Category: graphic memoir

+

The Unproportional Distribution of Shame: Part I

Guilt and the acknowledgment of wrongdoing constitute one’s feeling of shame. It arises when someone recognizes their culpability in an event or events and feel regret and sadness at their part in the action. On a recent episode of This American Life, Mohamadou Slahi, a man incarcerated at Guantanamo for years before his release, speaks with some of the individuals who interrogated and tortured … Read More The Unproportional Distribution of Shame: Part I

+

Home in George Takei’s “They Called Us Enemy” & John Okada’s “No-No Boy”

Over the course of George Takei’s They Called Us Enemy, home plays an important thematic role. For Takei and his family, what does home actually mean? They live in an incarceration camp for years, and Takei, the oldest of three children, is only about five or six when they enter they camp. His siblings are younger. So, when the order comes from the camps … Read More Home in George Takei’s “They Called Us Enemy” & John Okada’s “No-No Boy”

+

Emotions in the Gutter: Part II

Last post, I started discussing the separation of illustrations into multiple panels in works such as March and They Called Us Enemy. Today, I want to continue that discussion by looking at some more examples in Takei’s graphic memoir and the ways that Harmony Becker separates larger images into multiple panels to highlight multiple thematic aspects of the narrative, notably the generational trauma that … Read More Emotions in the Gutter: Part II

Conversation with Malaka Gharib

In my Multicultural American Literature course this semester, we are reading Malaka Gharib’s graphic memoir I Was Their American Dream. As I was constructing my syllabus for the course, I was looking for graphic memoirs, and I came across Gharib’s book. I scanned a few pages on Amazon and though, “This is great.” So, I ordered it, read it, and assigned it for the course. I reached out to … Read More Conversation with Malaka Gharib

+

Detecting Bullshit in Nate Powell’s “Save It For Later”

While so many aspects of Nate Powell’s Save It For Later stand out and make me stop to think, the one theme that resonates with me the most has to be the ways that our children view the world. “Their bullshit dectors,” as Powell puts in near the end of “Wingnut,” “are much better than ours.” This assertion is what drives me, partly, when … Read More Detecting Bullshit in Nate Powell’s “Save It For Later”