Colonialist Heroes and Monstrous Others: Stereotype and Narrative Form in British Adventure Comic Books
- Submitting institution
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University of the Arts, London
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 236
- Type
- C - Chapter in book
- DOI
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10.4324/9781315775340
- Book title
- Representing Multiculturalism in Comics and Graphic Novels
- Publisher
- Routeldge
- ISBN
- 9781315775340
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- January
- Year of publication
- 2014
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This peer-reviewed chapter appears in the book Representing Multiculturalism in Comics and Graphic Novels, the first publication to provide a global overview of multiculturalism in comics. This chapter is included in the section titled Monstrosity and Otherness and examines the representation of colonialist stereotypes and the colonised ‘Other’ in British comic book adventure stories throughout the 20th century. The chapter argues that, from the 1950s to the 1980s, traditional comic books, such as Eagle, Hotspur and Victor, contained adventure stories that used ‘exotic’ locations and caricatured representations to both maintain mythological stereotypes and shape narrative structure. Essentially, these comic books continued the traditions, and imperialist outlook, of the adventure stories contained in boy’s illustrated magazines of the early 20th century such as Gem, Magnet and Champion.
It is remarkable that these colonialist values were still evident in British comic books until the late 1980s, long after the collapse of empire. Even more notable is the idea that similar stereotypes and mythologies are also central in driving the narrative in more innovative contemporary British comic books. Focusing on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill, and using Edward Said’s concept of the ‘Other’, this study examines the ways in which outmoded representations of racial stereotype and colonialist mythologies still govern narrative structure. Following Said’s notion that these narratives tell us more about the coloniser than the colonised, it is suggested that the survival of these stereotypes and mythologies is indicative of Britain’s difficult relationship with its colonial past. In the period covered by this study, Britain had withdrawn from many of its colonial ‘possessions’ but these comic books, both traditional and innovative, still used representations of the ‘Other’ to communicate concepts of ‘Britishness’ and national identity.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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