DRAWN IN, DRAWN OUT: GRAPHIC NOVELS AS A SITE FOR ALTERNATIVE

REPRESENTATION


















Kathryn Frank
Stanford University
Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity
Undergraduate Honors Thesis
May 26, 2009


ABSTRACT

This thesis examines the potential of graphic novels as a site for alternative representation of
Chicana/Latina and Asian American womens racial/ethnic, gender, and sexual identities. I
establish a concept of alternative representation through models of differential/mestiza
consciousness and third space texts and synthesize a method of analyzing graphic novels as a
specific medium. With these foundations in place, I examine the textual strategies used in three
different graphic novels -- Jaime Hernandezs Love and Rockets: Flies on the Ceiling, Jaime
Cortezs Sexile/Sexilio, and Lynda Barrys One! Hundred! Demons! -- to create representations
that subvert hegemonic, binary notions of identity formation and consciousness while
acknowledging the role played by dominant sociocultural forces in shaping identity.


















ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to:

Prof. Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano, for encouraging my interest in graphic novels and helping me
develop the idea that would eventually become this project.

Prof. Stephen H. Sohn, for advising me throughout the thesis process, providing me with
invaluable feedback, and encouraging me to put more faith in my own ideas and capabilities.

Prof. Andrea Lunsford, for providing sources to set me off in the right direction.

Rand Quinn and the 2008-2009 CSRE senior thesis cohort, for all the support, both academic
and moral, that youve provided this year.


Special thanks to Takeo Rivera for additional encouragement and support, and for assisting me
in coming up with a title for this project.














TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Why Graphic Novels, Why Me, and Why Now? i

Chapter One
Envisioning the Possible: Differential Consciousness and Cultural Representation 1

Chapter Two
Ways of Looking: The Comic Medium and the Potential of Graphic Novels 20

Chapter Three
Three Models for Alternative Representation 40
Love and Rockets: Flies on the Ceiling 40
Sexile/Sexilio 58
One! Hundred! Demons! 76

Conclusion 94

Works Cited 96

Bibliography 99





LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. i.1: Overall breakdown of retail dollar market share for comics in 2008. The Comics
Chronicles (http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/2008.html).

Fig. 2.1: McClouds depiction of comics function. (McCloud22)

Fig. 2.2: A schematic illustration to show to passage of the readers eye over a panel from a
romance comic. Reproduced from research published in the Journal of Popular Cutlure, no. 19,
1986. Copyright Lawrence Abbot. (Sabin 6).

Fig. 3.2: A visual summary of Isabels past. (Hernandez 1)

Fig. 3.3: Isabel moving through a nightmarish space and time. (Hernandez 11)

Fig. 3.4: Isabel confronts the mysterious woman. (Hernandez 15)

Fig. 3.5: Terry meets Del and the other Chicano punks for the first time. (Hernandez 21)

Fig. 3.6: Terry and Hopeys styles and attitudes change as their relationship progresses.
(Hernandez 23)

Fig. 3.7: Terrys vivid imagination. (Hernandez 24)

Fig. 3.8: Adelas dream of swimming. (Cortez 50)

Fig. 3.9: Adelas gay baptism. (Cortez 19)

Fig 3.10: Rolando Victoria as Nuestra Seora de La Caridad del Cobre. (Cortez 45)

Fig. 3.11: Womanzing. (Cortez 60)

Fig. 3.12: Adelas ad in Hollywood Connections. (Cortez 61)

Fig. 3.13: Lyndas toxic childhood. (Barry 16)

Fig. 3.14: Lynda introduces her worst boyfriend. (Barry 21)

Fig. 3.15: Lynda writes to Pilar and the Professor about the white kuto. (Barry 24)

Fig. 3.16: Lyndas mother and grandmother argue about the Aswang. (Barry 86)

Fig. 3.17: Lyndas mother is frustrated by talk of the Aswang. (Barry 92)

Fig. 3.18: Lynda hears of her mothers war experiences. (Barry 187)

LIST OF FIGURES (CONTD)

Fig. 3.19: Mariko worries about being punished for muddy shoes. (Barry 188)

Fig. 3.20: Lynda sends a thank-you to Norabelle for her guidance. (Barry 192)


























i
Introduction
Why Graphic Novels, Why Me, and Why Now?

Over the past ten years, comic books and graphic novels have seen a resurgence in
popularity for well-established genres and characters (such as superheroes), a new interest in
previously little-known genres and titles, and increasing critical attention and acclaim toward
graphic novels as a medium. Many historically popular superhero franchises have been
revitalized with new films: X-Men and its sequels, Spiderman and its sequels, Batman Begins and
The Dark Knight, Iron Man, and many more. Lesser-known titles, such as A History of Violence,
American Splendor, Persepolis and Sin City have also enjoyed successful film treatments
accompanied by reprints of the original graphic novels. In 2005, TIME Magazine controversially
named a graphic novel, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbonss Watchmen (a cynical take on
superheroes), among the All-Time 100 Novels. Gene Luen Yangs young adult graphic novel
American Born Chinese was a 2006 finalist for the National Book Awards, also amidst great
controversy as to whether or not a comic book should be included alongside traditional prose
novels. Less controversially, in 2009, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
awarded an Oscar for a performance in a comics-based movie (a posthumous Best Supporting
Actor award to Heath Ledger for his performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight). This
increasing public and critical awareness of comic book and graphic novels beyond the traditional
idea of superheroes as childrens fare has resulted in comics being discussed an emerging
medium, the potential of which has not yet been thoroughly explored or even imagined.
I was introduced to comic books, like many fans are, as a child; however, my first foray
into the comic medium was not through superheroes or standard childrens stories such as Archie
Comics, but rather through the then-obscure Japanese anime and manga. For years, I maintained
a strong loyalty to these forms only, eschewing American comics because I was not particularly

ii
interested in superheroes, and because as a young woman of color, it was refreshing to see stories
that did not take place within white/American hegemonic paradigms. Manga also have a much
stronger tradition of stories meant to appeal to young women that do American comic books,
which are often seen as a boys pastime; magical girl series such as Sailor Moon and coming-
of-age dramas present female-centric stories that (while not without their own problematic
presentations of femininity) allow girls as well as boys to fantasize about having superpowers,
wealth, and fame.
Following on from manga, I became interested in independent and alternative American
comics, which were often shelved near manga in specialty comic book stores because of their
supposed adult nature (in contrast to the assumed kid-friendliness of most superhero
franchises). Reading Art Spiegelmans holocaust epic Maus, which tells the tale of how his
parents survived concentration camps and what their life was like after the war, finally convinced
me that American graphic novels had as much potential for telling different kinds of stories as
did their Japanese counterparts. The same year that I had this revelation (2006), I read a graphic
novel as part of a class for the first time at Stanford, in Professor Yvonne Yarbro-Bejaranos
The Body in Chicana/Chicano Cultural Representation. That text, Jaime Cortezs
Sexile/Sexilio, provided the direction for my academic career in Chicana/o Studies, as well as the
foundation for this thesis project on the potential of graphic novels to represent the racial/ethnic,
gender, and sexual identities of women of color in holistic and variable ways.
The focus of this project on alternative representation and three independently-created
and published graphic novels -- Love and Rockets, Sexile/Sexilio, and One! Hundred! Demons!
does not suggest that these kinds of works are the norm within the comic book industry. In
contrast, sales and market share figures for the comics industry demonstrate that publishers

iii
whose catalogue is primary superhero comics still generate the most profit and most publicity.
In 2008, a breakdown of the overall dollars generated by comics sales showed Marvel Comics
(home to superheroes such as the X-Men and Spiderman) holding a 40.81% share, with DC
Comics (whose most well-known superheroes are Superman and Batman) having the second-
largest share at 29.94% (Comic Book Sales for 2008). These two publishing houses are the
most well-established and most famous of all comics companies, and publish superhero stories
nearly exclusively
1
. Combined, these two publishers earn over seventy percent of the total
comics market dollars. In contrast, Love and Rockets publisher Fantagraphicss share was 0.43%;
neither Lynda Barrys publisher for One! Hundred! Demons!, Sasquatch Books (which mainly
publishes fiction and nonfiction books), nor her current publisher, Drawn and Quarterly (which
specializes in independent comics) had large enough shares to be represented on their own.
These figures also cannot account for innovative distribution methods like Jaime Cortezs free
digital distribution of Sexile/Sexilio.


Fig i.1: Overall breakdown of retail dollar market share for comics in 2008. The Comics Chronicles
(http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/2008.html).

1
DC has a few non-superhero imprints, including their mature readers line Vertigo, teenage girls line Minx, and
Japanese manga imprint CMX (http://www.dccomics.com/dccomics/about/). Marvel currently has no imprints or
titles outside the superhero genre (http://www.marvel.com/comics/).

iv
While it is disheartening that independent comics and graphic novels make up so little of
the overall retail dollar market for comics, the presence of an independent publisher on this list at
all is heartening. Additionally, due to graphic novels status as an art form that is widely
available for purchase (in contrast to other visual art forms such as painting and sculpture),
recent increases in critical acclaim and academic interest for graphic novels, as well as more
mainstream publicity, such as TIME Magazine reviews of One! Hundred! Demons! and films of
non-superhero graphic novels like Persepolis and A History of Violence, will likely in turn
increase consumer interest and retail dollar market share for independent comics, as well as
provide new avenues for digital distribution as publishers try to reach a more diverse group of
readers. While the comic book industry in its current state provides a small measure of
opportunity for creators to develop alternative representations of Chicana/Latina and Asian
American women, authors resistance to constraining mainstream editing and marketing
guidelines and the increasing public profile of independent comics gives hope for the creation
and dissemination of more alternative representations, and establishes graphic novels as a
possible site of expression through differential consciousness. This project aims to establish
frameworks for discussing what alternative representations of Chicana/Latina and Asian
American women might encompass and how they could be expressed in the graphic novel
medium, and analyzes three specific graphic novels to understand the techniques utilized to
create representations that do not reinforce binary identity categories while still relating identity
formation and coming into consciousness to the social processes and constraints within which we
all live.


1
Chapter 1
Envisioning the Possible: Differential Consciousness and Cultural Representation

A counterstance locks one into the duel of oppressor and oppressed; locked in mortal combat, like the cop and
the criminal, both are reduced to a common denominator of violence. The counterstance refutes the dominant
cultures views and beliefs, and for this, it is proudly defiant. All reaction is limited by, and dependent on, what
it is reacting againstthe possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.
- Gloria Anzalda, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987)

The masters tools will never dismantle the masters house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his
own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.
- Audre Lorde, The Masters Tools Will Never Dismantle the Masters House (1979)


The aims of this chapter are two-fold: first, to map out the ways in which dichotomizing
notions of identity for women of color are constructed/reconstructed and enforced/reinforced
within the realms of discourse and cultural representation, and second, to envision what an
alternative (third space, middle voice, decolonial, differential, and/or mestiza)
2

representation situated at the nexus of race/ethnicity, gender, and sexuality could look like and/or
accomplish. Following the methodology of many of the theorists I engage in this project
(including Chela Sandoval, Trinh T. Minh-ha, and Emma Prez, among others), I feel it is
imperative to reach across boundaries to incorporate ideas and practices originating from
different disciplines and subject locations. As Sandoval explains, it is crucial in any project that
seeks to question naturalized discursive and material boundaries to look beyond ones own
location and elucidate connections that often remain unvoiced to disrupt the system of
academic apartheid and [test] the relationship between Western metaphysics and decolonizing
cultural and psychic formations (2,3; 3.4).
Stance and counterstance

2
I have chosen to identify the kinds of representations in which this project is interested as alternative. I feel this
terminology best indicates a break with normative or usual representations while allowing for flexibility in
pulling in ideas from a wide variety of theorists, whose work I will be using to construct my vision of alternative
representations.

2
In her discussion of the counterstance, Gloria Anzalda takes up the problem of how to
deal with oppression from a border position. If border subjects those whose identities lie at the
intersections of various marginalized categories -- acquiesce to the demands placed on them by
hegemonic, normalizing forces, they are complicit in (re)enforcing their own oppression, and the
power of hegemonic subjects and institutions is strengthened via their dominant relationship with
the clearly designated Other; however, Anzalda points out that by reacting in opposition to the
dominant cultures views and beliefs, border subjects are still operating within the
hegemonic/Other paradigm, still playing by a set of rules that they have no power to define or
amend (100). The idea of the cop is predicated on the existence of an Other that must be
regulated the criminal and the role of the criminal requires the existence of a regulating
force the cop that the criminal intends to disobey. Even an inverted paradigm, in which the
moral stances of the cop and criminal are judged differently (the cop is a corrupt villain, the
criminal is a revolutionary hero), the relationship between the two remains dependent on a
normative definition of crime and a mutual recourse to violence as the means by which one
paradigm is asserted over the other. The very idea of a counterstance requires the presence of
an original, hegemonic stance. Thus border subjects cannot exist outside of their relationship
as the dominants Other; even with a completely inverted paradigm, border subjects are
dependent upon the power of the dominant subject/institution to first act in order to be allowed to
react. Anzalda points the problematics of this situation: must the oppressed (their identity,
their actions, their being) be forever defined by the oppressor, or is there a way to break the
action/reaction cycle and allow border subjects to be and to act on their own?
Anzalda aspires toward the creation of a mestiza consciousness, a mode of being for
border subjects such as herself that makes possible an alternative to the action/reaction binary.

3
What she desires is the freedom to carve and chisel my own faceto fashion my own gods out
of my entrails the ability to define her own identity, to be herself as she makes herself, not as
she is produced by the (re)inscription of binaries (44). Anzaldas analysis of the process by
which restrictive binaries are reproduced in order to construct the border subject from without
and her demand for a space of self-making/remaking provide a framework for identifying some
of the specific mechanisms that contribute to the enforcement/reinforcement of dichotomous
modes of being and representations for subjects who, like Anzaldas border subjects, exist at the
nexus of multiple non-dominant positions (subjects who are raced, gendered, classed, queered,
etc.) and envisioning potential methods for alternative ways of being and representations.
Not only do strictly policed binaries define the agency of marginalized subjects by forcing
them to continually react rather than act, their ascription of contradictory characteristics also
results in frustration and even illegibility for the marginalized subjects. Binaries that enforce the
distinction between the dominant and the Other can simultaneously render the non-dominant
subjects invisible and threatening. Anne Anlin Cheng illustrates this problem in the position of
Asian Americans within American society, noting that in the strict white/black
(hegemonic/primary Other) racial paradigm of the United States, subjects who fit neither of these
narrowly defined categories occupy a ghostly position; they are neither Us nor Them, and
therefore are indigestible, illegible within the dominant national racial discourse (12-13). The
ghost is indecipherable, invisible, and threatening; hegemonic subjects and institutions
simultaneously express violent vilification andindifference to vilification regarding the
ghostly position of certain subjects (13). The Other (as well as the ghostly subjects whose
positions are elided by strict racial, gender, and sexual dyads), is both seen and unseen,
occupying a paradoxical position that leads to the internalization of discipline and rejection and

4
the installation of a scripted context of perception (17). Non-dominant subjects learn to be
suspicious of themselves and their own tenuous positions, negotiating opposing forces of self-
affirmation and self-loathing; Cheng explains that the result of this painful and complex process
often produces internalization of normative ideals, but might also hold the potential for shades
of resistance if the relationships between the competing interests that lead to internalization of
identity can be uncovered and the ideal of identity itself destabilized (19, 24).
Alongside the ghostly invisibility that Cheng explores, dichotomous understandings of
identity also produce specific forms of hypervisibility. In The Hypersexuality of Race, Celine
Parreas Shimizu notes that within the normative white/black American racial paradigm, Asian
American women can emerge from invisibility through hypersexualization. Rather than
encouraging audiences to disregard Asian American women, these portrayals push audiences to
stare, whether out of pleasure (in the case of the slew of pornographic films featuring Asian
American women that Parreas Shimizu analyzes) or out of disgust (in the case of the film
Payback, which features an Asian American gang leader so perverse she is undesirable) (88).
Not only are dominant subjects and institutions the straight (often white) male viewers of the
pornographic films, the mainstream Hollywood film industry captivated by these
representations, but even those who these images profess to represent are enthralled; Parreas
Shimizu acknowledges the simultaneous elation, seduction, and horror of Is that me/not me? I
adore but it tortures me. Stop looking, oh no, keep looking! (4). Although the impulse for the
marginalized subject is to identify these portrayals as misrepresentations, the inescapable
presence of these representations triggers the complex processes of identification and
disidentification that Cheng sees at work in the formation and internalization of identity.

5
Chicana/Latina women, also rendered invisible in a dyadic white/black racial understanding,
emerge similarly into moments of visibility through hypersexualization. Linda Y. Chvez notes
the double bind of Latina identity enforced through the virgin/whore dichotomy; Latinas can
either be the good woman and diminish and/or negate their presence through self-sacrifice, as
in the ideal of the invisible maid, who serves graciously and demands nothing in return, or be
the bad woman whose uncontrolled/uncontrollable sexuality present a danger for good
(white) men and families, as in the image of the Latin spitfire/vamp (9). These two extremes
are not only continually popularized and reinforced by mainstream American cultural
productions (such as Hollywood films, which Chvez notes have utilized these two stereotypical
representations since the 1930s [31]), but the dichotomy also is strengthened by a binary
understanding of women and womens sexuality constructed in mainstream Mexican and
Chicana/o culture as well.
3
She describes the model of the virgen and the puta not only as a
literal translation of virgin/whore, but also as representations based around the culturally and
historically specific figures of La Virgen de Guadalupe and La Malinche (10, 29). La Virgen,
the mother of Christ, is the patron saint of Mexico, defined by her love for and protection of the
Mexican people, particularly the poor and indigenous; as Chvez notes, La Virgen is a-sexual,
selfless, obedient, and sacrificial (10). She is also a perfect paradox: a chaste virgin who is
simultaneously a nurturing mother. In contrast, La Malinche, the indigenous woman who
became lover to and translator for Hernn Corts, is the ultimate traitor, whose unrestrained
sexuality led to the downfall of the Aztec Empire. Indeed, her name has lived on not only in
myth, but also in the popular Mexican word for a traitor, malinchista. Because of the potency of
La Malinches legacy in reinforcing restrictive gender roles for Chicanas, many Chicana feminist

3
While Chvez discusses representations of Latina women in general, her cultural analysis of the virgin/whore
dichotomy is based on the specifically Mexican model of La Virgen/La Malinche, so I have chosen to use
Mexican and Chicana/o to make explicit this cultural specificity.

