Graphic Memoir - Primary Sources

Doing research for the primary sources was actually a lot easier than for the secondary. Because the genre of graphic memoirs is so relatively new, most scholarship I was finding concerning the genre itself also heavily discussed many of the most prominent works. It was interesting, because while one might assume that what unites graphic memoirs is the autobiographical aspect, there is also a pretty strong continuity of theme throughout most of the works I saw discussed. Most of the memoirs I encountered dealt with trauma (whether personal, national, physical, or mental) and many were darker, "coming of age" stories.

Although the secondary sources I found were pretty good at giving a solid look at the genre as a whole, seeing examples first-hand and reading about them was also incredibly helpful to understanding the genre. To sum up what I discovered, it seemed like one of the key ways the genre worked was by giving authors a complex, traditionally marginalized medium with it's own history of subversiveness through which they could tell their own complex stories of trauma, illness, and marginalization. Many deal with issues of mental illness, national tragedy, and abuse, as well as narratives of explorations in gender and sexual identity. Few of the memoirs I encountered could be categorized as "pretty." Instead, they tended to be rather dark, gritty, disturbing, or, at the very least, melancholy and at times uncomfortable (I wouldn't necessarily recommend reading them when you're in a particularly blue mood). Nonetheless, they all looked like incredible reads, especially given the medium's capacity to give readers a very personal look into the embodied experiences of the author, and I haven't yet read a graphic memoir that I have not, in some way, appreciated.

While I found all of the memoirs I read and read about fascinating, I was most intrigued by the ones dealing with illness and embodiment - memoirs like Justin Green's Binky Brown Meets The Holy Virgin Mary, which examines Green's adolscent experiences with OCD while living in a Roman Catholic household, as well as David Small's Stitches, which tells the story of his childhood experience with cancer, subsequent voicelessness, and highly dysfunctional family. I think there was just something about their ability to give me a very personal look into the embodied experience of someone dealing with a difficult physical/mental illness that really captured my attention, even if it was in a sort of disturbed fascination kind of way. I think it's incredible that this genre and its medium can give voice to individuals to really show readers what it feels like to live their lives in ways that I don't think traditional written narratives can. 

Below you can find sample images from the books I included in my bibliography to get a sense for the books. I would definitely recommend reading any and all of them - Maus, Fun Home, and Persepolis are all available at the SCU library, and they're fascinating and fast reads!

from Justin Green's Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary

from Art Spiegelman's Maus

from Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis

from Alison Bechdel's Fun Home

from David Small's Stitches