So Long as They Grow Out of It: Comics, The Discourse of ...

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So Long as They Grow Out of It: Comics, The Discourse of ...

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• Arts

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• Publié par: ifydesut
• Nombre de lectures: 63
• Langue: English

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J Med Humanit DOI 10.1007/s10912-008-9057-1

So Long as They Grow Out of It: Comics, The Discourse of Developmental Normalcy, and Disability

Susan M. Squier

# Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2008

Abstract This essay draws on two emerging fields — the study of comics or graphic fiction, and disability studies — to demonstrate how graphic fictions articulate the embodied, ethical, and sociopolitical experiences of impairment and disability. Examining David B ’ s Epileptic and Paul Karasik and Judy Karasik ’ s The Ride Together, I argue that these graphic novels unsettle conventional notions of normalcy and disability. In so doing, they also challenge our assumed dimensions and possibilities of the comics genre and medium, demonstrating the great potential comics hold for disability studies. Keywords Disability . Impairment . Graphic fiction . Comics . Norm . Normalcy . Abnormal . Ethics . Development . Moral model . Medical model . Social model . Epilepsy . Autism . Pathology . Anomaly . Universalism . Alterity . Canguilhem . Levinas

[T]he associations of childhood and puerility are still hard to shake; comics are the only art form that many “ normal ” people still arrive at expecting a specific emotional reaction (laughter) or a specific content (superheroes). 1 Comics writer Chris Ware uses a striking simile to explain his role as editor of the comics special issue of McSweeney ’ s Quarterly Concern : “ Throughout the process of assembling this anthology... I felt a bit like the director of a talent show at an institution for developmentally disabled students, standing at the front of the auditorium, trying to encourage the parents to clap louder. ” 2 The connection between comics as an art form and the question of normal development also occurs to Scott McCloud, who in Understanding Comics explains, “ It ’ s considered normal in this society for children to combine words and pictures, so long as they grow out of it . ” 3 (Fig. 1 ) These comments by two widely known An earlier version of this essay was published, in a Norwegian translation, as “ Bare de vokser fra det — Tegneserier, normalitetsdiskurs og funksjonshemning ” in Tegn på sykdom: Om litterær medisin og medisinsk litteratur eds. Hilde Bondevik and Anne Kveim Lie (Oslo: Scandinavian Academic Press, 2007): 87 – 111. S. M. Squier ( * ) Departments of Women ’ s Studies, English, and STS, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, 211 Miller Lane, P.O. Box 557, Boalsburg, PA 16827, USA e-mail: [e-mail]