Comics and graphic novels have not typically been foregrounded in accounts of Anthropocene fictions. This article argues that speculative comics are particularly suited to visualizing the Anthropocene through their verbal-visual strategies for representing multiple scales of space and time. Defined as the era in which human-driven processes have become detectable in the Earth’s geological record, the concept of the Anthropocene has also been challenged by postcolonial and Indigenous theorists for presuming an undifferentiated humanity responsible for ecological crises. Speculative comics offer strategies for representing multiple scales of space and time that call into question the ‘human’ as a geological force. While autobiographical and documentary comics represent the scale of individual human experience, speculative comics feature nonhuman spaces and times on multiple, asynchronous scales. This article first contextualizes the representation of space and time in speculative Anglophone comics from early superhero comics to the contemporary period, then focusing on three case studies drawn from contemporary Anglophone comics: Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham’s Nameless (2015), Warren Ellis and Jason Howard’s Trees (2014–2016, 2020), and Ram V and Filipe Andrade’s The Many Deaths of Laila Starr (2021).

This chapter examines how the graphic memoir has been used for refugee memory and the telling of refugee histories with a focus on two works by Vietnamese American comics artists: G.B. Tran’s Vietnamerica: A Family’s Journey (2010) and Thi Bui’s The Best We Could Do (2017). The form of the graphic memoir is put to use in the representation of individual and collective memories of the Vietnam War and Vietnamese American refugee migration to the United States. Materializing the persona of the artist-storyteller on the page through sequential narration and the juxtaposition of words and images, these texts employ the resources of the graphic memoir as a genre of life writing to document refugee histories in opposition to dominant representations.

This volume brings together research on the forms, genres, media and histories of refugee migration. Chapters come from a range of disciplines and interdisciplinary approaches, including literature, film studies, performance studies and postcolonial studies. The goal is to bring together chapters that use the perspectives of the arts and humanities to study representations of refugee migration. The chapters of the anthology are organized around specific forms and genres: life-writing and memoir, the graphic novel, theater and music, film and documentary, coming-of-age stories, street literature, and the literary novel. 

This article considers the Swedish feminist manga Sword Princess Amaltea and its pedagogical paratexts. Originally released in three parts from 2013 to 2015, Sword Princess Amaltea was written and drawn by the Swedish comics artist Natalia Batista, and has been translated and published in several languages, including English and German. Batista’s manga draws inspiration from both Japanese shôjo or girls’ manga and Nordic feminist literature. In this article I show how Batista cleverly makes use of manga’s visual conventions to challenge conventional representations of gender, sexuality, and the gaze. As a manga aimed at least in part at younger readers in school contexts, Sword Princess Amaltea and its accompanying instructional materials raise questions of genre and visual literacy in the language and literature classroom. Calling attention to the transnational circulation of manga and its genres, I analyze Sword Princess Amaltea with its paratexts in order to demonstrate the potential for a queer and feminist comics pedagogy.

How do particular genres and forms, with their distinct conventions and histories, shape representations of refugee experience? How do representations of refugeedom transform the conventions of genres such as memoir, theatre, comics, song, the essay, poetry or the novel? In this chapter, we outline a humanities approach to refugee studies with reference to significant contributions in the field. Then, we introduce the genres and forms covered in this collection and the relevance of these forms for claiming human rights: the memoir, the graphic novel, poetry, theatre, song, documentary film, media art, the Bildungsroman and the literary novel.

This special issue of European Comic Art presents articles on the diversity of contemporary feminist comics in the Nordic region. The Nordic countries have seen an explosion in feminist comics and graphic novels since the first decade of the twenty-first century. In Sweden, feminist comics have become commercial successes, winning prestigious prizes, and appearing in exhibitions, Instagram, and other social media. Recently, a new generation of artists has entered the scene with a renewed focus on queer and intersectional issues. This special issue directs attention to feminist comic art throughout the Nordic region—with representation from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden—by established creators as well as emerging voices. The history of feminist comics can be traced back to the social movements of the 1970s, but the energy and creativity of contemporary feminist comics is new, reflecting both international trends and conditions specific to the region and to each national context.