“Suffering Sappho!”: Lesbian Content and Queer Female Characters in Comics - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0367704374 ISBN 13: 9780367704377

Publisher: Routledge, 2021

Synopsis

Comics have been an important locus of queer female identity, community, and politics for generations. Whether taking the form of newspaper strips, comic books, or graphic novels and memoirs, the medium has a long history of featuring female same-sex attraction, relationships, and identity. This book explores the past place, current presence, and possible future status of lesbianism in comics.

What role has the medium played in the cultural construction, social (and literal) visibility, and political advocacy of same-sex female attraction and identity? Likewise, how have these features changed over time? How have nonheteronormative female characters been raced, classed, and gendered? What is the relationship between lesbian comics and queer comics? What role has the medium played in establishing the distinction between lesbian and queer female identity as well as blurring, reinforcing, or policing it? What roles have queer female comics, characters, and cartoonists played in the origins, history, and evolution of sequential art as a genre? The essays in this book inspire an engagement with these and other questions as well as provide an exploration of possible answers. They provide a compelling examination of a variety of important titles, characters, creators, topics, themes, and issues.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Lesbian Studies.

About this title

About the Author

Michelle Ann Abate is Professor of Literature for children and young adults at The Ohio State University.

Karly Marie Grice is Assistant Professor of English Education at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire.

Christine N. Stamper is independent scholar based in Michigan.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0367704374
• ISBN 13: 9780367704377
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 132
• Editor: Abate Michelle Ann, Grice Karly Marie, Stamper Christine N.