Stereotypes and the Ethics of Representation

Cultural appropriation has always been a problem with popular publication and literate media, both comic and non. Discrimination against other cultures is often described as being outright and obvious, and in many cases such is true, but representation in media can also be a tool of racism. Accidental or otherwise.

Older comics, such as Little Nemo in Slumberland, some older Theodore Geisel political cartoons, and even the Archie comics all are examples of bad racial representation in media. Though, granted, their examples range from lack of representation to negative representation.

 Little Nemo in Slumber Land - Negative Representation and Lack of Representation

 Theodore Geisel - Negative Representation

Archie Comics - Lack of Representation

Recently graphic media and comics have taken to criticizing and amending the early 20th century trends with cultural representation in comics. With the start of the Underground movement slowly segueing into the appearance of more graphic novels, African Americans, people of Asian descent, and even people from religious-based cultures, such as the Jewish and Muslim peoples, are being represented through fact and history rather than sensationalism or stereotypes. Examples of comics that have helped bring about this change are works by Craig Thompson, James Strum, John Lewis, and Gene Luen Lang.

 Craig Thompson - Habibi

 James Sturm - Market Day

 John Lewis - March

Gene Luen Lang - American Born Chinese

Whether it's calling out cultural appropriation racism, to simply representing the culture in a respective manner, comics are coming closer and closer to representing more than just straight white men in media.

Legitimation of Comics

Similar to the problems of defining literature and film, no consensus has been reached on a definition of the comics medium, and attempted definitions and descriptions have fallen prey to numerous exceptions. Theorists such as Töpffer, R. C. Harvey, Will Eisner, David Carrier, Alain Rey, and Lawrence Grove emphasize the combination of text and images, though there are prominent examples of pantomime comics throughout its history. Other critics, such as Thierry Groensteen and Scott McCloud, have emphasized the primacy of sequences of images. Towards the close of the 20th century, different cultures' discoveries of each others' comics traditions, the rediscovery of forgotten early comics forms, and the rise of new forms made defining comics a more complicated task.

Despite all of the critical acclaim from illustrators, writers, even academic scholars who have contributed to comics are an art form, and traditional style comic-based illustration dating as far back as medieval times, the large consensus about comics is that it is a collection of cartoons for children. Thankfully, some other works of comics have taken to breaking the mold, such as the works of Craig Thompson and collections of underground graphic narrative, but the comic that has most likely brought graphic novels academic limelight is Maus by Art Spiegelman.

For the general public, Maus was this insightful peak into the world of the Holocaust, but but Spiegelman it read as a journey into the mind of a father who he could never understand, both as a child and an adult. Segments of the story show Art and his father, Vladec, the "protagonist" of the Holocaust narrative discussing his life story in more recent times. The use of syntax, grammar, character, and emotion between Art and Vladec feels just as sharp, just as jarring in some places as the Holocaust flashbacks. While the history and first-hand experiences woven throughout the narrative bring sophistication as well as unnerving reality to the story, what makes the story work is the balance between the fictional representation of humans [only physically, through animal characterization], non-fictional harshness, and the way it all ties back to the author of the story. This story is just as much an autobiography as well as a biography, revealing the painful relationship that Art had with Vladec from his birth to Vladec's death.