Reframing the graphic memoir: how can the comic-strip artist negotiate modality and fidelity in the depiction of personal and historical narratives?

Dodds, Nick ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6852-5995 (2018) Reframing the graphic memoir: how can the comic-strip artist negotiate modality and fidelity in the depiction of personal and historical narratives? In: Creating Comics, Creative Comics Symposium, 1-2 June 2018, University of South Wales, Cardiff, UK. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

The comic-strip occupies a unique cultural space, situated at the “interstices of existing disciplines” (Hatfield:130). This is especially true of the graphic memoir sub-genre, where the foundational modality between text and image is complicated further by the memorialisation of the past and the indexical reference to real-world events and locations. This presentation will focus on current doctoral research investigating the graphic memoir, in particular; the structural modalities of the comic-strip and their application within the autographic genre, the mediating role of the comic artist/creator and lastly, a consideration of issues concerning authenticity and drawn narratives. These points will be explored via current studio-based practice involving the initial preparation and treatment of a graphic adaptation of Pilgrimage from Nenthead, written by Chester Armstrong (great-grandfather) and published by Methuen in 1938. The book is cited as a prime example of a working class memoir in various accounts on class or labour history, for example; Jonathan Rose's The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes (Rose:2010:466). Thematically, Armstrong's text deals with the social history of the Northumberland colliery town of Ashington in the late 1890’s, as well as the habitual aspects of community life and vibrancy of local associations. However, the main strand of the memoir concerns the impulse towards autodidacticism, or specifically the author's re-orientation through modernist literature and sociopolitical texts. It is envisaged that the counterpoint between the routine of the miner, considered as the “hardest work under heaven” (Wardle, quoted in Pollard:4), and the drive towards an intellectual life will form a key strand of the graphic adaptation.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Departments:	Academic Departments > Institute of Arts (IOA) > Graphics and Photography
Depositing User:	Nick Dodds
Date Deposited:	02 Apr 2019 10:39
Last Modified:	12 Jan 2024 20:02
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/4597

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