The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Comics scholar Emma Tinker has made her doctoral thesis, Identity and Form in Alternative Comics, 1967 – 2007, available online in its entirety, taking in several famous creators from Crumb to Gaiman.  From the abstract:

“This thesis argues that for many creators there exists a useful analogy between the comic book form and mental processes, specifically between the fractured, verbal-visual blend of the comics page and the organisation of human memory. It further suggests that the historical association of comics first with childhood, and subsequently with male adolescence, has conditioned the representation of selfhood in adult comics. Comic book consumption has often centred on a community of predominantly young, white, male, socially marginal readers, buying and collecting serialised narratives. Comics creators’ awareness of this audience (either in response or resistance) has affected the content of their work.

Although presented as a chronological narrative, this thesis is not a comprehensive history of Anglophone alternative comics, but centres on eight prominent authors/ artists: Robert Crumb; Dave Sim; Lynda Barry; Julie Doucet; Alan Moore; the collaborative partnership of Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean; and Chris Ware. Whilst spanning a wide range of genres and themes (autobiography, fantasy, gothic horror, parody, soap opera, the grotesque and others) each confronts and negotiates with conventions regarding the representation of selfhood.”

(Swamp Thing by Alan Moore and Stephen Bissette, (c) DC, from the chapter on Moore, who she is trying to demonstrate draws on “a neo-Romantic sensibility which developed in parallel with his identity as a magician”)

Tinker researched this thesis at University College, London between 2004 and 2008, and was awarded her PhD last summer. She also goes on to acknowledge that “It has many flaws, and there are plenty of sections that I would change if I were rewriting for publication” but as she is not intending to publish it she has decided to share it online, hoping it may be of  interest and use to other comics scholars as a resource, available as PDFs covering the abstract, bibliography etc and the chapters dealing with the specific creators mentioned above. We eagerly await the informed analysis of the Moore chapter by our own Professor Pádraig Ó Méalóid.