6
theorists have made a project of recuperating her as a whole being and possible icon; I will
explore this tactic further in discussing possibilities for alternative representation. In mainstream
formations, the dichotomy of La Malinche and La Virgen is central to producing representations
of Chicanas; attempting to embody the role of the virgin mother results in self-negation,
invisibility, and frustration, as her paradoxical position is not perfectly imitable, while visibility
comes at the cost of alleged moral and cultural bankruptcy or slippage. Chvez expresses the
distress caused by the enforcing of these strict roles, asking:
What does the Latina do to counter these images that are filtering out the same
tropes of Latina identity as macho Latino culture? If these ideas of whore and
virgin, of one-dimensionality, come at us from two sides, from within our homes
and outside our homes then where do we find the space to voice an identity that
proclaims difference and complexity? How do we say that is not me! within a
society that chooses to render us voiceless? (35)
While Chvezs examples of Latina characters in popular film Jennifer Lopez in 2003s
Maid in Manhattan, Lupe Velez and Dolores Del Rio in 30s and 40s-era tales of forbidden
love may appear extreme, they are by no means unusual in their restrictiveness; even less
overtly dichotomizing representations employ binary notions of femininity (particularly female
sexuality) in crafting possible roles for women. Emma Prezs The Decolonial Imaginary,
which takes writing Chicanas into history as its project and thus moves to address the problem
of invisibility, also includes discussions of visible Chicanas and the mechanisms by which they
become visible through infamy. Prez gives an in-depth reading of the tragic corrido
4
heroine
Delgadina. Delgadina is a young woman whose father attempts to seduce her; rather than be
party to his advances, she chooses to kill herself and remain pure (102). In addition to the

4
A corrido is a Mexican popular narrative ballad. Corridos often tell tales of folk heroes.

7
popular song, the tale of Delgadina was adapted into a 1981 film. Prez describes Delgadina as
portrayed in the tale as a colonial object and object of desire, whose agency is restricted to
self-destruction; she cannot choose how to be, only whether or not to be (101-102). Although
ultimately Delgadina is the heroine and her father the villain, Prez contends that the blame is
placed on the victim, Delgadina, simply for being a woman:
She is to blame for having a sexed, female body that a man will desire. Yet as a
sexed woman, she enters into a double bind. There is no way she can guard her
sex enough from male seducers. By becoming a woman, she has already
failedShe exemplifies what will happen to the daughter who refuses patriarchal
seduction. The double messages conflict the daughter: to be seduced, not to be
seduced. The patriarchy leaves few options. (115)
Again, the attempt at being the good woman in the model of La Virgen is frustrated; although
she chooses complete self-negation in the form of death, Delgadina still enters into visibility as a
form of seductress female sexuality is by definition harmful and uncontrollable, and even
women who lack the bad intentions that define whores like La Malinche cannot escape from
its injurious consequences. The infamy of Delgadina (for having tempted her father) and the
admiration given her for committing suicide reveals a genuinely frightening implicit principle:
the only truly good and virtuous woman, aside from La Virgen, is a dead one. As Prez
explains, only in death is she free (102). The story of Delgadina, despite ostensibly praising
the young woman for her morality, reinscribes and extends the restrictive virgin/whore paradigm
to predict disastrous consequences for women; even invisibility is not enough for complete
redemption and sanctification.

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With the repressive and dangerous effects of enforced binaries and dichotomized roles
demonstrated through representations in mainstream media, the problem of how to challenge
these processes in order to create alternative representations emerges. Subjectivity, identity,
ethics, and the very processes of meaning-making through writing and speaking are rife with
traces of binary thinking that naturalizes standards of subjecthood and obscures the material
disparities caused by these boundaries; how then can marginalized subjects articulate themselves
or be articulated by others? In the following section, I will map out the ideas proposed by
theorists from various locations as to how binary thinking can be subverted or eliminated and
possible methods for constructing alternative representations can be employed.

Envisioning the possible
Wendy Brown calls into question the very ideal of identity and its role in the practice
of contemporary identity politics, noting that identity is a category predicated on a
dominant/Other binary. Identity politics proposes an inverted paradigm, in which Othered
groups are denied and therefore must demand and fight for equality; however, Brown argues
that the very notion of equality reinforces white, straight, male, upper/middle class privilege as
the ideal to which minorities ought to aspire (marginalized groups should have the same as
what the dominant group has) (61). Within this model of resistance, dichotomies remain stable
non-dominant groups still define themselves based on dominant ideals and are constructed as
lacking. As Anzalda notes, while a counterstance enables resistance, the potential for
transformative action, and for marginalized subjects to be whole, remains limited as long as
binaries are enforced/reinforced. Brown suggests that in order to move beyond the limiting
bounds of identity as practiced in contemporary identity politics, there must occur a shift from

9
the language if I am with its defensive closure on identity, its insistence on the fixity of
position, its equation of social with moral positioning [to] the language of I want for us (75).
This shift not only suggests a change in language, in the discourse put forth by marginalized
subjects, but also a shift in desire. Rather than revenge, which Brown characterizes as stemming
from the rancor and ressentiment of historical exclusion and aspirations toward normative
ideals, the goal ought to be hope for the future, replacing the language of being with
wanting in order to validate desire, in contrast to dominant discourses that seek to negate or
deny the desires of border subjects (76).
This move from desired object to desiring subject requires a rethinking of
subjecthood itself, unsettling the naturalized dichotomy of subject/object, and even of I/you
(Prez 119). If the borders between the self and the Other, between I and you, between your
desire and mine, are envisioned as fluid or unclear, a question then arises: who is the subject?
How does the subject speak or act as such without subject/object or intersubject boundaries to
provide guidelines or distinguish beneficial actions from harmful ones? Certainly, as Brown
acknowledges, there exist material consequences for occupying different subject positions, and
thus a project of abandoning identity altogether is neither productive nor responsible. However,
the possibility of imagining oneself in an alternative way to the normative I can still provide
insight into how to construct whole selves even within a context of dichotomizing discourses and
representations. Trinh T. Minh-ha suggests envisioning the process of writing of creating a
self and a narrative to explain it as a mirror-writing box, in which the writer is infinitely
reflected and thus none of the reflections can claim to be the original I (22). She explains
that I write to show myself showing people who show me my own showing. I-You: not one not
two (22). The multiple articulations of self reflected back to the writer by others enrich and

10
expand, rather than confuse, the writers position; by seeing others in oneself and oneself in
others, the most essential dichotomy, I/you, is broken, leading to the possibility of destabilizing
the dichotomies that restrict subjects potential for action and modes of identification. In Woman,
Native, Other, Trinh shifts constantly between identifying as I and i, materializing the vision
of the self not as an original I but rather as the reflection of a reflection, a conscious product of
both self and others. Trinh acknowledges the difficulty and discomfort of sustaining this
multivalent concept of self, positing that perhaps the most productive mode of self-making is not
to keep the mirror clean and forever be able to move between the self and others, but rather to
break the mirror altogether and rebuild (keep on unbuilding and rebuilding) itself with its
debris, to construct a new idea of self from the various reflections (23). In this way, constant
negotiation (the unbuilding and rebuilding) allows the subject to remain in flux and unoccupied
by dominant forces, but at the same time retains concrete pieces of identity that give the
subject a sense of purpose and location; these pieces are not necessarily fit together in a legible
manner at all times, but are flexible enough to be shifted into a productive entity for reflecting
and writing (self-making and representation).
Trinhs discussion of the inextricability of you from I and the fallacy of a singularly
articulated subject recall the Derridean concept of diffrance, a model of language that forms the
basis of Derridas deconstruction method of interpreting and analyzing texts. Derrida rejects the
notion of texts having a fixed meaning or essential, distillable truth, suggesting that words
constantly defer meaning to other words. Language does not function to reduce space and time.
Rather, within language there is continuous movement from one signifier to another signifier that
reveals the spatial and temporal, or differing and deferring, aspect of language (Anderson 410).
Like Trinhs endlessly reflected self, Derridas diffrance of language destabilizes boundaries of

11
meaning between one word and another. Chela Sandoval takes up Derridas ideas in
Methodology of the Oppressed, seeking to apply his linguistic concepts to envision differential
modes of resistance, movements and identities that are not restricted by normative standards and
ideals (moving beyond the counterstance to action instead of reaction). Sandoval cites Derrida
in identifying binary thinking not only as problematic or dangerous, but as the root of all forms
of oppression. The Derridean idea of the middle voice of the verb a form of speech unused
in any living language today, yetcapable of transforming both the speaker and its object of
speech at the moment it is uttered plays a large part in Sandovals developing of a theory for
employing differential consciousness (148). The normative idea of language as creating certain
meaning is denaturalized and decentered, allowing for differential consciousness to be expressed
in non-privileged, poetic forms of communication such as gestures, music, images, sounds,
words that plummet or rise through signification to find some void some no-place to claim
their due (139).
Derrida terms the process of meaning-making through diffrance and the possibilities of
the middle voice of the verb unnamable. Indeed, Wendy Brown, Chela Sandoval, and Trinh T.
Minh-ha all thoroughly explore the problematics of needing to label identities and the processes
of construction that lead to subjecthood. The unseating of hegemonic notions of language and
subjectivity, which, as Sandoval and Trinh suggest, opens a productive void or abyss from
which new meanings and new ways of being can arise, cannot be fully embraced however,
without an understanding of the ethical implications of this refusal to locate inviolable truth or
even fixed meaning. While strict definitions or names may not be necessary, discussion of how
these processes work and more concrete examples of how they can be employed in cultural

12
production can help us to envision what alternative representations might look like and what
specific media spaces might hold exceptional potential for encouraging these representations.
Nicole Anderson addresses ethical critiques of Derridas diffrance and of deconstruction
in general, contending that Derridas approach is profoundly responsible not only because it
gives back to the subject an autonomy produced through relations with Others, but also because
the singularity and impossibility within every decision opens onto multiple ethical responses
and potential futures (419). In contrast to Habermas insistence on fixed meaning for the
purpose of mutual understanding he argues that this mutual understanding can only be
achieved when different parties hold shared definitions and ethical standards Derrida advocates
the significance of difference in language, which is elided when normative ethical standards (as
proposed by Habermas) are enforced. Anderson extends this argument to suggest that linguistic
difference and suppression thereof leads to and reflected back by the suppression of gender,
sexual, racial, class, and economic differences within society and culture; this emphasis on
illuminating the hazards of normative ethical standards echoes Browns highlighting of identity
politics recourse to normative standards of success, establishing that the ethical critiques of
diffrance and deconstruction are not just or unbiased with regard to non-normative subjects
(410). Insisting on fixed meaning and mutual understanding enforces dominant/Other binaries
by defining both groups according to ethics developed solely according to the standards of
hegemonic groups and institutions; marginalized subjects are denied the agency to create and/or
access to implement alternative ethical modes that reflect their material concerns. Like the
concept of crime transgression that harms stable groups or institutions that defines both
Anzaldas cop and criminal, normative definitions of the ethical and the responsible are
designed to center and protect the boundaries of the dominant subject/group/institution, often at

13
the expense of those excluded from these definitions. Anderson thus argues that Derrida is
responsible with regard to Othered subjects: Derridas diffrance is a condition of ethical
possibility and impossibility, which enables individuals to take responsibility for decision-
making away from the dichotomous either/or choices characteristic of normative ethics, thereby
opening a political and ethical space for difference (407). Diffrance breaks down dichotomies,
enabling a contamination between presence and absence, possibility and impossibility, the
constraining effects of language and ambiguity, and universality and singularity, respectively
(416). For marginalized subjects, who we have seen are represented simultaneously and
paradoxically as visible and invisible, present and absent, threatening and passive, the ability to
contaminate hegemonic spaces and discourses through their ambiguity represents a productive
method for the practice of reading/constructing the self and claiming agency within dominant,
binary paradigms.
Flux, which Anderson mentions as a significant component of Derridas diffrance, is
emphasized strongly by Trinh as the best potential (if not only) method of preventing the
cooptation of alternative representations and non-hegemonic subjectivities by dominant forces.
Trinh argues that to say and then unsay oneself is critical: You try and keep on trying to
unsay it [your reality], for if you dont, they will not fail to fill in the blanks on your behalf, and
you will be said (80). Mobility is privileged and favored over stasis; to stop moving is to lose
ones agency to self-define. Anne-Emmanuelle Berger notes that Derrida also favors continuous
motion as the mechanism by which differences can be validated and made legible; Derrida
explores the concept of constant movement through the metaphor of dance. Dancing is
explained as an incessant mixing of old patterns with new steps, changing directions and
locations and disrupting any set notions of how the dance ought to be performed. The

14
inevitability of invention and impossibility of perfect repetition in the dance exemplifies a
relentless stepping in and out of traditional political and philosophical confines, following up on
the work of traditionally oppositional (counterstance) organized, patient,
laboriousstruggles with a questioning and continual destabilization of ethics and
metaphysical presuppositions on which the oppositional movement is based (54-55). This
description provides a more concrete example of what this process of constant shifting might
look like; Sandoval further materializes the idea of complementary processes of resistance when
she delineates five categories of oppositional consciousness: equal rights (the kind of identity
politics movements Brown critiques), revolutionary, supremacist, separatist, and finally,
differential (40). Sandoval does not condemn the first four types of social movement, which
have resulted in improved quality of life for many border subjects, but she makes clear that the
most potentially productive kind of paradigm is that which is not predicated on dichotomies and
strictly enforced binaries. She seeks a mode of consciousness that remains both within yet
outside this number of possible gestures for constituting scholarship, the position that allowed
White to generate and articulate his own metatheory and method of analysis (153). Differential
consciousness thus aims not to achieve equality with or separate completely from the dominant,
but rather to claim the same kind of agency that has allowed hegemonic groups and institutions
to speak for themselves rather than be said by others.
Differential consciousness, which incorporates the tactics of flux, diffrance, desire, and
multiple articulation of subjectivity, can be implemented in a variety of spaces in order to
facilitate the creation of and circulation of alternative representations. At the level of education,
differential consciousness and its destabilization of dichotomies can help students to relate to one
another and lay a foundation for a shift in thinking that illuminates power dynamics and

15
encourages students to (re)produce complex, non-binary forms of representation in their speech,
scholarship, and behavior. Rishma Dunlop suggests that the responsibility for the tracing of the
other within self is seen as central to teaching practice, in order to live, as T. Minh-ha Trinh
[sic] states: fearlessly and within difference. Thus, teaching strategies of meaning-making
that allow for alternative representations to be both read and created by students is crucial in
order to destabilize entrenched ethnocentrism and [lead] to cross-cultural understandings in
classroom communities that can extend beyond the classroom to students interpersonal
interactions and personal processes of constructing themselves as agentic subjects (57).
Adela C. Liconas reading of various zines (independently produced texts bound in a
magazine-style format) concretizes the practice of reading through differential consciousness in
order to locate alternative representation. Licona, who describes the representations as
demonstrating (b)orderlands rhetorics
5
linking her concept of third space to Anzaldas
mestiza consciousness and border subjectivity as well as Sandovals third-space feminism
explains that zines can be irreverent, parodic, utopian and imaginative; thus, in a sense, zines
perform the difference they are trying to make (109). This description points to zines as part of
a differential social movement rather than the oppositional counterstance; the language and
representations utilized in the zines demonstrates the possible futures that they seek to inspire
their readers to create. The subjecthood of the authors are informed by and reflect the positions
of the readers and the subjects portrayed in the zines. Licona specifically notes five tactics
exhibited in the zines that illustrate the potential for breaking down dichotomies and providing
alternative representations:

5
Licona uses the parentheses in (b)orderlands in order to visibly underscore the myriad ways bordershave
historically operated to divide as well as to interrupt any fixed reading of the notion of (b)orderlands, resisting
any impulse to define what constitutes a border in a restrictive, binary fashion (105).

