In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and reversed the constitutional right to abortion which affected the lives of many. Publishing comics devoted to reproductive choice and sharing personal experiences of what the revocation of this right means has not only been an act of resistance but also marked a return to the ideals of second-wave feminism which proclaimed that “the personal is political.” This chapter discusses three reproductive choice comics – Leslie Stein’s I Know You Rider: A Memoir (2020), Caitlin Blunnie’s “Abortion is an Essential Service” (2020), and Dana Walrath’s “Access to the Full Range of Reproductive Choices Is…” (2022) – showing how they comment on the lived realities of many Americans through often personal stories of seeking abortion in an increasingly hostile political environment. The three chosen comics employ different generic and narrative conventions as well as distribution formats (Stein’s comics is a printed book, Blunnie’s comics may be accessed online, and Walrath’s comics functions in a hybrid electronic and paper format), and as such they demonstrate how comics may signify not just at the level of narrative possibilities but also social outreach.

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Beyond Graphic Medicine: Reproductive Choice Comics in the Contemporary U.S.

  • Małgorzata Olsza

摘要

In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and reversed the constitutional right to abortion which affected the lives of many. Publishing comics devoted to reproductive choice and sharing personal experiences of what the revocation of this right means has not only been an act of resistance but also marked a return to the ideals of second-wave feminism which proclaimed that “the personal is political.” This chapter discusses three reproductive choice comics – Leslie Stein’s I Know You Rider: A Memoir (2020), Caitlin Blunnie’s “Abortion is an Essential Service” (2020), and Dana Walrath’s “Access to the Full Range of Reproductive Choices Is…” (2022) – showing how they comment on the lived realities of many Americans through often personal stories of seeking abortion in an increasingly hostile political environment. The three chosen comics employ different generic and narrative conventions as well as distribution formats (Stein’s comics is a printed book, Blunnie’s comics may be accessed online, and Walrath’s comics functions in a hybrid electronic and paper format), and as such they demonstrate how comics may signify not just at the level of narrative possibilities but also social outreach.