Disability in Comic Books and Graphic Narratives

Disability in Comic Books and Graphic Narratives invites readers to consider both canonical and alternative graphic representations of disability. Some chapters focus on comic superheroes, from lesser-known protagonists like Cyborg and Helen Killer to classics such as Batgirl and Batman; many more explore the amazing range of graphic narratives revolving around disability, covering famous names such as Alison Bechdel and Chris Ware, as well as less familiar artists like Keiko Tobe and Georgia Webber. The volume also offers a broad spectrum of represented disabilities: amputation, autism, blindness, deafness, depression, Huntington's, multiple sclerosis, obsessive-compulsive disorder, speech impairment, and spinal injury. A number of the essays collected here show how comics continue to implicate themselves in the objectification and marginalization of persons with disabilities, perpetuating stale stereotypes and stigmas. At the same time, others stress how this medium simultaneously offers unique potential for transforming our understanding of disability in truly profound ways.

Chris Foss is Professor of English at the University of Mary Washington, USA, where he specializes in Nineteenth-Century British Literature, with a secondary expertise in disability studies. He is the author of over 20 scholarly publications and over 35 academic conference papers.

Jonathan W. Gray is Associate Professor of English, John Jay College, CUNY, USA. He is editor of the Journal of Comics and Culture and author of Civil Rights in the White Literary Imagination (2013). He is currently working on Illustrating the Race: Representing Blackness in American Comics.

Zach Whalen is Associate Professor of English, University of Mary Washington, USA, where he researches video games, comics, and electronic literature. He is the co-editor of Playing the Past: History and Nostalgia in Video Games (2008).

Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Foreword; Rosemarie Garland-Thomson
1. Introduction: From Feats of Clay to Narrative Prose/thesis; Zach Whalen, Chris Foss, and Jonathan W. Gray
2. Mutable Articulations: Disability Rhetorics and the Comics Medium; Jay Dolmage and Dale Jacobs
3. 'when you have no voice, you don't exist'? Envisioning Disability in David Small's Stitches; Christina Maria Koch
4. The Hidden Architecture of Disability: Chris Ware's Building Stories; Todd A. Comer
5. Standing Orders: Oracle, Disability, and Retconning; José Alaniz
6. Drawing Disability: Superman, Huntington's, and the Comic Form in It's a Bird…; Mariah Crilley
7. Reading in Pictures: Re-Visioning Autism and Literature through the Medium of Manga; Chris Foss
8. Graphic Violence in Word and Image: Re-Imagining Closure in The Ride Together; Shannon Walters
9. 'Why Couldn't You Let Me Die?': Cyborg, Social Death, and Narratives of Disability; Jonathan W. Gray
10. 'You Only Need Three Senses for This': The Disruptive Potentiality of Cyborg Helen Keller; Laurie Ann Carlson
11. Cripping the Bat: Troubling Images of Batman; Daniel Preston
12. Breaking Up [at/with] Illness Narratives; Kristen Gay
13. Thinking through Thea: Alison Bechdel's Representations of Disability; Margaret Galvan
Index