Overview
- Winner of 2020 Broken Frontier Award for Best Book on Comics
- Provides a critical analysis of the history of feminist cartooning and comics in Britain
- Argues that feminist cartoons and comics have played an important part in the Women’s Movement in Britain since the 1970s
- Contradicts the aggressive and persistent stereotype of the humourless feminist by demonstrating humour as a core part of the feminist project
Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels (PSCGN)
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
This book demonstrates that since the 1970s, British feminist cartoons and comics have played an important part in the Women’s Movement in Britain. A key component of this has been humour. This aspect of feminist history in Britain has not previously been documented. The book questions why and how British feminists have used humour in comics form to present serious political messages. It also interrogates what the implications have been for the development of feminist cartoons and for the popularisation of feminism in Britain. The work responds to recent North American feminist comics scholarship that concentrates on North American autobiographical comics of trauma by women. This book highlights the relevance of humour and provides a comparative British perspective.
The time frame is 1970 to 2019, chosen as representative of a significant historical period for the development of feminist cartoon and comics activity and of feminist theory and practice. Research methods include archival data collection, complemented by interviews with selected cartoonists. Visual and textual analysis of specific examples draws on literature from humour theory, comics studies and feminist theory. Examples are also considered as responses to the economic, social and political contexts in which they were produced.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Dr. Nicola Streeten draws, talks, writes about, teaches and organises events to do with comics. Her graphic memoir Billy, Me & You (2011) is about her process of bereavement following the death of her child. Her immersion in the comics community has reinforced her world view that gender equality and social acceptance of difference would improve the world and that comics offers a creative platform to do this. Her doctoral research on feminist cartoons and comics in Britain informed her co-editing of The Inking Woman (2018), an illustrated history of women’s cartooning in Britain. Nicola directs LDComics (est. 2009 as Laydeez do Comics), the women-led comics forum welcoming to all.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: UK Feminist Cartoons and Comics
Book Subtitle: A Critical Survey
Authors: Nicola Streeten
Series Title: Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36300-0
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-36299-7Published: 29 January 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-36302-4Published: 29 January 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-36300-0Published: 28 January 2020
Series ISSN: 2634-6370
Series E-ISSN: 2634-6389
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIX, 274
Number of Illustrations: 32 b/w illustrations, 20 illustrations in colour
Topics: Comics Studies, Culture and Gender, British and Irish Literature, British Culture