Skip to content
1981
1-2: Comics, Conscience and Gender
  • ISSN: 2040-3232
  • E-ISSN: 2040-3240

Abstract

This article examines fascinating, yet not widely researched, forms of graphic storytelling located at the intersection of comics studies, feminism, autobiography and the medical humanities, namely comics devoted to pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood. I focus on two contemporary Polish autobiographical comic books, Agata Nowicka’s (‘Project: A human being’) (2006) and Olga Wróbel’s (‘The dark side of the moon’) (2014). Torn between their roles as ‘bodies’ and their personal and professional aspirations and needs, both authors visually conceptualize their pregnant selves as unstable, multiple and serial. They document and reflect on their state, trying to negotiate their subjectivity in and through the medium of comics. Nowicka conceptualizes her pregnancy as a ‘project’, something she will complete within a specified period of time. The metaphor of the project is bittersweet. On the one hand, it points to the excitement associated with completing a creative task – something that reinforces her role as a creator. On the other hand, it also points to the insecurities and fears associated with being a freelance artist (i.e. lack of social and financial security during and after pregnancy). Respectively, Wróbel attempts to draw ‘the dark side of the moon’, the dark side of her pregnancy, including weight gain, haemorrhoids, skin problems, anxiety and depression. Indirectly, both comics also engage in sociopolitical critique, commenting on/representing the experience of childbirth in Poland.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/stic_00117_1
2025-01-28
2025-03-27
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Alaniz, J. (2019), ‘“Mechanical boys”: Omega the unknown on the spectrum’, in S. T. Smith and J. Alaniz (eds), Uncanny Bodies: Superhero Comics and Disability, University Park, PA: Penn State Press, pp. 3558.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Anon. (2022), ‘Rodzić po ludzku’ (‘Give birth like a human being’), Fundacja Rodzić po ludzku, https://rodzicpoludzku.pl. Accessed 28 October 2022.
  3. Betterton, R. (2018), Maternal Bodies in the Visual Arts, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Bordo, S. (1993), Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Buchanan, L. (2013), Rhetorics of Motherhood, Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Chaney, M. (ed.) (2011), Graphic Subjects: Critical Essays on Autobiography and Graphic Novels, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Chaney, M. (2017), Reading Lessons in Seeing: Mirrors, Masks, and Mazes in the Autobiographical Graphic Novel, Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Chute, H. (2010), Graphic Women: Life Narrative and Contemporary Comics, New York: Columbia University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Cierniak, J. (2013), ‘Ze szczęścia sztuki nie zrobisz – Agata ENDO Nowicka – wywiad’ (‘Art doesn’t come from happiness – Agata ENDO Nowicka – interview’), Prowincja, 12 May, https://prowincja.art.pl/ze-szczescia-sztuki-nie-zrobisz/. Accessed 11 July 2023.
  10. Cixous, H. (1976), ‘The laugh of the Medusa’ (trans. K. Cohen and P. Cohen), Signs, 1:4, pp. 87593.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. El Refaie, E. (2012), Autobiographical Comics: Life Writing in Pictures, Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. El Refaie, E. (2019), Visual Metaphor and Embodiment in Graphic Illness Narratives, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Groensteen, T. (2007), The System of Comics, Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Grosz, E. (1994), Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism, New York: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Hatfield, C. (2005), Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature, Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Hendrickson, J. (2019), ‘The mother-shaped hole: Lise Haller Baggesen’s Mothernism’, in R. Epp Buller and C. Reeve (eds), Inappropriate Bodies: Art, Design, and Maternity, Ontario: Demeter Press, pp. 3160.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Køhlert, F. B. (2019), Serial Selves: Identity and Representation in Autobiographical Comics, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Kunka, A. J. (2017), Autobiographical Comics, London: Bloomsbury.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Liss, A. (2009), Feminist Art and the Maternal, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Longhurst, R. (2001), Bodies: Exploring Fluid Boundaries, New York: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Longhurst, R. (2008), Maternities: Gender, Bodies and Space, New York: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Mulinari, D., Kolankiewicz, M. and Selberg, R. (eds) (2023), Struggles for Reproductive Justice in the Era of Anti-Genderism and Religious Fundamentalism, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Nowicka, A. (2006), Projekt: Człowiek (‘Project: A human being’), Warsaw: Kultura Gniewu.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Ross, L. and Solinger, R. (2017), Reproductive Justice: An Introduction, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Sommer, U. and Forman-Rabinovici, A. (2019), Producing Reproductive Rights: Determining Abortion Policy Worldwide, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Stanford Friedman, S. (1987), ‘Creativity and the childbirth metaphor: Gender difference in literary discourse’, Feminist Studies, 13:1, pp. 4982.
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Sulcas, R. (2020), ‘500 years of pregnant women in art’, New York Times, 13 March, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/arts/design/pregnant-women-art.html. Accessed 6 November 2023.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Szép, E. (2020), Comics and the Body: Drawing, Reading and Vulnerability, Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Tolmie, J. (ed.) (2013), Drawing from Life: Memory and Subjectivity in Comic Art, Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Viljoen, J.-M. (2020), War Comics: A Postcolonial Perspective, New York: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Whitlock, G. (2006), ‘Autographics: The seeing “I” of the comics’, MFS Modern Fiction Studies, 52:4, pp. 96579.
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Wróbel, O. (2014), Ciemna Strona Księżyca (‘The dark side of the moon’), Poznań: Poznańska Centrala.
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/stic_00117_1
Loading
/content/journals/10.1386/stic_00117_1
Loading

Data & Media loading...

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test