16
(1) the transformative potential beyond gender binaries; (2) the re-visioning and
reclaiming of histories; (3) the practices of reverso (critical reversals of the
normative gaze); (4) the deployment of (e)motion as embodied resistance; and (5)
the emergence of a coalitional consciousness and practices of articulation that can
create and mobilize communities for social justice. (110)
Licona provides textual examples from a variety of zines that construct alternative
representations through the specific techniques outlined above, as well as through the cooptation
and/or reappropriation of dominant/mainstream symbols and representations. She argues for
further analysis specific to emerging and underground media as potential sites of alternative
representation, imagining that if we can continue to work in third space between the borders of
academic and nonacademic writing and representationwe can see more possibilities for
feminist activism and coalition building (125). Following Liconas example, my project takes
up another media that is between borders: the comic book/graphic novel, which is often
articulated as being between art and literature, and between high art and mass culture, and which
is just beginning to be taught and analyzed in academic and critical contexts. Tactics 1-4 in
particular are germane to my analysis; while graphic novels are in many ways less interactive
than zines because there is less opportunity for the reader to interact with or respond directly to
the creator (most zines list an email or physical address that readers can use to communicate with
the author), the critical lens on gender and gender roles and decentering of normative ideologies
and audience gaze that Licona describes are very much present in the texts examined for this
project.
In another example of textual analysis using differential consciousness, Emma Prez
demonstrates the potential for alternative representations in her reading of the performances of

17
the late Tejana singer Selena Quintanilla-Prez, which she contrasts with the representation of
Selena in Gregory Navas film Selena. Prez discusses not only creating representations with a
perspective based in differential consciousness, but also contends that representations can be
made productive by reading them from a third space feminist perspective (102). This practice
provides a case for examining texts not produced by an author who holds the same subject
position as the subjects represented in the work, which is a crucial component of my project.
Like Prez, I want to look from a third space perspective, using the tactics of differential
consciousness described in this chapter in order to find potential spaces for alternative
representation. Prez argues that through her performances, Selena represents decolonial desire;
that is, she authorized her desire through third space feminist practice by deliberately fashioning
a sexed body for public consumption[she] performed Chicana agency in a way that exuded
sexual prowess endemic to a specific woman-of-color feminism (102). Prezs reading from a
differentially conscious perspective allows her to see the framework of patriarchy, both social
and familial, that Selena had to negotiate, and gives her an appreciation for the kind of agency
that Selena was able to exert in order to fashion herself and [defy] her fathers rigid control over
her and her body (103). Rather than self-destruct in the interest of maintaining a prescriptive
moral rightness like Delgadina, Selena was able to embody sexuality in a way that empowered
her. This sexuality is not without its own problematics, but Prez characterizes the overall effect
of Selenas career as positive for Chicanas, explaining that not only did it become acceptable to
dress, walk, dance, act, and talk sensually, and to wear thick makeup because Selena did it; but
Selena made it acceptable to do so and not be labeled a whore (121, emphasis mine). Selenas
self-aware, ever-evolving persona and performance provided an example for many young
women of color, particularly working-class Chicana girls, of how such a woman could have

18
agency and perform in a way that satisfies herself and inspires other women. Prez contrasts this
self-made image of Selena with the man-made image constructed by director Gregory Nava in
conjunction with Selenas father, Abraham Quintanilla, after her death. Prez, looking at the
film with an eye for dichotomizing impulses and loci of control, notes that the story seemed to
be nothing more than hero worship for the father, a story that was more about Abraham
Quintanilla than about Selena (119). By locating control with the father, the film provides a
normative representation of patriarchal ideals, in contrast with the frank and active sexuality
embodied by Selena in her performances. Thus, at least one portrayal of Selena her self-
portrayal provides an alternative representation that resists binaries and provide[s] an option
the affirmation of Chicana/Latina sexuality (121).
Although the man-made (a designation Prez takes from Alicia Gaspar de Alba to
describe an image created by dominant subjects) image produced by Nava and Quintanilla was
normative, Prezs willingness to try and read both representations from a third space perspective
encourages me to attempt readings of other man-made images of women of color to see if a
possibility for alternative representation might emerge (116-117). The destabilizing of the
subject/object, you/I dichotomy that underpins the theories as practices of Trinh, Sandoval,
Derrida, Prez, and the other authors I have thus far examined leads me to insist on asking of
these man-made representations the same questions I would ask of the self-made in terms of
the potential for productive and healthy representations of women of color and their sexuality.
Another question raised by the process of envisioning alternative representation is which
media can be engaged in creating and disseminating these representations, and how the
particularities of each medium work toward or against creating and interpreting from a
perspective of differential consciousness. According to Trinh, subscribing to the idea of a

19
dichotomy between art for the masses and art for the elite when creating or reading cultural
productions generates conservative art, which reproduces the status quo in terms of power
relations and normative representations (Woman, Native, Other 12). She goes on to explain that
even art with politically revolutionary goals can be conservative in terms of power dynamics by
subscribing to hegemonic conceptions of logic and clarity, charging that clarity is a means
of subjection, a quality of both official, taught language and of correct writing, two old mates of
power: together they flow, together they flower, vertically, to impose an order (16). Given the
emphasis on women of color and their sexuality as out of control and in need of careful
observation and protection by patriarchs that Prez notes in her readings of Delgadina, Malinche,
and Selena, Trinhs reading of normative grammatical and visual rules for art suggests that great
potential for alternative representation lies in emerging media, those which do not yet have
strict rules for proper creation and criticism. Indeed, Trinh suggests that in order for art to
bring transformative effect to bear on theoryit would unavoidably have to push itself to the
frontier of what is art and what is non-art (When the Moon Waxes Red 225-226). Recent
debates on the status of the comic book (or should I say graphic novel?) reflect the position of
the comic medium as one that is currently at the boundary between elite art and mass art,
and even between art and non-art. Chapter 2 discusses the problem of definition in the
emerging medium of graphic novels, outlines the specific kinds of texts that are used in this
project, and considers specific textual elements that contribute to the potential of graphic novels
as a site for alternative representation.





20
Chapter 2
Ways of Looking: The Comic Medium and the Potential of Graphic Novels
One thing naturally follows from another. The couch, for example, would like for us to skin it; well lookit
that! Its made out of CDs. And theyre great! In almost no time, weve begun to perceive the previously-
understood-to-be-normal as now, really weird.
- Anne Elizabeth Moore, Preface, The Best American Comics 2007

The problem of definition
Because comics/graphic novels are a medium for which standard analytical guidelines
have not yet been standardized, I have developed strategies for analysis culled from the works of
various scholars and artists, and focused specifically on looking at graphic novels in relation to
differential consciousness and alternative representation. Before I can begin to analyze graphic
novels as a potential site of alternative representation, it is important to define what particular
kinds of texts I am looking at, and how I will go about looking at the representations constructed
within the works.
A recurring problem in the critical analysis of comics in general is definition: what
exactly counts as a comic? What is a graphic novel, and how is it different than a comic book?
Is it different at all? For the past several decades, various critics, theorists, and comics creators
have been attempting to pin down the essence of what makes a comic a comic. An important
first distinction for approaching comics is to understand that comics are a medium rather than a
genre. In his book Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean, Douglas
Wolk describes the frequent allusion to comics as a genre by cultural critics and notes its
inaccuracy, explaining that genres indicate kinds of stories with specific categories of subjects
and conventions for their content and presentation, while media are forms of expression that
have few or no rules regarding their content other than the very broad ones imposed on them by
their form (11). Wolk refers to the abundance of different genres in comics to illustrate his

21
point: superheroes, mystery stories, horror stories, romances, science fiction, autobiography, and
many others (12). In order to begin an analysis of what comics are and propose strategies for
how to read them, I approach comics as a medium and not a genre; in the fashion of literary
criticism and art criticism, which function as the structuring strategies for analyzing the broadly-
defined media of art and literature, I would like to outline a framework for comics
criticism, which can employ varies ways of looking and reading that are unique to comics as a
medium.
In 1985, Will Eisner posited that the essential element of comics is that they are
sequential art, or a series of pictures that are meant to follow one another in order to relate a
story (Meskin 369). Following on from Eisner, Scott McCloud retains the emphasis on sequence,
describing the format of comics as placing one picture after another to show the passage of
time
6
and further argues that comics are intended to convey information and produce an
aesthetic response in the reader/viewer
7
(McCloud 1, Meskin 369). McClouds definition
(in)famously cites the Bayeaux tapestry, Hogarths woodblock prints, and other early examples
of sequential art as comics or proto-comics; indeed, in Reinventing Comics, he contends that in
order to understand contemporary comics, we must see with clear eyes how other eras have
used this same idea to beautiful ends, accompanying this argument with a pre-Columbian
Mesoamerican figure drawing, suggesting that such depictions, because they are sequential,
intended to convey information, and produce an aesthetic response in the viewer (1).

6
McClouds texts Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics are both constructed as comics themselves. In an
attempt to replicate the format of the original, I will italicize those words which McCloud emphasizes by darkening
and slanting his lettering. I will also describe the visual elements of the text whenever the meaning of one of the
panels cannot be fully grasped from the text alone.
7
Another argument in the field of comic/graphic novel criticism is whether to refer to the audience as readers or
viewers; I have chosen to use readers when referring to comics, as viewing tends to connote a passive
experience rather than the active process of making meaning connoted by reading.

22
Also following from the idea of sequential art are David Carrier, whose The Aesthetics
of Comics provides the only book-length examination of comics from an art history perspective,
Greg Hayman and Henry John Pratt, and David Kunzle. In addition to sequentiality, Carrier
insists on other essential features of comics: speech balloons and a closely linked narrative
(Meskin 370). In including these features in his definition, Carrier avoids the controversy of
including tapestries, woodblock prints, hieroglyphics, and other early forms as comics; he
identifies comics squarely as a modern phenomenon, beginning with newspaper strips such as
George Herrimans Krazy Kat and Hergs The Adventures of Tin Tin (52-53).
Hayman and Pratt choose to express their definition of comics as a mathematical formula:
x is a comic iff x is a sequence of discrete, juxtaposed pictures that comprise a narrative, either
in their own right or when combined with text (Meskin 370). Like Eisner, McCloud, and
Carrier, Hayman and Pratt embrace the idea of sequentiality as a kind of baseline characteristic
for beginning to think of a work as a comic. They also give a strong emphasis on narrativity,
suggesting that while comics can function without words (in contrast to Carriers insistence on
speech bubbles), the reader must be able to follow the sequence of images somewhat clearly and
derive a story from the work.
Kunzle, in his history of the comic strip, also invokes sequentiality and narrativity as
primary defining factors of comics; his definition is even more specific, arguing that in order to
be considered comics, works must involve a preponderance of image over text, appear in a
mass medium, and [tell] a story which is both moral and topical (Meskin 369). To Kunzle,
images take priority over text when defining comics; as in Hayman and Pratts definition, text
may be incidental or unnecessary to following the narrative of a comic. In contrast to the
continuity McCloud draws between revered works of art (such as the Bayeaux tapestry) and

23
contemporary comics, Kunzle moves toward a low art view of comics in insisting on
publication in a mass medium (newspapers, or commercially distributed pamphlets and books)
as a criterion. His argument for moral and topical stories continues this emphasis on
accessibility; not only must readers be able to easily access a work in order to consider it a comic,
they must also be able to derive a plot and thematic message.
Aaron Meskin takes issue with all of the above definitions of comics, citing two major
concerns about their boundaries: the emphasis on narrativity and the seemingly ahistorical or
anachronistic view of comics in relation to other art forms (372, 374). Meskin reads attempts to
contextualize comics as derived from earlier, recognized art forms (McClouds project) as
ahistorical, and an attempt to legitimize comics as an art form. However, he also takes issue
with the idea that comics are a closed category and the ignoring of other forms of sequential art
(as seen in the texts of Carrier, Kunzle, and Hayman and Pratt), calling that approach equally
ahistorical (374). He calls into question the very idea of comics as necessarily sequential, and
uses webcomics and comics with hyperlinked frames to argue that it is not at all obvious that
all comics must be essentially ordered (375). After throwing out even the most common (and
seemingly agreed-upon) criterion for defining comics (sequentiality), how then are we to discuss
what we mean when we say comics?
Another camp of critics suggest that perhaps it is not necessary to define comics in order
to talk about them; Meskin himself questions whether definitions are needed to analyze how a
text functions or what it accomplishes. He ends his essay by proposing that rather than
necessary features, the focus in analyzing comics should be on identifying the various styles,
techniques, and purposes found in the art form, as well as a broad grasp of how to evaluate the
variety of elements that are typically (but not necessarily) used in it (376). Rather than

24
attempting to solidly define what makes certain texts comics, Meskin suggests a need to focus on
what kinds of strategies are frequently or usually used to produced texts that are intended or
understood as comics. Along the same line of reasoning, discussions of comic books or graphic
novels by Eddie Campbell, Roger Sabin, Paul Gravett, and Douglas Wolk all eschew defining
comics in favor of defining via exclusion on which specific kinds of texts their analyses focus.
Campbell, in his essay What is a Graphic Novel?, explores the four major competing
definitions of graphic novels: 1) any kind of comic book, 2) bound comic books (as opposed to
stapled pamphlets, 3) a comic book narrative that is equivalent in form and dimensions to the
prose novel, and 4) a form that is more than a comic book in the scope of its ambition indeed
a new medium altogether. Campbell contends that this focus on selecting one definition is
unhelpful to fostering critical studies of graphic novels, arguing as Meskin does that the focus
should be on developing strategies for reading an emerging new literature of our times (13). In
his book Graphic Novels: Everything You Need to Know, Paul Gravett begins with a discussion
of various misconceptions as to what the term graphic novel implies (pornographic content,
fantasy or science fiction elements, novel-length serious stories) and of the battle over the
definition of the term before turning exclusively to examples of graphic novels to show the
different types that have been produced (8-9). He explains that his overriding emphasis in [the]
book is on story, content, because I think these are what people are seeking most in graphic
novels (9).
Although I concur with the anti-definition arguments of Meskin, Campbell, and Gravett
in that having a precise definition for comics or graphic novels is a near-impossible
endeavor and ultimately leads to a reluctance on the part of critics to analyze texts considered
comics Meskin likens the quest for necessary features to trying to define clear boundaries for

25
what is and isnt art or literature I also find these arguments themselves lacking in
direction. Without defining any of the possible standard features or strategies of looking
that these critics propose, the analyses can only take on content, focusing on texts that coalesce
around a particular theme or might appeal to a particular demographic. These analyses, such as
the one Gravett offers, could just as easily be thematic analyses of films or prose novels;
however, as with literary and film criticism, I believe that including an analysis of the formal
elements of the work in addition to thematic and contextual analyses provides another lens on to
the text: I am interested in how meanings are constructed in comics as well as the message of
the works.

How to look, and at what?
In order to incorporate a praxis for textual analysis of comics into my project and not
simply focus on content, I am following the model of Douglas Wolk and Roger Sabin, who
refrain from delineating a strict, general definition of comics or graphic novels, but also
include a descriptive list of formal criteria that they have chosen in focusing their analyses.
Wolk and Sabin acknowledge that they are talking about comics that utilize a certain set of
formal conventions, and clearly exclude genres that utilize very different conventions.
Sabins Adult Comics: An Introduction takes up the premise with which I began my
discussion that comics are a unique medium rather than a genre of visual art or literature.
Sabin explains that a strip does not happen in the words, or the pictures, but somewhere in-
betweenstrips have their own aesthetic: they are a language, with their own grammar, syntax,
and punctuation (9). Despite using the term strips in describing the visual layout of comics (a
standard element of comics being a division into panels that when laid out next to one another

26
are referred to as strips), Sabin makes clear in the very beginning of his text that he is not
talking about political cartoons, one-panel cartoons (such as Family Circus or The Far Side) or
newspaper-run comic strips. He notes that cartoons and strips ultimately conform to very
different aesthetics in the case of the former, this might involve a need to be topical or make
some kind of political point; for the latter, to get to a punch-line in three or four panels; and so on.
As such, different traditions are involved (2). Thus, Sabin provides a clear formal criterion
for what he will be looking at: comics that sustain a story over a page or more. He points to the
different purposes of political cartoons and newspaper comics that make them formally different
from other kinds of comics, ensuring that the strategies for reading the comics he talks about are
indeed appropriate and applicable to the formal aesthetic tradition of those texts; texts which lack
some or many of the standard elements of comic books or graphic novels can then be viewed as
avant-garde cases, rather than being excluded from discussion because they lack necessary
elements.
Sabin also delineates his thematic concerns: he wants to discuss adult comics, by which
he means those comics not specifically aimed at children (rather than meaning erotic or ultra-
violent texts, as terms such as adult films would imply) (3). After clearly laying out his formal
and thematic concerns, Sabin identifies what he considers to be standard elements of the comics
medium: a sequence of pictures, bordered panels, narrative, dialogue, and sound effects (5).
While these standard elements he includes hearken back to the problematic definitional
arguments discussed earlier, Sabin is careful to label these features as being shared by most but
certainly not all comics. He notes that any definition is an evolving concept, and
characteristics will accrue or disappear over time. Hence fixing an archetype has its
limitationsthere are exceptions to the rules, and even the most seemingly self-evident

27
characteristics are open to question. Sabin uses these standard elements not as a rubric by
which to exclude texts that do not make use of them, but rather as an entry point into examining
the storytelling possibilities a comic can suggest, such as the panel formats compression,
extension, and/or abandonment of time (7).
In Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean, Douglas Wolk
shies even further away from the definitional or necessary elements arguments, clearly
identifying different formal traditions and thematic concerns for the different kinds of comics he
talks about; in contrast to Sabin, Wolk, although also focusing on adult (again, meaning not
specifically targeted at children) comics, differentiates not only between cartoons/newspaper
strips and sustained stories, but also between mainstream and what he terms art comics. He
explicitly steers away from defining comics as a medium, choosing to focus on examining
what formal and thematic concerns make certain comics different than others (17). Wolk notes
that while all comics share the formal element of metaphor in that they are consciously
constructed and mediated representations of the real world (20), art comics share some
different standard elements than mainstream comics: lack of generic conventions or generic
conventions kept at an ironic remove, auteur creators (the product of a single author/artist
rather than collaborative teams as many mainstream comics, especially superheroes, use), and a
tendency toward being written as self-contained books rather than the cross-referential
universes of superhero comics or unrelated vignettes of horror comics (28). Wolk also refrains
from making reference to any comics as though their formal aesthetic approaches are derived
from other media; while Sabin describes comics as generally cinematic in that they utilize
different angles of perspective (6), Wolk argues that describing comics (in particular highbrow
or art comics) in terms of another medium sells them short. He gives the example of a New York

28
Times review of Marjane Satrapis autobiographical graphic novel Persepolis, which contended
that [Satrapi] is such a talented artist and her black-and-white drawings are so captivating, it
seems wrong to call her memoir a comic book. Rather, it is a graphic memoir (12). Wolk
likens this refusal to identify something critically acclaimed as a comic not only an exercise in
snobbery, but also fundamentally flawed in that it assumes that comics and graphic novels are
particularly weird, or failed, examples of another medium altogether (13). Wolk notes that the
most useful term he has found to describe comics in relation to other media is Samuel R.
Delaneys concept of the paraliterary: comics are sort of literary (14). However, he notes
that while sharing some formal elements (words, visuals) with other media, comics put them
together in a unique way, one that cannot be described only with borrowed language.
Following Sabin and Wolks models, I would like to avoid defining necessary or essential
features that make certain texts comics while developing strategies for reading that take into
account the standard formal features or frequently used conventions of these texts. I also want to
lay out very clearly which kinds of texts I am talking about. Wolks definition of art comics
provides a useful starting point. The texts I will be discussing are all the works of single
author/artists, rather than collaborative efforts between writers, illustrators, and a whole host of
other contributors. They all also for the most part avoid genre; none are strictly superhero tales,
romances, or mysteries, but there are instances where they employ certain generic conventions
(particularly onomatopoeic words such as whoosh and pow often associated with superhero
comics). I have also chosen to refer to the texts I am analyzing as graphic novels rather than
comics, because I feel it conveys concisely if not entire precisely the idea that these texts are
sustained stories (rather than one-panel cartoons or newspaper strips) and envisioned as bodies of

