s when it really showed...no one phoned me and asked me to contribute. It wasn’t the publishers, it was the guys....” (Robbins as qtd. in Stewart, 113-116). Despite a general disregard for women, the seventies began an influx of women producing content they wanted but couldn’t find due to a lack of female creators.
By 1971, Trina Robbins was writing feminist comic strips for the publication, The Berkeley Barb. While writing the strip The Adventures of Belinda Berkeley, Robbins began It Ain’t Me Babe: Women’s Liberation comic book. It Ain’t Me became the first comic book developed exclusively by women. This was her first triumph, as Robbins’ objective became the promotion of women’s voices in comics. According to Hillary Chute in Graphic Women, the publication of It Ain’t Me Babe marked the conception of women’s underground comics. (Chute,