This chapter examines the Moomin comics written and illustrated by Tove Jansson between 1954 and 1957. Focusing on the central themes of gender and sexuality, the family, women’s emancipation, masculinity, and femininity, the chapter argues that gender politics are already at the forefront of the Moomin comics written and illustrated during this period. I explore the overlapping themes between Jansson’s Moomin comics and novels in order to show how the comics developed themes that would be elaborated in the later novels. Beginning with the context for the publication of the comics, the chapter analyses Jansson’s satire of the bourgeois family and the emancipation of Moominmamma through acts of rebellion that question ideals of homes and family. I conclude by examining representations of masculinity and femininity in the romance between Moomin and Snorkmaiden, in which the constraints of normative gender appear increasingly untenable over the course of the comics.

This article considers the parallel developments of feminist comics and norm-critical pedagogy in Sweden in order to explore comics as a medium for questioning norms of representation, in part by way of the influence of Lynda Barry’s comics pedagogy on Swedish comics publications and comics curricula. Barry’s pedagogical works are inspired by the spontaneous drawing exercises of Ivan Brunetti and rooted in her theory of the image as an embodied, living experience. In dialogue with Barry’s comics pedagogy, the article shows how a number of contemporary Swedish graphic novels by Freja Erixån, Ester Eriksson and Lisa Ewald lend themselves to norm-critical approaches that challenge conventional representations of gender and identity through an aesthetics of play and surprise. Rather than mainstreaming or institutionalizing norm-critique, contemporary Swedish feminist comics actively involve the reader in a dialogic process of challenging and reimagining dominant norms.

The recent boom in feminist comics by Swedish artists has produced a body of work that has only recently come to the attention of English-language readers. This article focuses on the comics of Liv Strömquist, specifically Fruit of Knowledge: The Vulva vs. The Patriarchy (2018), the first of her booklength works to be published in English translation. Strömquist’s text is situated in the broader context of feminist comics, particularly the work of Julie Doucet. Drawing on Swedish sources including reviews, interviews and comics scholarship, the article examines how Strömquist uses the comics medium to challenge and re-signify dominant representations of gender, sexuality and the body.