29
work in and of themselves, rather than contributions to a broader universe of established
characters (such as the Marvel Universe or Buffyverse).
Given the theoretical focus on inbetween/border/third spaces as the most productive for
creating non-dichotomous alternative representations, I want to analyze graphic novels as a
unique medium, carefully examining the relationship between text and picture and how the text,
image, and format work together or against one another to create these representations. In order
to do this kind of analysis, I have to synthesize a praxis from various sources and approaches to
formally analyzing the graphic novel.
Although I find Scott McClouds definitional project problematic in that he focuses on
legitimizing comics as following on from specific traditions of high art, McClouds project
of analyzing dimensions along which comics can create a revolution in pop culture provides
valuable insight into the current state of the comics industry and what would need to happen in
order for comics to reach their potential as modes of alternative representation. In Reinventing
Comics, McCloud describes the comics boom of 1984-1994, during which time
underground/adult, superhero, and other genres of comics were at their peak of popularity, as a
failed revolution, which collapsed both because of a decline in economic conditions as well as
the resistance of the comics industry to opening up comics to a wider range of creator
perspective and audience demographics. He explains that the potential of that idea [the comics
medium] is limitless, but perpetually obscured by its limited application in popular culture
[image: generic superheroes fighting] (1). He goes on to describe comics as a minority form
that is vital to diversifying our perceptions of our world. The best way to understand the nature
of our environment is to return to it from as many vantage points as possible triangulating its
shape from without. To be a part of that process, comics need to appeal to basic human needs

30
and desires offering a view of the world worth returning to (19). In order for comics to reach
their full potential as a medium that presents alternative representations, McCloud proposes nine
unfinished tasks, or revolutions, that must be fulfilled, including gender balance, minority
representation, diversity of genre, digital production, and digital delivery (22). Among his
proposed revolutions, these few are most interesting for my project, as the texts I analyze engage
all of these various issues.
Fig. 2.1: McClouds depiction of comics function. (McCloud22)

As for the formal textual elements of comics that engender the possibility for alternative
representation, Aimee Bender, in her essay Flat and Glad, addresses the subconscious,
psychological effect of the type of text and image used in comics, as well as the format. She
begins by examining the idea that the flatter visual representations and simpler text of comics,
as opposed to lush verbal descriptions or more realistic art styles, allows the audience to absorb
and understand a multitude of a certain characters traits more quickly and thoroughly. Bender
suggests that theres an immediacy to iconic words and pictures the plain word allows the
reader to digest an image with a different part of the mind; when we read swiftly, we sidestep the

31
ultra-aware reader, jumping more directly from image to unconscious (47). She also describes
the physical difference in the process of reading a novel (for example) and a comic, noting that
when reading a text-only work, the eye tends to wander and read ahead, not following the
schematic the author has laid out. In contrast, comics take this reading to a more primal level
we graze from a picture, down, to the side, up the diagonal, merging imagery and words
effortlessly (48). Because the eye can quickly follow the storyline and absorb the images and
text together, the content bypasses the audiences tendency to reconstruct narratives in ways
more convenient for the way they want to read the story, and helps the author to get across their
story more intact.
Fig. 2.2: A
schematic illustration to show to passage of the readers eye over a panel from a romance comic. Reproduced from
research published in the Journal of Popular Cutlure, no. 19, 1986. Copyright Lawrence Abbot. (Sabin 6)

Ronald Schmitt, in his essay Deconstructive Comics, pushes the case that comics are read
and processed in a different way than texts with a preponderance of written words even further
than Bender does. He takes on the argument of Fredric Wertham, the social psychologist whose
alarmist Seduction of the Innocent claimed that comics were deteriorating childrens morality as
well as their levels of literacy and led to the forming of the Comics Code of America, which kept
any comics with potentially objectionable themes (such as references to drugs, non-cartoon
violence, homosexuality, the supernatural, and a host of other topics) out of comic book stores

32
and newsstands for several decades. Wertham argues that the kind of picture reading [involved
in reading comics] is not actually a form of reading, nor is it a pre-stage of real reading. It is an
evasion of reading and almost its opposite (Schmitt 157). Schmitt agrees with Wertham on the
point that reading comics is not a step towards or the same as reading books, and also agrees that
comics are subversive; however, he notes that what comics subvert is the traditional hierarchy of
literacies that privileges being able to read the printed word as the utmost form of intelligence
and the only kind of literacy that is valued (153). Referencing influential media and literacy
scholar Marshall McLuhan, Schmitt compares the denigration of comics by moral authorities
and conservative educators to the disdain of woodblock print Bibles for the poor by the
intellectual religious elite because they translated knowledge into a form that uneducated
people could understand, and thus undermined the power of the clergy and other learned
theologians (154). Schmitt contends that comics layout the blending of text and image, the
destabilizing of time and space through panels and borders have a deconstructive effect on
the traditional mode of the signifier: the linear, print-block text (153). He notes both the
formal aesthetic and thematic subversive nature of comics, suggesting that the medium has used
its marginality to celebrate that which is unacceptable in serious discourse (155). In this way,
the status of comics as a formal Other a medium which has been at the borders of high art
and mass culture grant them a possibility for moving beyond the tendency of pop culture to
either fall lockstep into repressive patterns or [react] to the repressive status quo with equal
vehemence, and perhaps, paranoia (155). Schmitt illustrates this potential by relating the formal
approach of comics to the Derridean concept of diffrance, or the relational production of textual
meaning:

33
Since it is impossible to see both pictures and words simultaneously, the
presence of one necessitates the absence of the other, creating a continual,
unresolvable of difference between the two textual forms. In addition,
signification and stable meaning is continually deferred as the eye, instead of
scanning left to right in even, linear patterns, jumps between words and pictures,
spiraling, zig-zagging, and often interrupting the entire process to re-scan the
information in a new way. (157-158).
For Schmitt, the physiological process of reading comics necessitated by their format is
intrinsically subversive, as it decenters hegemonic cultural ideas around what constitutes
reading, literacy, and intelligence.
In a chapter from her book The Protestant Ethnic, Rey Chow illustrates the subversive
use of stereotype and text working against image as methods used in a Hong Kong comic strip
(written by a Western expatriate) to subvert hegemonic representations. Chow reads the comics
she discusses as the production of an iconography that is simultaneously the production of
iconoclasm, and sees their ultimate potential as sites of sacrilege, of a profane smashing of the
stereotypical, hypocritical sanctifications of politics and human relations that is the daily fare of
the (writing that is the) political state (84). One useful example is a comic panel that reads as
follows: Ying Man (n.) English: once the living language of Shakespeare; now being
bludgeoned to death by Japanese garment manufacturers (Chow fig. 6). The image below this
text shows a young, hip Hong Kong man wearing a t-shirt with indecipherable English phrases
on it, staring quizzically at an older white man, who is scratching his head in an attempt to read
the shirt. Chow describes how a surface reading, one that reads picture as affirming text,
produces a Western racist mockery of Asians misuse of English, a phenomenon often referred to

34
as Engrish, which the idea that Westerners believe Chinese and other Asian languages to be
pictographic, must related from a fundamental misunderstanding that English is not ideographic.
The reference to Shakespeare in this reading is interpreted as a lament to fate of English, which
in the hands of Asians has become bastardized (90-91). However, Chow points at that assuming
text and picture are complementary leads the reader to ignore a critical component of the image:
the older white man is wearing a shirt that features a completely nonsense Chinese character,
which is a random assemblage of lines. Chow points out that reading image against text
provides us with a subversion of stereotype: Asian commodification of the English language has
a parallel, and in fact even older and more sinister, phenomenon in Western orientalism and the
idea that Asian languages (and thus people) are essentially different (91).
Chows analysis points to both the subversive potential of juxtaposing text and image and
utilizing stereotype (as Trinh theorizes, to create ever-changing representations that cannot be
co-opted) as well as the possibility for misinterpretation because audiences are not used to
reading third texts like comics. Because, as Bender suggests, the audience is interpreting and
absorbing the comic much faster and with less mediation than other media, there exists the
potential for uncritical reading when audiences feel they have gotten the point very quickly,
and neglect subtle, deliberate inconsistencies between text and image. Chows examples point
out the advantages as well as dangers of subversive/alternative texts.
Wendy Wong and Lisa Cuklanz also address the juxtaposition of word and image in their
textual analysis of Moms Drawer at the Bottom, the first feminist comic in Hong Kong,
noting how author Lau Lee-lee uses simple text and more controversial images to get across
her messages about the societal double standards for men and women (79); again, the strategy of
pitting text against image emerges as a way to undermine dichotomous assumptions about

35
gender and sexuality, with simple, direct dialogue and drawings allowing the audience to absorb
the message without feeling directly provoked (Wong and Cuklanz, like Chow, note the subtlety
of the critical messages), and thus taking in the alternative representations instead of rejecting
them outright. They also lay out four criteria that generally define feminist works: attack
traditional gender roles, expose the realities of discrimination under patriarchy, draw on the
shared experience of women, and begin to delineate a vision of change (78). These criteria,
employed by Wong and Cuklanz to analyze works along a feminist dimension, can also be
applied to representing and providing models for negotiating other forms of oppression, such as
racism, classism, and homophobia. A text that performs all of these functions (attacking
stereotypes and traditional roles, exposing realities of discrimination, drawing on shared
experience, and delineating a vision of change) along multiple dimensions suggests the
possibility of alternative representation because not only subverts dichotomies present in
hegemonic constructions of various elements of identity, but also does not subscribe to the
hierarchy of oppressions model that enforces boundaries between elements of identity (race is
more important than sexual orientation, gender is more important than class, etc.). While these
strategies need not strictly apply to graphic novels, Wong and Cuklanzs suggestion of them as
standard elements for comics addressing gender and mobilization of these criteria in their
analysis of Moms Drawer at the Bottom provides an important entry point into the process of
looking at thematic and formal elements of graphic novels in conjunction with one another.
I have chosen to focus my analysis around this particular group of standard elements
because they speak to the potential of graphic novels as a medium for alternative representation.
These elements provide a concrete method of applying the principles and practices of differential
consciousness to the analysis of graphic novels as a unique medium. Non-normative processes

36
of reading (flatness and levels of interpretation, disruption of linear reading and notions of
literacy), spatiotemporal play, stereotype, iconography, repetition, fluid/constructed identity in
relation to social constraints, and alternative visions of the future all inform possible alternative
representations in the comic medium. To this list of standard elements I would also add the
incorporation of non-Western forms of spiritual knowledge and practice. As the epigraph from
Moore points out, the comic medium invites readers to suspend disbelief in weird or
supernatural occurrences. Various forms of magic, including telepathy, prophetic visions, and
intuition (for example, the Spidey-sense that alerts Spiderman to potential danger), are the
norm among superhero and mystery comics, and have been incorporated into exaggerated
depictions of reality found in non-genre comics as well. If, as Schmitts argument in particular
suggests, the conventions of the comic medium interrupt normative ideas of knowledge and
intelligence, indigenous or syncretic spiritual practices, which Anzalda suggests can empower
women of color,
8
can also be employed in constructing characters identities and ways of being.
The following chapter is a close examination of the usage of these standard elements in three
very different graphic novels.
I have not made restrictions based on the availability or mainstream popularity of the
texts, nor on the countries of origin, languages, or authorial backgrounds of the texts. I am
interested in texts which thematically deal with Chicana/Latina and Asian American womens
gender and sexuality, and thus have not precluded texts by authors who do not self-identify as a
member of those groups. Love and Rockets Flies on the Ceiling collection is written by Jaime
Hernandez, a Chicano from Oxnard, California, and is in English with occasional Spanish
interjections, and is in print and available for purchase online and at many comic book stores;

8
See Anzaldas chapter La Herencia de Coatlicue/The Coatlicue State for a discussion on the interactions
between indigenous and Western spiritual traditions, and the potential for indigenous beliefs as a source of strength
for marginalized peoples (Borderlands/La Frontera 63-73).

37
Sexile/Sexilio is fully bilingual (reading in English in one direction and Spanish if you flip the
book over), written by a Chicano currently residing in Oakland, and is available for free on the
Internet as an educational tool; One! Hundred! Demons! author Lynda Barry is a mixed Filipina
American from Seattle who uses mainly English with Tagalog interjections whose books are in
print and available for purchase online and in most major bookstores as well as comic book
stores.
I encountered the graphic novels that I selected for this project in very different
circumstances. Jaime Cortezs Sexile/Sexilio was the text that inspired me to start this project. It
was one of the texts for a class I took, The Body in Chicana/o Cultural Representation, and I was
immediately struck by how the illustrations could say so much that text alone did not convey,
particularly when it came to depicting a body and identity that were in flux throughout the story.
Also intriguing to me was the blend of humor and sensitivity that was employed in telling the
story; what could have been a tragic and depressing story had it been told heavy-handedly
became a moving and inspiring tale when infused with interviewee Adela Vasquezs own
tongue-in-cheek narrative style. I chose to focus my final paper for that class on how Cortez
employed or subverted traditional themes around water and its transformative role as he
sampled visual elements from Frida Kahlo and woodblock print artist Yoshitoshi Tsukioka.
This paper provided the initial idea to do a thesis around graphic novels and how they play with
and/or appropriate mainstream symbolic imagery.
I found Love and Rockets via the internet, when I was browsing selections of graphic
novels from independent/alternative publishers, looking specifically for works with LGBT-
related content. I was immediately struck by Jaime Hernandezs art style and his colorful cast of
characters, especially strong, cool Chicana punk rockers Maggie and Hopey. The stories were an

38
interesting mixture of anti-genre slice of life realism and comic book conventions (including
sound effects, exaggerated expressions, and occasional appearances by superheroes), and the
length of the series allowed for the characters to grow and change, a rarity in storytelling media,
where many characters are frozen in time or age much more slowly than the audience. As with
Sexile/Sexilio, I was struck by the fluidity of the characters identities and appearances, and
appreciated the mix of sensitivity and humor with which topics such as body image, sexual
orientation and racial/ethnic identity and race relations were approached. Like Sexile/Sexilio,
Hernandezs stories also play with different kinds of icons, subverting and reappropriating some
symbols, and re-valuing others. Diving into the world of the Locas from Love and Rockets
further cemented my desire to pursue analyzing how the comic medium could contribute to
realistic, relatable representations of women of color.
I first encountered One! Hundred! Demons! in a bookstore while browsing for graphic
novels, and was intrigued by the title. I was initially put off by the colorful, cartoonish style of
Lynda Barrys stories, as I was looking for texts that dealt with serious issues. However, upon
learning that many of Barrys works engaged issues of mixed race and struggles with femininity,
I went back to One! Hundred! Demons!, and found again the technique of using humor in a
conscious way to approach difficult and/or painful subjects and create a space for self-reflection
and healing. The dialogue that I found myself observing between these three texts became the
foundation for my project, as I sought to understand how these stories that come from very
different backgrounds all work to present portrayals of Chicana/Latina and Asian American
women that are sensitive, realistic, and not inscribed in traditional dichotomous identity
categories.



39
Chapter 3
Three Models for Alternative Representation

In a sexist, racist nation, only political and social underdogs can be the real heroes and heroines.
- Kathy Acker, in Paul Gravetts Graphic Novels: Everything You Need to Know (2005).

While diverging on many elements of style and format, these texts all share certain
standard elements -- use of panels, spatial/temporal play, breaking the fourth wall, incongruity of
image and text, and other features -- that allow for the development of particular strategies for
textual analysis that illuminate the similarities and differences between the texts and their
potential as modes of alternative representation. Each of the works examined in this chapter
employs these elements in a variety of ways to construct representations that subvert
dichotomous ideas of identity while also demonstrating the role that sociocultural forces
(hegemonic and otherwise) play in the process of identity formation for Chicana/Latina and
Asian American women. Love and Rockets sees characters negotiate the influence of dominant
religious traditions as well as subcultural influences on gender expression, sexuality, and
racial/ethnic identification; Sexile/Sexilio follows a Cuban refugee as she navigates radically
different social locations and cultural norms, as well as a transitioning gender identity; One!
Hundred! Demons! explores the intersections of gender, class, and race through the experiences
of a young mixed-race Filipina woman. The varied authorial and illustrational styles and
specific settings used by the creators of these graphic novels demonstrate the various techniques
that can be employed in the comic medium toward creating representations that resist binaries
and yet also demonstrate the constraints produced by normativizing forces with which
Chicana/Latina and Asian American women must contend.


40

Fig. 3.1: The many faces of Maggie , from Love and Rockets II No. 1 in 2001.

