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Introduction: freaked and othered bodies in comics

2017; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 8; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/21504857.2017.1355833

2150-4865

Aidan Diamond, Lauranne Poharec,

Comics and Graphic Narratives

Building upon Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s (1996) freak genealogy, this introduction begins by identifying four socio-historical categories of Othering: super-natural (the freak, the monster, the mad); the outcast (the queer, the racial Other, the criminal); the medicalised Other (medicalised physical difference and disability, especially with regard to ‘curing’); and the post-human (including the cyborg). We then tie these categories of othering to issues of representation of freaked and Othered bodies in comics by offering a literature review that draws attention to some archetypes and stereotypes of Otherness in graphic narratives. We will note that despite the fascination with the body as a physical spectacle in comics, so far little scholarship explores thoroughly the representation of freaks, monsters, and mutants, or deformed, grotesque and Othered bodies. This special issue of Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, which this article introduces, aims to lay a foundation for the study of ‘freaked’ bodies in comics.