Maaheen Ahmed’s article “Children in Graphic Novels: Intermedial Encounters and Mnemonic Layers” has been published in the latest issue of the open-access journal Etudes francophones. The article fleshes out the notion of media memory (building on previous work) in connection to pseudo-autobiographical graphic novels in Europe and North-America published between the 1990s and 2010s that turn to children and childhood.
“They are imbued with the specific childhood geographies of children’s image-making practices and children reading comics (the latter with a focus on the North American context). These geographies, which are intermedial in their essence, are fleshed and activated by media memories.”
In tracing these geographies, the article extends the concerns and issues at the heart of the COMICS project to a contemporary corpus of adult comics where the figure of the child gathers various tangents and concerns.
“Childish presences capture the struggle of canonical hierarchy, but also of expression, and hence of establishing emotional, affective and consequently powerful connections.”