Love and Rockets: Flies on the Ceiling
First published in 1982, Love and Rockets is perhaps the most successful of the comics to
come out of the alternative comics movement of the 1980s. Taking inspiration from the
underground comix of the 1960s and 70s (such as those by R. Crumb and Justin Green) as well
as classic superhero comics by major publishing houses Marvel and DC, brothers Jaime and
Gilbert Hernandez (with occasional contributions by their older brother Mario) created their own
serialized comic, published by alternative press Fantagraphics. Love and Rockets contains short
stories as well as plot lines that are drawn out over multiple issues. Each story is written and
illustrated by one of the brothers, and throughout the serialization of the original Love and
Rockets (from 1982-1996), each brother developed his own unique universe of characters and

41
settings. After the original serialized run of Love and Rockets ended in 1996, demand for the
stories was so great that the Hernandez brothers, collectively known as Los Bros. Hernandez,
restarted the series in 2001 (Artist Bio Los Bros. Hernandez 1). As of 2008, Love and
Rockets has abandoned the serialized format and new stories are printing exclusively in the trade
paperback (graphic novel) format. The original serialized run has been collected into trade
paperbacks as well to facilitate collecting and getting into the series for newer fans. The first
collected volume of Love and Rockets stories, entitled Music for Mechanics, is currently in its
fifth printing, and has sold more than 35,000 copies a figure that is, according to
[Fantagraphics editor Gary] Groth, exceptional for an alternative comics collection (Artze 43).
The popularity of Love and Rockets is not limited to alternative comics publications and
fans. In 1997, Gilbert Hernandez created a miniseries for Dark Horse Comics, whose other
publications include best-selling comic series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hellboy, and Sin City;
Jaime Hernandez serialized a story about his Love and Rockets character Maggie Chascarillo for
the New York Times Funny Pages section in 2006. Comics author Alan Moore, whose
Watchmen made Time Magazines 2005 All-Time 100 Novels list, described Jaime as one of
the twentieth century's most significant comics creators at the peak of his form, with every line a
wedding of classicism and cool (Reynolds 1). The continuing popularity of and critical acclaim
for Love and Rockets makes it a significant influence not only in the comics industry, but also in
the realm of Chicano/Latino popular culture and media.
Jaime Hernandezs stories in particular focus on a Chicana/o experience; his half of the
Love and Rockets universe focuses on the experiences of a diverse group of
friends/acquaintances/rivals in the majority-Latino barrio of Huerta, California. Huerta is most
often referred to as Hoppers or Hoppers 13 by its residents, and thus the stories involving

42
these characters are often referred to as the Hoppers 13 side of Love and Rockets. While the
stories focus on many different characters, the two central characters, to whose experiences most
of the other characters are related, are Margarita Maggie Chascarillo and Esperanza Leticia
Hopey Glass. These two women are deemed locas crazy women by many of the other
characters; their popularity with fans has resulted in Jaimes stories also being called the Locas
stories (all of his stories that focus on Maggie and Hopey have been collected into one hardcover
volume, appropriately titled Locas: The Maggie and Hopey Stories). This section will focus on
the Locas or Hopper 13 side of the Love and Rockets universe, examining the ways in which
Chicana womens gender performance and sexuality are constructed and read by the stories
characters as well as the audience.
The stories in this section appear in the trade paperback collection entitled Flies on the
Ceiling: A Love and Rockets Collection. Flies on the Ceiling is the ninth volume of this
chronologically-ordered printing (later reprints sorted the stories by author and character focus);
all the stories in this volume are from 1988. I have chosen to focus on two stories from this
collection: Flies on the Ceiling and Tear it Up, Terry Downe. Since much of the scholarship
on the Jaime Hernandez side of Love and Rockets has focused on fan and critical favorites
Maggie and Hopey, I have chosen stories that focus on other recurring female characters in the
Locas stories as well as on Hopey and Maggie. Each of these stories deals with racial/ethnic,
gender, and sexual identity formation, and the coming into identity and social consciousness of
Chicana/Latina women. Iconography, repetition and spatiotemporal play in particular are
employed in communicating the influence of social constraints (whether they be dominant or
subcultural ideologies) and different knowledge traditions on these womens identity
development.

43
The first story in this collection, Flies on the Ceiling, tells the tale of what happened to
former gang leader, professor, and author Isabel Ortiz Ruebens during her time in Mexico. From
previous volumes, the audience is aware that something terrible befell Isabel while she was
away in Mexico writing her book, and that this event is what turned Isabel into an eccentric
recluse. The first page of the story summarizes the circumstances that led Isabel to leave home
and hide out in Mexico through a sequence of image panels. These panels tell the story of her
departure chronologically, and without any text: a shattered wedding photo represents her
divorce; a protest outside a Planned Parenthood clinic signifies her decision to have an abortion
after her divorce; a cartoonish scene of Isabel with steam coming from her head yelling at an
equally perturbed man (who sits in front of a plaque reading Hogar Dulce Hogar
9
) reveals her
falling-out with her father; interspersed close-ups of Isabels sweating, crying face and her
typewriter show her anxiety over a lack of progress on her book. The last panel, a close-up of
bandaged wrists reaching out from a hospital bed, illustrates the culmination of these misfortunes
and frustrations: a suicide attempt that provides the catalyst for Isabels departure to Mexico (1).

9
Home Sweet Home

44

Fig. 3.2: A visual summary of Isabels past. (Hernandez 1)
This sequence demonstrates the use of panel sequences and gutters (the white spaces between
panels) in playing with traditional flows of space and time; the audience understands that an
indeterminate amount of time passes between each panel because of the lack of continuity in the
settings of the flashback scenes. The panels of Isabel getting frustrated and beginning to cry
seem to take place one after the other, which gives the impression that the panels with non-
continuous settings are flashbacks or haunting memories. This introductory sequence disrupts
traditional ideas of recaps and what kind of information should be available to the audience by
eliminating dialogue and forcing readers to either think back to earlier volumes of the story (for
readers who have been following the series) or interpret the discontinuous scenes. It is not
necessarily important to know the precise details of Isabels past (e.g., that her ex-husband was
her graduate adviser, that she is trying to write an academic study) to understand the events that
happen while she is in Mexico; a rough idea of the kinds of traumas she has been through

45
suffices to understand why she is haunted by her past. As Ronald Schmitts argument about
deconstructive comics suggests, this vagueness and discontinuity reflects the ability of graphic
novels to decenter audiences from normative notions of knowledge and facts, and also recalls
Trinhs call to challenge the ideals of clarity and logic. The seemingly illogical introduction to
the story and progression of events encourages readers to embrace ambiguity and intuit the
psychic state of the character and how the plot will progress. From the very beginning of the
story, the audience is prepared to interpret symbols and small details in order to figure out what
is going on with Isabel, putting them in a similar position to Isabel herself as they navigate the
strange events that unfold. The fact/fiction and reader/author/character binaries are ruptured,
opening a space, as Rishma Dunlop suggests, for identification between the reader and the
characters (the other within self) to emerge (Dunlop 57).
Immediately after the title page, which shows Isabel standing next to a shadowy, Satan-
like figure (the first indication of haunting the reader receives), the story cuts to a scene of Isabel
wandering down a street with a suitcase in hand. The setting is indicated to be Mexico by the
title page, which subtitles the story The Story of Isabel in Mexico (2). Aside from this textual
cue, the reader may infer Mexico as the setting from the architecture and other details of the
street: chicken footprints in the dust, low stone walls in front of the houses, a man wearing a
Panama hat (3). These subtle, background details contribute to an understanding of the story;
images of fiestas, marketplaces, and lucha libre
10
events connote a pleasant, small-town
atmosphere inconsistent with U.S.-based media portrayals of Mexico as crowded, destitute, and
dangerous, and thus contribute a subversive tone to the story. This is not a tale of corruption and

10
Mexican professional wrestling

46
ruination of Americans in a dangerous Mexico (a story not uncommon in comics
11
). The
Mexican setting is also important in establishing an understanding of the religious iconography
and allusions that are integral to the story. After several pages of Isabel living happily with a
single father and his young son in Mexico for an indeterminate amount of time, Isabel sees a
strange man on a bridge whose height seems to grow as she looks at him (7). She interprets this
encounter as a bad omen; in the first panel of the next page, she whispers to herself, Forgive me
darling, but hes found me and I cant risk getting you and Beto involved as she packs a
suitcase (8). As she sits contemplating this strange encounter and its meaning, a crucifix falls off
of the wall next to her and lands standing upside-down on the floor. In the setting of Mexico, a
highly Catholic-influenced country, and as a Chicana woman raised in the Mexican Catholic
tradition, Isabel interprets this event as a sure sign of evil forces at work, crying Oh God. Why
me? (8). With a Catholic iconographic tradition established, the audience is led to interpret this
bad omen as a manifestation of Isabels guilt over her many sins, as she reasons to herself,
Im not the first person that ever got a divorceor an abortionor attempted suicide (8).
However, a voice interrupts Isabels thoughts from a crack in the wall, explaining that it is not
her sins but [her] guilt that results in her being haunted (8). Isabel argues for a while with the
voice, identifying him as a demon (she calls him Mr. Satanico) and insisting that he show
himself to her. Despite invoking the idea of Catholic guilt for her sins, Isabel insists that she is
not afraid of the demon, and defies his threat to appear to her as [her] own baby, glaring at a
suspicious shadow in a staircase and insulting a lucha libre promoter dressed as Satan who she
believes is an attempt to scare her (9). She demonstrates a knowledge of Catholic religious
mores and traditions, but at the same time mounts an active resistance toward discourses of guilt

11
A recent example of this trope is the critically acclaimed 2006 graphic novel La Perdida by Jessica Abel, which
tells the story of a half-Mexican student who goes to Mexico in search of her roots, and becomes embroiled in a
narco-mafia scheme.

47
and fear associated with Catholicism and in particular good femininity as defined by the
Mexican Catholic tradition, which regards any expression of female sexuality as dangerous and
negative (as Emma Prez describes in her reading of the Delgadina story).
The last panel of page 9 shows Isabel sitting at a desk writing a letter to her mother. She
is dressed in a brassiere and skirt, and a tattoo is visible on her right upper arm. The tattoo shows
a spider with the word Widows inscribed above it and Hoppers 13 below it, and is a
reference to Isabels past as a gang member; earlier volumes of Love and Rockets explain that
Isabel founded a Chicana gang in Hoppers called the Widows, who were feared by many of the
local residents, including male gangsters. Even without having read this particular detail,
audiences may identify the tattoo as being gang-related because of the characters hailing from a
working-class Chicano barrio, where many of the characters appear on the covers of the comics
dressed in a typical cholo/pachuco
12
style. The tattoo complicates the readers understanding of
Isabel and her background; despite having left the gang lifestyle and the barrio to pursue college
and graduate studies, she carries with her always a reminder of where she comes from and her
pre-divorce (and all the traumas that followed it) past. Although she generally covers it, the
moments in which Isabel shows her tattoo are accompanied by bold and decisive actions; in the
panel on page 9, Isabel writes a letter to her mother explaining that shell come home when you
[her mother] get rid of the vermin (the vermin being a reference to her father). When Isabel
finally decides to leave Mexico, she is nude, with her tattoo and her newly-long hair being the
only markers of identity on her body (12).
The sequence between the letter-writing scene and the decision to return home contains
the central events of the story, a surreal and nightmarish chain of experiences that convince
Isabel to go back to Hoppers and deal with the demons (whether literal or figurative) that haunt

12
A style associated with Mexican American gangsters

48
her. Gutters and background settings again play an important role in interpreting the various
scenes of this sequence. After signing the letter to her mother, a dark shadow begins to obscure
more and more of Isabels body (her tattoo is covered immediately) until she decides to take
back her promise to visit her mother. She begins to sweat, laugh, and then cough uncontrollably,
and the settings start to shift dramatically between panels. Between the third and fourth panels
of the page she is suddenly wearing her shirt again (10). She shifts to a bathroom setting, where
she vomits lizards into a toilet bowl; she is then out on the street with her suitcase, where she
collapses. A devils face like the one on the title page appears, and then we see Isabel and
another child playing a wedding or church game in a bedroom. The three panels of the children
playing bring the readers attention back to the religious imagery employed earlier in the story;
the crucifix that fell off of Isabels wall is on a dresser in the room, as is a statue of the Virgin
Mary. When the children open the top drawer of the dresser, the severed head of a crucified
Christ stares up at them (11).

49

Fig. 3.3: Isabel moving through a nightmarish space and time. (Hernandez 11)
The innocence of the playing children, who imitate a religious wedding ceremony with
veils and hands clasped in a prayer position, is disrupted by the graphic imagery of the severed
head. The presence of Christ simultaneously as a cherished emblem of righteousness (the
crucifix on the desk) and as a terrifying secret (the head in the drawer) disrupts the idea of
religion as a beneficial presence in Isabels life, and highlights the ways in which Catholicism
and other religious traditions construct ideals of femininity. Isabel cannot fit the model of La
Virgen, the good woman, whom she desires to emulate as a child (her veil and the position of
her hands mimic those of the statue on the dresser) because of her sins of divorce, abortion,
and attempted suicide, and thus the childhood fantasy of being a model woman ends. After the
discovery of Christs severed head, time leaps forward again, and she finds herself waking up in

50
labor, with two crone-like midwives assisting her (11-12). Isabel gives birth to a shriveled,
lifeless creature, and throws her head back in grief. It appears that she is doomed to be forever
haunted by her past actions, which are tied to themes of ideal femininity as prescribed by the
Mexican Catholic tradition.
Despite being violently shuffled back and forth in time and place, Isabel awakens from
her nightmare with a renewed sense of purpose; her newly-long hair suggests that she has been
outside of the normal spatiotemporal flow for quite some time and signals a change in her
attitude as well (12). She rises from her bed, dresses, and walks out the door with her suitcase to
reunite with her lover and his son, only to quickly realize that things are not as they were before,
and she must move on. She packs her bag again and goes to leave, explaining to her lover, I
was wrong. Its not over. It never is (14). Before she leaves to confront her past, however, she
is pulled toward a particular woman she sees dancing at a fiesta. She walks toward the woman
with an angry look on her face, interrupting the dance to confront her. For six panels, the reader
is left in the dark as to why Isabel needs to speak with this stranger, attributing the event perhaps
to Isabels post-Mexico-incident status as unstable and obsessed with the occult (Love and
Rockets Book 22: Ghost of Hoppers 1). However, the second panel on page 15 reveals that the
dancing womans footprints are those of a chicken, with the image of chicken tracks having
recurred throughout the story from the third page (first page after the title page).


51

Fig. 3.4: Isabel confronts the mysterious woman. (Hernandez 15)
Isabel is not crazy, but rather has awakened from her nightmare with a strong intuition. This
embodied knowledge is interpreted as occultism by characters and readers primed to look from a
Catholic vantage point by the religious iconography employed in the text; however, this panel
subverts that reading, again drawing attention to the role of religion in constructing femininity
and the limitations on female power enforced by the Catholic tradition. The woman tells Isabel,
Youre not afraid anymore, which gives Isabel the courage to return home and face that which
is haunting her. She acknowledges how hard this act will be, telling her lover that hell [the
haunting spirit] be waiting for me in the States. I may turn up as flies on your ceiling, he
said. She then gives a chuckle and leaves for good (15). Although she now seems
withdrawn and crazy, she is no longer afraid to reclaim her home as her own. Rey Chows
example of leading the audience to misread and then read again through the use of icons and
stereotypes is germane to my analysis: the use of Catholic imagery in the story sets up the
audience to expect a certain model of guilt and repentance as the means to salvation, but Isabel
chooses a different mode of establishing her identity and overcoming her fears. The subversion
of Catholic iconography in Isabels nightmare sequence, and the intuitive knowledge of non-
traditional signs (like the chicken tracks) present an alternative path toward coming into
consciousness for Chicana/Latina women; Isabel draws strength not from the Catholic tradition

52
that represses her embodied knowledge and manifests as frightening images and malevolent
spirits, but rather follows her own perceptions. She regains access to a home that had been
denied her by sociocultural and religious norms, defeating the homophobia/fear of going
home that Gloria Anzalda explains is a result of marginalization (19).
Another of the stories from this volume, Tear it Up, Terry Downe, focuses on the
adolescence of Terry Downe, Hopeys ex-girlfriend, and in particular Terrys influence on
Hopeys identity formation. Tear it Up, Terry Downe also employs symbol and stereotype to
illustrate the relationship between identity and social processes; although Catholic iconography
is employed in one scene, the majority of images utilized in this story are subcultural, coming
from the Chicana/o punk scene that many of the Locas characters associate with. The use of
Chicana/o punk style by Terry and Hopey exemplifies the constraints placed on identity
formation not only by hegemonic ideals (as Flies on the Ceiling does), but also by oppositional
stances. The story begins with a man giving his opinion on Terry: Terry? Well, shes great.
Shes beautiful, shes talented, shes very intelligentand if she ever flicks another cigarette at
me, I swear Ill bust her fucking face (21). The reader is set up to anticipate a confident, rude
bad girl; however, the story begins with a clean-cut, timid teenage Terry being introduced by
an ex-boyfriend, Stevie TV, to Chicano drug dealer Del Chimney (real name: Porfirio Diaz
Rubinski), whom her ex assures her will take care of [her] now. In the next panel, three bored-
looking individuals are reclining on a bed (one is injecting drugs) while a voice from the other
room (identified by the drug user as Del) yells ::huff huff huff:: Laugh at me! Do something,
bitch! Youre drivin me nuts! ::huff huff huff::
13
(21). Without explicitly being shown what is
occurring, the reader understands that Del is forcing Terry to have sex with him in exchange for

13
Reproducing sound effects from comic books is difficult in a text-only format; I have chosen to use two colons
:: as the convention to represent words that originally appear as sound effects.

53
allowing her to stay at his house. This scene cuts off at the next panel, with a woman giving her
opinion of Terry; the abrupt ending of this flashback indicates that this event will be a formative
one for Terry as well as one that she and the narrators of the story do not wish to dwell on.

