Representing Childhoods through Comics

—Anuja Madan

Heimermann, Mark, and Brittany Tullis, editors. Picturing Childhood: Youth in Transnational Comics. U of Texas P, 2017.
280 pp. $85.00 hc. ISBN 9781477311615.

As the title indicates, this collection of thirteen essays representations of childhood in comics. Picturing
focuses on representations of childhood in comics Childhood is organized chronologically and covers a
from different countries. The editors note that their century: the first chapter discusses Little Orphan Annie,
text represents “the first book-length approach to bring which debuted in 1924, and the last chapter analyzes
together a variety of comics, across vast geographic and Sweet Tooth, which was serialized from 2009 to 2013.
temporal spaces, to better understand the intersections In the introduction, the editors helpfully categorize
between comics and childhood as both an abstract essays according to different areas of focus. Chapters
concept and a lived experience” (3). They observe that by Pamela Robertson Wojcik, Lara Saguisag, and
the book stands at the intersection of comics studies and Annick Pellegrin “explore the ways in which comics
childhood studies, both of which are interdisciplinary reflect a wide spectrum of cultural values concerning
fields. Although most chapters focus on North American children and childhood” (7). Chapters by Ralf Kauranen,
comics, the anthology includes essays on comics from Christopher J. Hayton and Janardana D. Hayton, Qiana
France, Japan, Finland, Argentina, and Iran, testifying to Whitted, and Brittany Tullis show how comics negotiate
its transnational scope. “[c]omplex and sensitive national and sociocultural
The anthology asks how constructions of childhood issues” through child characters (8). Chapters by Ian
in comics speak to contemporary culture and society Blechschmidt, James G. Nobis, and Mark Heimermann
and how socio-historical concerns of the time shape investigate comics which represent “unconventional”

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children, such as sexualized or grotesque children. The Cohesion: Representations of Childhood in Home Front
last group of chapters by Clifford Marks, C. W. Marshall, Propaganda Comics during World War II in Finland”
and Tamryn Bennett discuss autobiographical or semi- examines comics issued by Finland’s Ministry of Supply.
autobiographical comics to explore the ways in which Children were represented as productive and competent
adulthood and childhood intersect. workers, “provid[ing] an understanding of children
This excellent anthology offers insight into how child as worthy members of society with an important
characters in comics have been deployed for various contribution to make” (41). Simultaneously, they were
purposes: for instance, to make child readers aware represented as innocent victims who signify the weakest
of complex issues of racism and sexuality, to socialize members of society and therefore deserve protection
children into becoming good citizens, and to register (37). These discourses were framed in nationalistic terms
protest against constricting gender norms. Qiana Whitted and served to nurture social unity during wartime.
discusses comic book representations of Emmett Till, a Nonetheless, as Brittany Tullis notes in her
fourteen-year-old Black boy who was lynched by two exploration of the Mafalda comics, child characters
white men in Mississippi in 1955 after being accused of are also cleverly deployed to subvert and critique
flirting with a white woman.1 Whitted argues that comics hegemonic norms. Tullis notes that Quino’s
representing the lynching of Emmett Till “illustrate the internationally acclaimed comic strip “constructs
racial and gender socialization of children during the an alternative model of Argentine femininity for the
civil rights era in ways that pointedly draw attention to next generation, one that revolves around education,
how Black male youth are denied the social protections compassion, participation, and critical evaluation . . .”
of childhood” (71). Whitted shows that in childhood (93). The spunky child protagonist becomes a vehicle
memoirs such as Lila Quintero Weaver’s Darkroom: A for critiquing the “angel in the house” paradigm of
Memoir in Black and White and John Lewis’s March: Book femininity, represented by her mother. Christopher
One, Till’s lynching functioned “as a crucial part of the J. Hayton and Janardana D. Hayton also show how a
socialization process for Black children during the 1950s child protagonist can disseminate socially conscious
and 1960s” with regard to how they learned about race, messages. Reading comics as “purveyors of cultural
gender, and sexuality (78). attitudes and norms” (48), the authors observe that
The anthology also touches upon how children’s Little Audrey’s inclusion of Tiny, an African American
comics have been used to mould children into ideal boy, was highly unexpected in the 1950s and 1960s. The
citizens. Ralf Kauranen’s “Competent Children and Social chapter argues that the Tiny stories exposed readers to

Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures 10.2 (2018) Anuja Madan 169
 empathetic depictions of Black integration and egalitarian visions
of Black equality.
Another question that the anthology raises is how adult
artists negotiate with their childhood selves in autobiographical
comics. For instance, in “Wise beyond Her Years: How Persepolis
Introjects the Adult into the Child,” Clifford Marks argues that Marji
introjects an adult consciousness into scenes of her childhood to
contravene “the idea that Iranians are, somehow, impossibly other
and dangerous” (166). Marks’s insightful analysis of particular
panels highlights how such introjections transform the recollection
An important theme of Marji’s childhood into a nuanced mediation on religious
fundamentalism, Marxism, class, and the exploitation of Iranian
of the collection is
youth in the war with Iraq.
the negotiations that
An important theme of the collection is the negotiations
have taken place in that have taken place in comics about the concept of childhood
comics about the innocence. Ian Blechschmidt’s chapter, “Sex, Comix, and
concept of childhood Masculinity: The Rhetoric of Zap Comix’s Attack on the American
Mainstream,” explores why Zap Comix (targeted at adults) mixed
innocence.
children and sex in explicit images. Blechschmidt argues that “Zap’s
combination of images invoking children and childhood with
graphic adult sexuality functions as a rhetorical device to critique
. . . powerful Cold War-era imperatives . . . to conform to rigid
‘mainstream’ scripts for the performance of gender, particularly
masculinity” (109). Annick Pellegrin’s essay also discusses non-
mainstream comics that deliberately debunk hegemonic ideas
of childhood. Pellegrin argues that Fabien Vehlmann’s French
comics Seuls and Jolies ténèbres, marketed to children and adults
respectively, break away from the tradition of classic Franco-Belgian
comics for children, which were marked by an imperative to

170 Anuja Madan Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures 10.2 (2018)
protect children’s innocence. The chapter claims that the adult’s role as creator and mediator of children’s
through the artwork as well as the focus on cruelty and texts” (130) and, unlike children’s comics published in the
death, the comics radically subvert the association of 1940s and 1950s, undermines children’s agency as active,
childhood with innocence. participatory readers. The chapter insightfully explores
One of the most compelling chapters of the book, the ambivalent constructions of childhood in a medium
Lara Saguisag’s “RAW and Little Lit: Resisting and that, in the middle of the twentieth century, mainly
Redefining Comics,” highlights the role of comics as targeted children.
a fertile ground for competing ideas of childhood. Picturing Childhood demonstrates how comics
Saguisag outlines the conflicting discourses on childhood continue to be a site of contestation upon which the
and adulthood that informed Françoise Mouly and Art definitions of childhood are negotiated, and how
Spiegelman’s RAW comics and RAW junior’s Little Lit representations of childhood are shaped by complex
series. She points out that “through RAW, Mouly and hegemonic or counterhegemonic socio-cultural
Spiegelman actively sought to remove comics from forces. The book’s varied themes as well as its broad
the sphere of childhood” and campaigned vigorously geographical and temporal scope are important
for the “adultification” of comics as a medium which strengths, and the essays are strong across the board.
could deliver “mature” narratives (129). The essay asks: The inclusion of work on transnational comics is
“What does it mean, then, for Mouly and Spiegelman commendable and indicates an increased (and hopefully
to create and publish children’s comics after spending sustained) interest in transnational and international
more than a decade asserting that comics needed to be comics scholarship. This anthology will be extremely
dissociated from childhood?” (129). Saguisag places Little valuable for educators and students of children’s comics;
Lit in the context of children’s comics published in the it is likely to trigger many important conversations about
mid-twentieth century to argue that the series “upholds the intersections between comics and childhoods.

Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures 10.2 (2018) Anuja Madan 171
 Note

1
Emmett Till’s mother famously decided to have an open casket funeral, by African Americans. Emmett Till posthumously became an enduring
and his brutal murder drew attention to the pervasive violence faced symbol of racial injustice and an icon for the Civil Rights Movement.

Anuja Madan is Assistant Professor at the Department of English, Kansas State University, where she teaches courses
in world literature, cultural studies, global comics, and children’s literature. She received her Ph.D. in English from
University of Florida and her M.Phil. and M.A. in English from Delhi University. Her co-authored book, Notes of Running
Feet: English in Primary Textbooks (with Prof. Rimli Bhattacharya, Sreyoshi Sarkar, and Nivedita Basu) grew out of a group
study of Indian English-language textbooks. Her two most recent articles on an Indian graphic novel and mythological
Indian animation films have been published in Michelle Abate and Gwen A. Tarbox’s anthology, Graphic Novels for
Children and Young Adults: A Collection of Critical Essays (2017), and The Routledge Companion to International
Children’s Literature (2017), edited by John Stephens.

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