Fig. 3.5: Terry meets Del and the other Chicano punks for the first time. (Hernandez 21)
The story skips to Terrys high school years, where she is introduced as a new student in
Hopeys class. Terrys look has changed dramatically her hair is short, spiky, and
asymmetrical, and she wears a mens fedora hat and drainpipe jeans. Although her style is
ridiculed by a whispered voice from the class (Looks like she was run over by a damn lawn
mower), she maintains a cold expression and forward-looking gaze. In contrast, a teenage
Hopey (who is nearly unrecognizable to readers used to Hopeys punk persona) bites her lip and
looks nervously out of the corner of her eye at Terry; for the next several panels, Hopey glances
surreptitiously at Terry during various classes, simultaneously intimidated by and attracted to
Terrys rebellious behavior.
After a few more panels in which Hopey inquires about Terrys lifestyle, Terry takes a
visibly nervous Hopey to Del Chimneys house, in a scene that repeats exactly the exchange
between Terry and Stevie TV several years before. Hopey looks around anxiously, asking Terry,
What are we doing here? I hate Mexicans, to which Terry replies Thats something youre
going to have to get over right away (22). In the span of only a few years, Terry has molded

54
her own identity to fit in with the style of the Chicana/o punk crowd she hangs around with;
Hopey, who as an adult epitomizes the fashion and attitude of Southern California Chicana/o
punks, feels threatened by the gangsters and punks because of her mixed heritage. This subtle
yet significant repetition of the scene from Terrys past illustrates the ways in which social
location plays a role in the process of identity formation; the reader knows from previous stories
(even within the same volume, for new readers) that Hopey embodies a Chicana cultural and
political attitude despite not being of Mexican descent. The difference in these scenes is slight,
but recalls Trinhs idea of repetition subverting stereotype, as it prevents the reader from fixing
Terry and Hopey into categories based on their initial dislike of a specific racial group. Terry is
not engaging in the simple kind of appropriation that Trinh describes in employing a Chicana
punk style, as she does not separate it from the Chicana punks themselves, but maintains a
continued association with them and passes the style on to Hopey (who is identified as Chicana
in her social context) and Maggie (who fits the classic definition of Chicana as a person of
Mexican descent born in the United States). Hopey also is not a Chicana punk just by virtue of
living in a Chicano-majority town and being identified as Chicana; rather, she claims a Chicana
punk identity as a means of fitting in with a group that respects her and in which she can hold a
modicum of power.
The panel following Hopeys confession that she hates Mexicans continues the theme
of racial/ethnic fluidity and confusion, as Del Chimney caresses Hopeys hair and tells her that
he loves Mexicans (23). Hopey replies that she is not Mexican, but rather Colombian and
Scottish, but Del seems to disregard this statement in favor of interpreting Hopeys ethnic
background to suit his personal fetishes; it does not matter that Hopey is Colombian and Scottish
rather than Mexican/Chicana because in the context of a majority-Latino town, she looks like the

55
Chicana/o residents, and is identified as one of them when she is in a group with them. Hopey is
rescued from Dels advances by a knife-wielding Terry, who threatens Del with castration and
then threatens Hopey as well, screaming (with exaggerated, serrated teeth), If I ever hear that
youve been with someone else, I swear Ill (23). In addition to racial identity, Hopeys
sexual identity is also formed in relation to her interactions with Terry. By threatening her with
physical violence if she sleeps with another person, Terry effectively inscribes Hopeys identity
as lesbian; since she will only be seen with a woman, Hopey is identified as lesbian by others as
well, and adopts a traditionally butch style of hair and clothing.
Two panels after Terrys threat, the reader sees Hopey, wearing a torn denim vest over a
leather jacket and with her head mostly shaved, threatening Terry (whose look has softened
considerably) with the same words: If I ever hear that youve been with someone else, I swear
Ill. Hopey mobilizes a butch lesbian look in order to intimidate those who bullied her in
school and control her relationships. She and Terry beat up Hopeys former friend Julie Wree,
and Hopey uses her bold personality to ingratiate herself with the shy Maggie, much to Terrys
annoyance --Terry imagines an atomic explosion hitting Maggie, Maggie being jabbed with a
giant syringe, and a tuxedo-wearing Hopey entertaining Terry (wearing a formal dress) at a fancy
dinner (23-24). Both Terry and Hopeys gender expression changes dramatically from their first
meeting in high school to the present day (presumably the time frame at the end of the story).
As Terry ages, her look becomes more normatively feminine and less influenced by Chicana
punk style; Hopeys appearance, in contrast, remains more butch and punk-identified as she
develops her relationship with Chicana punk Maggie.

56

Fig. 3.6: Terry and Hopeys styles and attitudes change as their relationship progresses. (Hernandez 23)
Hopey also retains the brash, outspoken personality developed during her tenure with Terry and
Dels mainly-Chicano social circle. Terry, whose ties to that crowd have been strained by Hopey
and Maggies relationship, gets a job with mainly white coworkers, joins an all-white band, and
dates an older white man. While she ceases to employ a Chicana punk-influenced identity as a
part of her outward persona, the strength that she once drew from that particular queer woman of
color subculture does not leave her completely. During a performance with her band, she
envisions herself as the Virgin, praying to a crucifix, and upon Stevie TVs return, she flicks her

57
cigarette in his eye (24). Terry and Hopeys histories illustrate through repetition and stereotype
(particular racial/ethnic and gender expression stereotypes) the complex interactions that inform
identity formation, as well as the ambiguities and shifts (both subtle and dramatic) that can result
from the intersections of various components of identity.

Fig. 3.7: Terrys vivid imagination. (Hernandez 24)
The subtleties and ambiguities present in these stories from Love and Rockets contribute
to representations that are fluid while acknowledging the role that social norms and hegemonic
conceptions of women of color play in identity formation and daily living. However, because
many of the symbols employed in these stories are quite subtle (Isabels tattoo, the mysterious
womans chicken footprints, Terrys gradually-changing gender expression), the potential for
readers to overlook these important elements increases, especially given the subconscious nature
of interpretation that Aimee Bender theorizes is promoted by the comic medium. Noticing these
subtle elements also plays an important role in how the reader interprets the icons and symbols
that are subverted or reconstructed in the stories; without an understanding of Isabels
confrontation with the mysterious woman as an expression of embodied knowledge (evidenced

58
by the readers realization that the woman has unusual footprints), the presence of Catholic
symbols in the story could lead readers to interpret Isabels decision to return home as a
resignation to fate or divine will, rather than a challenge to the masculine religious forces that
attempt to control her. However, the serial nature and length of Love and Rockets publication
attracts long-term readers, who are more likely to bring knowledge of characters backgrounds to
the stories and be attuned to the symbols and subtle character changes that contribute to reading
alternative representations. The potential for misreading the individual stories (which on their
own do leave strong impressions) decreases as the reader becomes acculturated to the series
universe; this further demonstrates the potential of the graphic novel medium to disrupt readers
preconceived notions of race/ethnicity, gender, and sexuality and present representations that
engage and challenge hegemonic ideals while presenting ways of identifying and interacting
within these constraints consistent with differential consciousness.

Sexile/Sexilio
The stories Flies on the Ceiling and Tear it Up, Terry Downe from Jaime
Hernandezs side of Love and Rockets demonstrate how certain textual elements employed in
graphic novels spatiotemporal play, iconography and iconoclasm, repetition and stereotype
can aid in the construction of representations that challenge binary conceptions of identity and
make explicit the hegemonic forces that work toward constraining the possibilities of self-
identification and expression for Chicana/Latina and Asian American Women. Jaime Cortezs
Sexile/Sexilio also uses these elements, in different configurations, to deconstruct normative
ideologies of gender, sexuality, racial/ethnic identification, and belonging. Although textual

59
techniques are used in different ways, both works depict coming into consciousness and identity
formation in relation and resistance to social constraints.
Sexile/Sexilio was published in 2004 by The Institute for Gay Mens Health, a partnership
of two organizations (Gay Mens Health Crisis and AIDS Project Los Angeles) that focus on
HIV/AIDS education and prevention efforts, particularly among queer communities.
Sexile/Sexilio began as a part of KQEDs online documentary, i5, which presented interviews
with five California immigrants; each part of the documentary was hosted on its own website,
with photos, audio, video, and other multimedia to illustrate the experiences of the interviewee
14
.
For Cortezs section of the project, he interviewed Adela Vasquez, a transgender woman who
fled Cuba during the 1980 Mariel boatlift. Cortez named the website Sexilio.com, using a term
from Puerto Rican scholar Manolo Guzman that describes the condition of people who are cast
out from the prickly bosom of their birth cultures and families due to their sexual orientation or
gender expression (Cortez vii). Inspired by Vasquezs work as a transgender rights activist and
HIV/AIDS educator (with the now-defunct Proyecto Contra SIDA por Vida in San Francisco),
Cortez decided to use his interviews with her as the basis for a graphic novel about her
experiences, which could be distributed as an educational material. In order to make the work
accessible to various communities, Sexile/Sexilio is available as a free PDF download from AIDS
Prevention Los Angeless website, in both English- and Spanish-language versions
(http://www.apla.org/publications/sexile/Sexile_web.pdf). The book was also distributed to local
health organizations, health researchers, and universities (Stanford Libraries print copy is a gift
from Jaime Cortez) as a resource to share with people seeking information on HIV/AIDS
prevention, being resilient and negotiating risk (Optimist: Fall 2004; Cortez vii). The print

14
The i5 websites are no longer functioning; however, the content on Sexilio.com can still be accessed by using the
Internet Archive Wayback Machine (http://www.archive.org/index.php).

60
version is also bilingual. In one direction, the book reads in English; when flipped over and
opened from the other direction, the book reads in Spanish.
In addition to innovation in the form of the project (first as a website, then as a graphic
novel, and completely bilingual in both formats), which is described as coming from a need to
innovate our conceptions and modalities in order to reinvigorate prevention, Cortez and
collaborator Patrick Pato Hebert aim to provide a nuanced portrayal of identities that are rarely
seen in mainstream media (including mainstream LGBT-focused media). In addition to the
restrictive, dichotomous portrayals of Latina women described in Chapter 1, Hebert explains in
the foreword to the text that representations of transgenders far too often consist of mere
exotified curves and flattened emotional surfaces. These caricatures tend to be disconnected
from truths about how our lives as queer folk intersectSexile reminds us why we matter to each
other (Cortez iii). Hebert goes on to describe ways in which transgender people as well as other
groups have been discriminated against, arguing that considering numerous violent acts against
transgender people as well as the failed war on drugs, the intense anti-immigrant profiling
nationwide, and the recent debates over drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants in several
states, its clear that Adela lives at the nexus of many of todays most pressing concerns (iv-v).
Cortezs goal as author and artist is to provide a holistic representation of an individual that can
affirm and inspire other marginalized individuals, especially those who are not only harmed, but
rendered invisible by gender and sexual binaries (such as transgender individuals). According to
Cortez, he needed to tell Adela Vasquezs story in the graphic novel format not just because Im
queer, a child of immigrants, or a lover of both comics and sexual narratives, but because this
story is so fucked up, fabulous, raggedy and human that it opens a vast space where we can all
ponder our own sense of risk, exile, and home (vii). Cortezs explicit commitment to providing

61
a space for alternative representation with Sexile/Sexilio is reflected not only in his motivations
for the project, but also in the elements employed in the work. Most of the panel backgrounds in
Sexile/Sexilio are relatively minimalist, with a few markers suggestive of where the action is
taking place (such as a fence, tree, or picture) on a solid black or white background. In contrast
to the frequent spatiotemporal play of Love and Rockets, the panel scenes, which tell Adela
Vasquezs story of leaving Cuba and beginning her life in the US, proceed in a relatively
straightforward chronological order. The linear story, however, is interspersed with images that
are outside the time and place of the storys events; like the dream sequences employed in
Flies on the Ceiling and visible thoughts of Tear It Up, Terry Downe, these images illustrate
the psychic aspects of Adelas experiences, emphasizing the intuition and self-knowledge that
she has gained throughout her life. A recurring motif in these illustrations is water, particularly
the image of Adelas body submersed in water. The first water image is on the front cover of the
book, which depicts Adelas pre-transformation male body. Bubbles rise from Adelas nose and
from her outstretched hand, suggesting that the image depicts her not drowning or floating, but
actively swimming; her forward-looking and slightly downcast gaze suggests that she is
swimming toward or searching for something that is just outside of the readers view. This
image of Adela swimming underwater is repeated several times throughout the story. During her
time on the boat that takes her from Cuba to the U.S., Adela has a vision of being thrown
overboard and drowning, as another passenger has suggested that perhaps Castro intends to sink
the boat and kill all the escapees. In a vertically-oriented panel that spans the left one-third of
the page, Adela imagines herself falling with a great splash (further emphasized by a large
SPLOOSH sound effect laid over the spray from the fall) into the sea, reaching up with an arm
and a leg toward the surface as she sinks to the bottom. The splash in this panel carries over into

62
the top right panel, where the spray becomes a tear on Adelas face as she tells the fellow
passenger that it doesnt matter. Not anymore, if she drowns, because there is nothing left for
her in Cuba (34). However, she comforts herself with the idea that there is an American
woman waiting for her on the shore; this American woman is herself, in her new life as a
woman. In a right-hand panel on the next page that is constructed nearly parallel to the drowning
panel (vertically-oriented, but a half page instead of one-third), Adela imagines a woman with
long hair and jewelry, whose back is turned. She notes that she does not yet have a name or clear
image of the woman, but is intent on becoming her. The woman is not standing on solid ground,
but rather rises out of some ethereal swirling patterns that recall classical images of Venus
materializing from sea foam (35). Although the water has the potential to take away Adelas life
via drowning, Adela also recognizes the possibility for a new life that emerges from going
through the water (crossing the ocean to the United States).
The next image of Adela in the water is a repetition of the image from the cover, with
Adela in her male body swimming through open water. The image, which is slightly zoomed out
from the cover to show her whole body, is accompanied by text:
Exile is a bitch, baby.
You cant completely leave home.
Youre always still arriving home.
Sometimes at night, you dream
of your tired, lonely body
swimming swimming swimming
and wondering
where the shore went. (50)

63

Fig. 3.8: Adelas dream of swimming. (Cortez 50)

The text reinforces the feeling of being out of time and place; although Adela has established
herself in the United States and found a community with other queer Cubans, she stills feels not
quite at home, both in the United States and in her own body. The idea of continually leaving
and arriving at home illustrates Adelas exilic condition; for the subject in diaspora, who is
separated physically from the place of origin and culturally from the place of current residence,
memory and experiences of daily living are not linear, but rather cyclical. Both mind and body
continue to long for home, despite also wanting to make a new home. This experience of
continual and simultaneous leaving and return disrupt normative, dichotomous portrayals of the
immigration experience, in which immigrants abandon a poor and difficult life in their home
country and embrace a life full of opportunities in their new countries (with the United States
often represented as the desire destination). Repetition of the spatiotemporally ambiguous image

64
of Adela swimming subverts the idea that she has arrived at a stable, whole sense self simply
because she has arrived in the United States.
The last few pages of the story also employ the motif of water. After Adela recounts
making a commitment to control her drug use and try to take better care of her physical and
mental health, she describes how she once fell asleep in the bathtub. The image of Adela asleep
in the tub is split between two horizontally-oriented panels: a top panel which shows her feet
resting against the edge of the tub, and a lower panel which shows her face just above the water,
with her hair just under the surface, drifting out from around her head (63). In the
acknowledgements section at the beginning of the book, Jaime Cortez explains that he sampled
the structure for the panel of the feet from Frida Kahlos painting, What the Water Gave Me/Lo
que el agua me dio. Kahlos painting shows a womans feet and legs (with polished toenails
like those Adela is sporting) in a bathtub; floating in the water around the womans legs are an
assortment of small objects and scenes. Some are painful: a dead bird belly-up on a tree, a
burning building, a strangled woman. Others are more positive and/or healing: a pair of lesbian
lovers on a bed, a ship with full sails, a flower blooming though its roots floating free in the
water. Cortezs reference to this painting imbues the image of Adela in the tub with a sense of
ambivalence and struggle; the reader cannot see what kinds of objects Adela might envision
swirling around her feet, but the allusion to Kahlo suggests that Adela is perhaps at a crossroads
in her life, trying to reconcile with painful memories and experiences (her exile from Cuba, her
drug use and sex work) and turn them into sources of strength for the future. Another major
difference between Kahlos painting and Cortezs reference is that we can see Adelas face,
which presents Adela to the reader as an agentic figure. She does not want her experiences or
others perceptions to define her, but rather is actively seeking to define herself in relation to

65
what she has had to go through as a person in sexile. Adela answers the question of what the
water gave me explicitly, noting that the water gave me the old dream of swimming (63).
The next page is a final repetition of the image of Adela swimming underwater, this time with
her transgender female body: she has long, blonde hair and painting fingernails, and both her
breasts and penis are clearly visible. Her narration of her dream is also repeated, but the message
this time is different:
I was swimming, swimming, swimming
I had the fear like before
Cant find the shore

And then I knew

All the in-between place are my home.
This beautiful freak body is my home.
And every day I love it (64)
The water, a space out of time and place, is a site of struggle for Adela, as she negotiates the
seemingly perpetual in-betweenness of her position as transgender woman of color refugee.
Rather than feel adrift or ungrounded in this space, Adela comes to understand that the in-
between places are also productive; her assertion that these third spaces and her body are her
home echoes Anzaldas call to affirm and empower the ambiguity and in-betweenness
experienced by marginalized people through mestiza consciousness. Like Anzalda suggests,
Adela has struggled and created a home for herself even in the condition of exile from her
original home (43). The final image of Sexile/Sexilio shows Adela from the knees down, with

66
one foot in the water and one foot stepping out onto the shore, declaring I arrive (65).
Although the place in which she arrives is also located outside of a spatiotemporal reality,
this space she has created for herself gives her strength and allows her to speak up for herself and
speak out against conditions such as racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia that seek to
deny her and others a home. Like Isabel in Flies on the Ceiling, Adela also challenges the
homophobia/fear of going home that Anzalda describes.
Cortez also employs various icons in Sexile/Sexilio to illustrate the impact of different
traditions on Adelas identity. As in the mainly-Chicano community of Hoppers from Love and
Rockets, Catholicism is an influential tradition in Cuba and among Cuban Americans; thus, the
story includes several important symbols drawn from Catholic iconography. When Adela falls in
with a group of crazy queens in Camagey, Cuba, one of the older members of the group
baptizes her in a fountain in El Casino Campestre Park to initiate her into their group and into the
queer community at large. The older man dips Adelas head below a jet of water, proclaiming
Wholly Mary, blunder of god, I hereby baptize you La Chica Streisandisima (19). The man
imitates the Catholic baptism ritual, in which a priest pronounces that a congregant is dedicating
their soul to God, and baptizes the individual in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
However, in this baptism, religious figures are replaced by gay icons a man with flamboyant
clothing and jewelry instead of a priest, an irreverent jab at Adelas gender expression and sexual
orientation (Wholly Mary, blunder of god) instead of an invocation of La Virgen, a name
chosen in reference to popular entertainer Barbra Streisand instead of a saint, and a tutti fruity
ornamental fountain instead of a traditional church baptismal. The element of Catholic ritual is
still important to Adela and her friends, but rather than subscribing to the patriarchal,

67
heteronormative dogma of the church, they have substituted their own holy place and figures
in order to make the ceremony relevant to their experiences.


Fig. 3.9: Adelas gay baptism. (Cortez 19)
Catholic icons are queered again in Adelas introduction of Rolando Victoria, her Cuban
American sponsor and mentor. She explains that Rolando taught her the six commandments of
living in the U.S.A., which include admonishments against star[ing] at the crotches of
menfolk and being financially irresponsible, as well as things to do differently in the United
States than one would in Cuba (such as learning English and not thinking that giving head is
lowly) (45). These commandments are an irreverent take on the Ten Commandments presented
by Moses to the Israelites in the Book of Exodus; like the Ten Commandments form the basis of
Judo-Christian practice, the six commandments given by Rolando to Adela provide her with a

68
framework for what life in the United States will be like, and how to make the most of her
situation. The last commandment, You are forever crowned by the pain of exile. Get used to it,
girl, acknowledges the difficulty of living as an exile in the United States, but makes clear that
since that pain will be permanent, Adela must learn to deal with it and not let it define her life.
Below these commandments is a portrait of Rolando Victoria as Nuestra Seora de la Caridad
del Cobre (Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre). This version of the Virgin Mary is the patron saint
of Cuba, and is revered as a protector by Cubans and Cuban Americans, much in the way that La
Virgen de Guadalupe is invoked by Mexicans and Chicana/os. Rolandos appearance as Nuestra
Seora de La Caridad del Cobre, however, changes many of the images that traditionally appear
in her portraits into more fabulous gay icons. La Caridad del Cobre traditionally appears
floating in the air above a boat of three Cuban supplicants (Los Tres Juanitos
15
) who pray for
her protection as they row through a storm. This structure, at first glance, appears to be the same
in the portrait of Rolando; however, a close inspection of the supplicants reveals that one is a
black drag queen, and another is a man dressed in very low-riding short shorts, a loose tank top,
and gym socks; Rolandos devotees are queer Cuban immigrants, looking to him for guidance as
they negotiate racist, nationalist, heterosexist dominant cultural norms in both the U.S. and Cuba.
Another traditional feature of La Caridad del Cobre is her crown, which is comprised of a gold
crown that sits on top of her maphorion
16
with a ring of stars encircling her head. Instead of a
crown, Rolando sports a martini complete with olive atop his head; he is encircled by a halo of
ejaculating phalluses instead of stars. Rather than holding the Christ child, Rolando holds a
newly-arrived (in the U.S.) Adela; his maphorion is a paisley print rather than a traditional blue

15
Los Tres Juanitos represent two Cuban Indian brothers and a black boy, who saw the first image of Nuestra
Seora de la Caridad del Cobre.
16
A maphorion is a floor-length holy mantle. The Virgin Mary in her various incarnations is frequently shown
wearing a maphorion.

69
or gold. This representation of Rolando is not aimed at iconoclasm and critiquing Nuestra
Seora de La Caridad del Cobre, but rather is a refiguring of the icon; Adela sees Rolando as her
mama, and he serves as much of a guiding and protecting role in her life as a Cuban American
as does La Caridad del Cobre. These religious icons represent an intuited and self-made
embodied knowledge that marginalized people develop and pass along to one another; Anzalda
terms this intuition la facultad, an acute awareness mediated by the part of the psyche that does
not speak, that communities in images and symbols which are the faces of feelings, that is,
behind which feelings reside/hide (60). Although Sexile/Sexilio refigures icons rather than
subverting them (like Isabels occult knowledge and Terrys behavior do in Love and Rockets),
the importance of the social constraints produced by religion and possible pathways to
consciousness that do not follow the strict guidelines of Catholic good femininity remain clear.
The reader understands that while Adela and her queer communities do not subscribe to much of
the dogma of Catholicism, refiguring Catholic icons is an important practice that utilizes symbols
in order to communicate and contend with normativizing social forces and their own embodied
knowledges.

70

Fig 3.10: Rolando Victoria as Nuestra Seora de La Caridad del Cobre. (Cortez 45)
Fluidity and malleability in terms of both identity and the physical body is a recurring
theme throughout Sexile/Sexilio. Cortez pays careful attention to shifts in Adelas style of dress,
attitude, mannerisms, and body. Explicit depictions of her changing body, as seen as the
aforementioned swimming scenes, clearly illustrate her transition from male to female, and
challenge normative ideals of what it means to be a woman. For Adela, transitioning to a
female-identified body is not a simple process. In discussing her adolescence and exploring of
her sexuality in school, she explains that she never had gay sex. Never will. Im always the girl,
hes always the man. Even when Im fucking him (9). This account of Adelas identity
suggests that even at a young age, she felt her true gender identity to be female, even as she lived
in a male body and related to the world as an effeminate man. Adela uses this gender expression

71
in subversive ways, detailing how she avoided being drafted into the military by exaggerating
her feminine mannerisms and wearing womens clothing and makeup to the draft board. She
realizes when telling this story that the woman I was going to become has been with me all
along. She was there when I got my national draft notice from the army. Ms. Thing took charge
of the situation right away and saved my life (11). However, her femininity could not always
be used as a tactic; she recounts with some sadness her dismissal from working as a
schoolteacher because she refused to stop wearing light makeup to school (15-16). These
contrasting memories illustrate the complex nature of Adelas non-normative gender identity and
expression; while being herself sometimes worked to her advantage, the pressure of hegemonic
social norms also led her to take her life in directions she did not necessarily want to go.
Adelas decision to pursue commercial sex work further demonstrates the interactions
between self-created identity and social location. She first exchanged sex for a hot shower and
bed at the overcrowded Fort Chaffee refugee center, realizing I know this. Its beauty and sex
getting me what I need. Different country, same exchange. Pussy power, baby, Pussy Power
(40). In order to finance her physical transition, as well as support her drug habit and living
expenses, Adela returns to this idea of femininity as power and decides to place a commercial
advertisement for sexual services (61). She finds that the market for transgender woman of color
in sex work is quite lucrative, explaining that she made a lot of money and was able to keep her
schedule flexible and convenient; an illustration shows her dressed a George Washington on the
dollar bill, with the inscription legal tender covering her chest. However, she finds that for her,
the lifestyle of commercial sex work is unsustainable: As a prostitute, I had no sexual freedom.
I was a product, an idea, but never a real human being. You know what? It hurt. Some people
can deal with hoin just fine, but it was so painful for me to live like that (62). She finds that

72
using her identity in certain ways can be damaging, and that pussy power is not always a
healthy method of survival. Although she has always identified as female, transitioning to a
female body and trying commercial sex work shape her understanding of what it means to be a
woman in U.S. society. She finds that being a woman is not just all about the glamour,
seduction, or cute shoes, but also means giving up my big, fat bag of male privileges, like
feeling safe when I walk. Its a whole new way of understanding the world (57). Under the
headline WOMANIZING, an image of her nude, transitioned female body is accompanied by
text that explains all the changes she had not anticipated from her transition, and how her identity
as a woman now differs from her time as a woman in a male-identified body. She finds that its
easier for me to listen as a woman because now Im not trying to form a smart response while
you are still talking, and that it doesnt hurt to cry anymore. My heart is more tender, almost
maternal. I feel your pain, child (60). These realizations, along with the image of her non-
normative female body, subvert the idea that there are essential personality or behavioral traits
that come with being born a biological female, while at the same time emphasizing that there are
certain feminine qualities (such as empathy and patience) that are developed from living as a
woman in a patriarchal, sexist society. Adelas experiences as a newly-transitioned woman
demonstrate the role that social location and hegemonic forces play in shaping identity, even for
individuals with non-normative or intentionally subversive gender expression and sexual
orientation.

73

Fig. 3.11: Womanzing. (Cortez 60)
Cortez also uses the graphic novel formats potential for inversion of the real and
unreal to explore hegemonic discourses of race, gender and sexuality in the United States, and
the potential responses of marginalized subjects to these constraints. Toward the end of the book,
Cortez inserts a photograph of Adela in place of an illustration. The photograph is an ad placed
by Adela in the adult services advertising magazine Hollywood Connections, and occupies a
panel with text explaining how Adela decided to pursue commercial sex work. The photograph
is striking because it is the only photo-real image in the book. The placement of the photo
toward the end of the story makes it stand out even more than it would at the beginning of the
story; the reader has become used to seeing Adela and her world as drawn by Cortez, and the
insertion of a real world photograph is aesthetically jarring when placed in the context of the
graphic novel. The reader cannot help but pause on the photograph; its presence decenters the
reader, who has been taking the drawn world as reality within the book. The intrusion of the

74
photograph not only disrupts the audiences process of reading, but also calls into question the
veracity and objectivity of photography as medium in presenting real representations of people.
The advertisements photo of Adela depicts her, clad in skimpy see-through lingerie, squatting
down and twisting her body in order to display it to the viewer. She wears high-heeled shoes and
a colorful shade of lipstick, and has her mouth set in a flirty pout. Underneath the provocative
photo, a short description of Adela follows:
EXOTIC CUBAN
*ADELLA* [sic]
SHE-MALE
34A-26-38 * 8 (61)
Both the text and photo reflect the constructed nature of even the most real of media,
photography; Adela describes the image of herself in the advertisement as a hoochie picture,
designed to portray her as sexually attractive and available. The text reflects a marketing
sensibility, aimed at cashing in on sexual stereotypes of exoticism and deviancy. The phrase
exotic Cuban conjures images like those Linda Chvez describes, of Latina spitfires and out-
of-control sexuality, that are associated not only with Mexican and Chicana women, but women
of all Latina backgrounds. Cubas inaccessibility to Americans and the idea of post-revolution
Cuba as a land stuck in time further add exoticism to the exotic Cuban, drawing from colonial
and nostalgic fantasies that may appeal to white American men in particular. The description of
Adela as she-male creates a sense of illicit and subversive behavior; this designation is likely
aimed at straight men who want to experience the thrill of sex with a non-gender-normative
individual, but do not want to be identified as gay by having sex with a male-identified, male-
bodied person. The description of Adela and the photograph feel false because they do not

75
represent the complex, thoughtful, and strong person that the reader has come to see Adela as;
the audience knows that Adela is a fierce woman and always has been, and the term she-male
does not seem to fit with her identity or do justice to her difficult transition. Exotic Cuban also
simplifies Adelas continually-negotiated existence as a (s)exile, who misses her home country
but knows she cannot go back. The hypersexualization that Chvez and Parreas Shimizu note in
representations of Chicana/Latina and Asian American women reinforces Adelas position as an
available sexual object, which grants Adela a certain amount of agency (as she notes in her
description of how much money she makes through prostitution) but also restricts her to a certain
predefined role. Recurring depictions of Adelas body in various stages of transition give the
reader an appreciation for her determination and beauty, which the reduction of her body to a set
of measurements cannot express. The most troubling thing about the advertisement is that her
name is not even spelled correctly (it reads Adella instead of Adela); this photograph is of a
different person, a manufactured product, rather than the real Adela the audience has come
to know through the story (62). Building on the alternative literacy engendered by the graphic
novel structure (as Schmitt proposes), Cortezs use of the photograph challenges a hierarchy of
knowledges that grants claims to truth to certain media (such as photography, journalism, and
documentary film) because they are produced by objective machines rather than subjective
people (Sturcken 16-17).

76

Fig. 3.12: Adelas ad in Hollywood Connections. (Cortez 61)
Sexile/Sexilio is radical and alternative not only in form, but also in content. Cortez gives voice
to the binary-defying lived experience of a woman who is trans-everything, at the crossroads
of multiple marginalized identities and sociopolitical constraints (Cortez vii). Through its use of
repetition, iconography, stereotype, and spatiotemporal disruption, Sexile/Sexilio demonstrates
the complex processes involved in coming into consciousness and identity formation and the
possibility of pathways toward a wholeness of self that exist within and yet still challenge social
constraints. Although Sexile/Sexilio may not have received the same level of critical acclaim as
more widely-published works (such as Love and Rockets or One! Hundred! Demons!), its
continuing accessibility to a wide variety of audiences helps it to achieve its purpose of
disseminating health information and alternative representations.

One! Hundred! Demons!
Lynda Barrys One! Hundred! Demons!, like Hernandezs and Cortezs stories, also deals
with identity formation and coming into consciousness as a woman of color, specifically

77
exploring issues and intersections of class, mixed race, and gender expression. Although her
colorful style and multimedia sensibility are quite different from Hernandezs and Cortezs more
traditional black-and-white comic approach, Barry also employs repetition, folk iconography,
and stereotype in order to challenge binaries, including male/female, white/non-white, and
audience/author/character.
A collection of short graphic stories, One! Hundred! Demons! is certainly the most well-
known of the works examined in this project and one of the biggest recent successes in graphic
novels. In 2002, TIME Magazine named One! Hundred! Demons! as the third best nonfiction
book and sixth-best in comix (Grossman 1, Arnold 1). Barrys short comic stories have been
serialized in online politics and culture magazine Salon.com, and in 2002, the series of stories
that comprise One! Hundred! Demons! were collected into a graphic novel format, published by
Sasquatch Books. The stories are inspired by a painting exercise called One Hundred Demons
that Barry found at the library, in a handscroll painted by a Zen monk named Hakuin Ekaku, in
16
th
century Japan (Barry 9). The idea of the exercise is to paint various problems or hardships
in life (the demons) as a means of exorcising these negative influences. Barrys collection
goes through twenty demons, ranging from dancing and dogs to the 2000 presidential election
and the smell of her house. Barrys style is colorful (unlike many comics, her stories in One!
Hundred! Demons! are all in full color) and makes use of multimedia, including cut paper,
pressed flowers, and glitter glue among the images in her work. The introduction to each of the
demons in particular has a scrapbook feel, with notes, papercrafts, and found objects (such as
ribbons, doilies, and stamps) giving the reader a sense of what kinds of themes each story will
deal with. In addition to the use of color and multimedia, Barrys approach to illustrating her
work in One! Hundred! Demons! is also unique in that she uses a brush and ink made from an

78
ink stone to outline her drawings. She also explains that she likes to illustrate on different kinds
of paper to give her drawings different textures, including legal paperthe classified section of
the newspaper or even pages from old books! I will try any paper, typing paper, wrapping paper,
even paper bags! (224). The introductory and concluding pages of the collection are patterned
to look like yellow lined legal paper, giving the work an amateur, do-it-yourself (D.I.Y) feel.
Barry further emphasizes this D.I.Y idea by providing the reader with a step-by-step guide
illustrating how to paint with an inkstone and brushes like Barry does, emphasizing the low cost
(her medium quality inkstone costs twenty dollars) and ease of finding (she provides readers
with the address of the website where she buys her brushes) her materials, and deemphasizing
her professional knowledge by insisting that you can learn a lot by messing around (221-223).
To Barry, there is something very honest and expressive about working with ink and brush
instead of expensive professional-style outlining and shading pens;
17
she writes that discovering
the ink stone, stick, and resulting demons has been the most important thing to happen to me in
years. TRY IT! You will dig it! (224).
Barry is invested not only in working through her own painful memories in a creative
fashion, but also in encouraging her readers to do the same. Barry explicitly points to medium as
a factor in determining what kinds of stories will be told, and notes that using ink and brush put
her in touch with her own intuitive knowledge; at first she was frightened by the demons that
the exercise produced, but then she started to love watching them come out of her brush (12).
Trusting her intuition to guide her in the creative process, Barry not only dealt with difficult
experiences from her past, but also ended up having so much fun! (13). Her candid depiction
of the process of the creating the work and encouragement of the audience to create their own

17
A basic set of ten COPIC markers, a brand frequently used by illustrators, costs around $60-$80
(http://shopping.msn.com/specs/copic-multiliner-set-of-10-pens-
%2310a/itemid1161644823/?itemtext=itemname:copic-multiliner-set-of-10-pens-%2310a).

79
stories subverts the idea of a division between elite art and art for the masses (Woman,
Native, Other 12). Her patchwork style also recalls Liconas work on zines, and how their D.I.Y.
construction enables the subversion and refiguring of more traditional modes of storytelling.
Barry suggests that her art is not just for an aesthetic purpose, but represents a negotiation of her
own relationship to hegemonic forces that encourage self-doubt and feelings of artistic
inadequacy. Her goal is not to have a unique work that will bring her acclaim, but rather to
speak to the masses and encourage readers to examine their own positions and experiences.
Barrys first demon in the collection is Head Lice/My Worst Boyfriend. The
introductory pages to this story include a drawing of a Sucking Louse, accompanied by the
hand-written messages NIT picking and 2,600 species of lice and Ive dated every one of
them (14). Already, the reader gets the impression that this story will be about Lyndas
18

relationships, specifically with men who are exploitative or mean-spirited (a louse). The
following page shows a drawing of the worst boyfriend in question, a severe-looking man
sporting glasses, a tie, and a ponytail (15). The story begins with Lynda describing her
childhood fascination with insects, and the curious fact that no one in her neighborhood got head
lice when they were children. She wonders if she and her neighbors were too toxic for head
lice, recalling all the tv dinners and candy loaded with preservatives that she and her friends
ate, and notes that asbestos and lead were everywhere, and all the adults were smoking like
crazy, and we chased house flies around the room with big spray-cans of Raid (16). The
toxicity of Lyndas surroundings gives the reader an impression of a working-class
neighborhood most concerned with frugality and time-saving (hence the preponderance of tv
dinners). The second panel shows a young Lynda spraying a good deal of Raid inside the house,
while her cigarette-smoking grandmother shouts, Nako Lynda! Just use the fly-swatter,

18
For claritys sake, I will refer to the author as Barry and the narrator character as Lynda.

80
naman! (16). Lyndas grandma has dark skin and hair, and uses Taglish, a combination of
Tagalog and English (like the more widely-known Spanglish mixture of Spanish and English)
in her speech. This interaction with her grandma is the readers first indication that the red-haired,
pale-skinned Lynda is Filipina; scholar Melinda L. de Jess terms Lynda a white mestiza,
whose home environment is highly influenced by Filipino culture, but who does not fit the
normative idea of what a Filipina woman should look like (227). Lyndas mixed-race
background comes subtly into play throughout this story and others in the collection.

Fig. 3.13: Lyndas toxic childhood. (Barry 16)
Upon going to visit relatives in the Philippines, young Lynda discovers that that she
could make friends easily with two of the kids there were quite interested in my red hair (18).
In the context of the Philippines, Lyndas atypical Filipina-ness is an asset, as her pale coloring
makes her seem interesting and cool to the local children. Lyndas two new friends, feminine
Pilar and the nerdy Professor, are interested to see if Lynda will have white kuto, or head
lice, since her complexion is light; unfortunately, she cannot find any lice to show them, and
leaves the Philippines disappointed that she could not impress the Professor (on whom she has
developed a crush) with these curious insects. As she departs, the Professor asks her if she

81
would be willing to affix it [a white louse] to a paper and send it to us as we shall remain ever
curious! Pilar, in contrast, is more interested in American products and popular culture,
requesting that Lynda send her one lipstick! And one photo of Jerry Lewis! And one Ponds
cold cream! (19). Lyndas status in the Philippines as a white (in appearance) American makes
her popular and attractive, particularly to girls like Pilar, as she can give them a small amount of
access to American economic and cultural capital (photos of celebrities and make-up), which
will in turn grant them increased popularity with their friends. This desire for all things
white/American (even head lice!) demonstrates the hegemonic status of whiteness in global
capital and cultural systems; as a white mestiza who can take on a white American identity in a
predominantly non-white country, Lynda can use this position to gain a small measure of
influence and status for herself. However, once Lynda returns to her school, she is again
marginalized and unpopular. She delivers a report to her class entitled What I did on my
summer vacation to the Philippines where I was slightly popular; as she reads out the word
popular, an anonymous voice from the class whispers Oh sure, in disbelief (20). Lyndas
status as a white mestiza does not have the same effect within the United States, where she is
compared to wealthier children whose background are more solidly white European. The degree
to which Lynda can claim benefits from whiteness differ considerably by social context; her
shifting racial/ethnic identification, like Hopeys in Love and Rockets, leads to increased benefits
in certain situations, but also results in difficult transition periods, such as when she returns from
the Philippines to find that she is no longer popular.
Lynda moves on to introduce the reader to the worst boyfriend in question, who was
raised in a nice suburb and had always been something of a gifted child. Her mixed Filipina
background is a source of fascination for him; he nicknames her little ghetto girl, and justifies

82
a negative comment his mother made about Lyndas age by telling her that her history is like
war. The foot soldiers always age faster than the officers. Were you aware of that? (21). For
him, Lyndas racial/ethnic heritage and class background of interest because they are exotic
and represent experiences that he, as an intellectual, likely studies but has never gone through
himself. In contrast to the admiration Lynda receives from her friends in the Philippines, the
boyfriend, whom Lynda admits was frank with me about his feeling that I was not his peer in
many ways, uses her to make himself feel superior, insisting on educating her about her
history (by which he means the history of the Philippines). At the time of his comment about
her age, Lynda replies only with an uncomfortable Uh. She is both speechless at
presumptuousness and intimidated by his elitist demeanor. However, the present Lynda (the
narrator of the story) pencils in a note pointing his statement that reads actual dialog,
expressing her incredulity that she could stand to engage in such a conversation (21).

Fig. 3.14: Lynda introduces her worst boyfriend. (Barry 21)
The first panel on the next page shows volunteer fifth-grade teacher Lynda scratching her head,
wondering why shes been feeling so insecure and pondering what her boyfriend mean when
he said I was not-in-the-moment enough? A student points out to her that her head scratching
is probably the result of head lice (22). Lynda returns home to tell her boyfriend that they both

83
have head lice, and in the process of using a de-lousing shampoo together, she begins to laugh
and the cry at the same time, remembering the time she spent in the Philippines, and believing
that her boyfriends reminds her of her first crush, the Professor: This is so sad. And so funny. I
finally have lice. I finally realized who you remind me of. Oh this is sad. Youre him, and .
Lynda is interrupted by her boyfriend, who exasperatedly exclaims, Stop it! This is what I
mean about you!, insisting again that she view him as a unique individual and not compare him
to others (he previously chastised her for mentioned that he seemed familiar) (23). In that
moment, she realizes that the feeling of familiarity she has about her boyfriend is not because he
reminds her of her childhood crush, but because he reminds her of her overcritical mother.
Although she admits that head lice are much easier to get of than bad love and that it
took a while for her to end her relationship with her worst boyfriend, she inverts his snobbery
in the last panel of the story. This panel shows an adult Professor and Pilar (who appear to be
married with a baby) receiving a letter from their red-haired friend of long ago. The letter
contains a mans photo, on the back of which Lynda has written I have found the white kuto!
In the corner of the panel, the reader can see that the photo is of Lyndas boyfriend (24). In
equating her boyfriend with the white louse, Lynda defies her boyfriends attempts to
marginalize and belittle her as a little ghetto girl and not worthy of his complete attention or
assistance. She employs her shared cultural knowledge and experiences with her friends in the
Philippines to express that it is not her who is the lowly sucking pest, but rather her elitist
boyfriend.

84

Fig. 3.15: Lynda writes to Pilar and the Professor about the white kuto. (Barry 24)
Lynda wonders in her last line of narration, Why are we compelled to repeat the past? Perhaps
the Professor knows (24). The wisest person in the story is not the upper-class intellectual who
relies on Othering those around him to prove his intelligence and transmit a sense of authority,
but rather the curious Professor, who looks to nature for his knowledge (as demonstrated in his
discussion with a young Lynda about insects). Lynda reaffirms the value of her working-class
Filipina background, and challenges the disapproving, normativizing impulses of her
hypercritical boyfriend and mother, who both try to suppress her weird or shallow concerns.
Another one of the demons Barry explores in her collection is The Aswang. The
introductory pages to the story depict a host of monstrous creatures, including vicious-looking
dogs with eyes all over their bodies, oddly-shaped birds, and a four-armed blue woman giant
with a long tongue and glowing eyes. A framed comic panel shows Lyndas mother and
grandmother arguing. The grandmother tells a listener (presumably Lynda), You know why
your mommy dont want me to speak of the Aswang? Because she believes on it! Lyndas
mother retorts I do not! (86). From these images and this short exchange, the reader can infer
that the Aswang is some kind of legendary monster, most likely Filipino in origin. Indeed, the
Aswang is a Filipino legend heavily influenced by Catholicism as well as indigenous beliefs

85
about the supernatural. The legend is similar to the Mexican legend of La Llorona, involving a
tragic woman who becomes a monster due to grief, and takes her revenge on unsuspecting
parents and children; the legend is frequently discoursed as a superstition that persists among
rural, uneducated populations (Arcilla 1, Strauss 1). The introductory conversation between the
mother and grandmother about the Aswang reveals a tension between the two that will be
explored in the story.

Fig. 3.16: Lyndas mother and grandmother argue about the Aswang. (Barry 86)
The first several pages of the story focus on Lyndas conversations with her grandma about what
exactly the Aswang is: she is a strange-looking dog with back legs more longer than the front
legs during the day, and a beautiful woman who can cut herself in half at night, and she
crawls across the ceiling while you sleep and positions herself over your bed in order to suck
human blood (89-90). Lynda notes that while she wasnt afraid of the well-known monsters
because they were famous and no one famous ever came down my street, she was a bit
frightened by the other monsters (88). Lynda and her grandma enjoy arguing about the
specifics of the Aswangs appearance and behavior; however, Lyndas mother disapproves,
admonishing them to stop before they get nightmares. Her harsh reproaches to the seemingly

86
innocuous conversation prompt Lynda to mention, I wasnt afraid of the Aswang, but I was
terrified of my mother. She was unpredictable and quite violent. I was glad when Grandma
moved in with us (91). The panel that this recollection is in shows the scene from the
introductory pages where the grandma accuses the mother of believing in the Aswang,
illustrating how Lyndas grandma distracted her mother from criticizing Lynda.
On the next page, the first panel shows Lyndas grandma telling Lynda, When your
mommy first arrive in this country, she thought the Aswang did not follow her. Too much ocean!
But the Aswang dont care about the ocean! In the next panel, the grandma tells Lynda to ask
her mother a question about the Aswang; Lyndas mother replies by slamming her fist on the
table and shouting *#%*@! There is no Aswang! (92). The mothers frustration at all the talk
of the Aswang continues for the next two panels, while Lynda describes in the narration how
much she looked up to her mother, who was not affectionate to her, while her mother looked up
to her grandmother, who was equally distant to her mother (93). The rest of the story depicts
more instances of these distinct intergenerational interactions: Lynda and her grandma talk and
joke; Lynda and her mother argue; Lyndas mother and grandmother have very different
memories of what Lyndas great-grandmother was like (94-96). To the young Lynda, these
different attitudes each woman displays towards other members of the family are puzzling, and
she acknowledges that back then, I knew a lot more about monsters than I did about people.
Monsters were understandable. They usually had a reason for being the way they were.
Monsters hardly ever started out as monsters. Something always transformed them. Was this
also true of the Aswang? (92). Lyndas ending narration reveals that she still doesnt quite
know what to make of the Aswang (96).

87

Fig. 3.17: Lyndas mother is frustrated by talk of the Aswang. (Barry 92)
The symbol of the Aswang functions on several levels in the story. On one level, it
stands in for the intergenerational conflict among the women in Lyndas family. The mother and
grandmothers arguments about the Aswang are not just about the possibility of the mythical
beast, but rather veil conflicting attitudes on how to raise Lynda; the grandmother allows Lynda
to joke around and be independent, while the mother would prefer that she act more mature and
not spend time doing seemingly frivolous things like talking about the Aswang and playing with
insects. The Aswangs roots in Filipino folklore are also significant, representing each womans
relationship to Filipino culture and traditions. Lyndas grandmother wants to pass on the story of
the Aswang to Lynda as a reminder of Filipino culture, modernizing the story in order to make it
more relevant to Lyndas daily experiences; she tells Lynda that since America does not have the
kind of trees the Aswang likes to perch in, the beast instead touches down on tv antennae, and
insists that this is what causes the television picture to occasionally flicker (96). For the
grandmother, Filipino stories, like that of the Aswang, are an important tradition for Lynda to
carry on, especially since she has never lived in the Philippines. The grandmother, through the
story of the mother believing that the Aswang could not follow her over the ocean from the
Philippines, suggests that Lyndas mother is trying to disavow the influence of Filipino culture,

88
and in particular the stigma of provincialism, on her identity. However, the grandmother views
this attempt at assimilation unsuccessful: the Aswang dont care about the ocean (92). The
mothers behavior seems to reinforce this allegation; she gets angry at the mention of the
Aswang, insisting that its only a story, and trying to keep the grandmother from passing the
tale on to Lynda (93). Belief in the Aswang represents a tie to the Philippines, as well as a low
socioeconomic status, which Lyndas mother does not care to remember. Her reticence to talk
about the Philippines and Filipino culture is explored more in a later story from the volume,
Girlness.
Girlness, another one of the demons, examines Lyndas relationship to her own
femininity, as well as others perceptions of her gender expression. The introductory pages show
miniature frilly, flowery knit dresses and stationery with pictures of cute cartoonish animals.
Juxtaposed with these images is a drawing resembling of black and white photo of a young
Lynda, leaning up against the side of a building. Lyndas hair is short and straight, and she
wears large glasses, a plain t-shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes. Her appearance in this picture
contrasts sharply with the colorful images and objects surrounding it, and suggests that Lynda
has a complicated relationship with girlness (182-183). The first page of the story shows the
girls from Lyndas neighborhood, with a box that says US labeling the picture. The girls are
quite diverse in size, shape, and racial/ethnic background, and most wear plain t-shirts and shorts.
Lynda recalls, On my street there were a lot of girls, but girlish girls were few. Mostly we were
tomboys. The next panel shows a picture of a group of girls, mainly white with two girls of
color, wearing colorful pattered dresses and holding little purses and dolls; this portrait is labeled
THEM. These girls are from up where the houses were nicer, and their dress and behavior
was the opposite of the girls from Lyndas neighborhood. Lynda wonders, What was the

89
difference? (184). Lynda recalls envying the girlish girls who had lots of clothes, toys, and
hair, including her mother, who had long, silky hair and sparkle jewelry and manicured nails
(185-186). A young Lynda asks her mother whether she can grow her hair long as well, to which
her mother replies, Aie nako. Your hair would look like hell; her mother also decries parents
who spend money on toys and nice clothes for their daughters, despite her own love for clothing
and jewelry (186). Lyndas mothers attitude toward girlish things is quite contradictory: she
puts great care into her own appearance and criticizes Lyndas bad hair, yet does not allow
Lynda to buy the items that would make her more girlish like her mother.
Lynda attributes her mothers attitude to her experience as a child growing up in the war-
torn Philippines; her mother was seven when the war broke out, and chastises Lynda for asking
for a Barbie doll by relaying an anecdote from her own childhood: You think I had a Barbie
doll?! Nako! We starved! My legs were toothpicks! I wore rags with my pu-it showing! And
now you want a Barbie doll?!! (187). Although she does not want Lynda to feel tied to the
Philippines and Filipino culture (as demonstrated by her disavowal of Filipino legends in The
Aswang), she also does not want Lynda to become a spoiled American child, who cannot
appreciate how hard her mother has worked to be able to give her a decent life.

Fig. 3.18: Lynda hears of her mothers war experiences. (Barry 187)

90
Lyndas mother is caught between wanting to assimilate and take advantage of American
privileges, but also wanting her daughter to have a sense of responsibility and family, in contrast
to the individualistic materialism of American consumer culture. Appearance may also play a
role in Lyndas mothers behavior: because she looks Filipina and speaks with an accent, she
pays careful attention to her appearance to distinguish herself from other working-class
immigrant women; since Lynda is light-skinned with red hair, the mother believes that Lynda
can already pass as a white American and thus does need to spoil her with material goods
since she already possesses a measure of privilege.
Despite drawing a connection between her mothers wartime experience and attitude
toward girlish things, Lynda realizes that this is not the only factor that influences opinions on
gender expression. She recalls the one girl on her street who had all the girlness the rest of us
were missing: the half-Japanese, half-Mexican Mariko, whom Lynda describes as beautiful
(188). Marikos mothers ideas of proper behavior for a young girl are totally different from
those of Lyndas mother; she admonishes Mariko for letting Lynda touch her expensive Japanese
dolls, and her severe punishments for messiness makes Mariko afraid to admit that she has gotten
a small amount of mud on her shoes. Lynda wonders at the difference in the two mothers
attitudes: Our moms had both been in the same war but they had daughters who were complete
oppositesWhich was worse? Girlness that was insisted upon or girlness that was forbidden?
Frilly clothes you couldnt play in or ratty clothes you were ashamed of? Her mom or my
mom? (189-190). The two mothers experiences of wartime repression, sexism, and U.S. racism
and Orientalism are similar, yet produce radically different outlooks, re-emphasizing that there is
no one way to be a woman of color in the United States and demonstrating different responses to
hegemonic forces.

91

Fig. 3.19: Mariko worries about being punished for muddy shoes. (Barry 188)
Years later, Lynda entertains a young houseguest for the summer, taking the girl
shopping for clothes and accessories. Lynda finds herself excited by the opportunity to admire
cute things with impunity, and ends up buying a multitude of flashy items for her guest:
Zebra locker mirror!...Translucent locker clock!...Red bell bottoms!.... She is in awe of the
girls self-confidence and enthusiasm, asserting, If you could have taken me and Mariko and
mixed us together, stirring until our mothers dissolved, you would have gotten Norabelle, a true
Power-Puff Girl (191). Norabelle encourages Lynda to purchase some silly stationery for
herself, dismissing Lyndas objections that she is too old to own such a thing. Lynda hesitates
about her purchase; a thought balloon shows her worrying about what her mother would say
about such a frivolous item. However, Norabelle does not relent, and Lynda ends up buying
the stationery. She expresses deep gratitude to Norabelle for her guidance: Thank god the
Powerpuff Girl was there to bring me to my sense, to remind me that the war was over, and that
its never too late for Super Monkey Head and her pals (192). Lynda realizes that she does not
need to deny herself a few small things that will brighten her day in order to respect her mothers
sacrifices, and becomes more confident in her position as a mixed Filipina woman in the United
States.

92

Fig. 3.20: Lynda sends a thank-you to Norabelle for her guidance. (Barry 192)
Although the topics of race/ethnicity, nationality, gender expression and cultural
negotiation are implicit rather than explicit in most of One! Hundred! Demons!, Barrys subtle
illustration techniques and style of narrative voice subtly connect these topics to the events of the
stories. Barry describes One! Hundred! Demons! as a work of autobifictionalography, with
elements that reflect real incidents from Barrys own life as well as fictional elements (4, 7).
Barry resists the impulse of many marketers and publishers to automatically categorize works by
minority writers (particularly writers of color and women writers) as completely
representational of their own experiences. It does not matter whether or not all the experiences
described in the book really happened to author Lynda Barry; they did happen to a working-
class mixed Filipina girl named Lynda who grew up to be a cartoonist, and can be understood
as both the author and the characters way of negotiating complex social processes and
normativizing forces in order to give voice to marginalized subjects. Like Cortezs use of the
photograph in Sexile/Sexilio and Hernandezs ambiguous recap and nightmare sequences in Love
and Rockets, Barrys refusal to reveal exactly what is fact and what is fiction (either within
the context of the story or in relation to real world events) in One! Hundred! Demons! disrupts
dominant ideas about truth and knowledge. However, Barrys subtle approach also has its
dangers: TIME Magazines Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo were apparently unaware of the

93
books autobifictionalographic nature when they included it among the Best Non-Fiction
Books of 2002 (Grossman 1). As with all of the texts discussed in this project, reading One!
Hundred! Demons! carefully with attention to seemingly minute details (which can be easily
overlooked in Barrys colorful, multimedia pages) produces the reading most in tune with
differential consciousness and alternative representation.



















94
Conclusion
Specific, closed cultures like those surrounding comic books have allowed voices to be heard that might not
have been audible in a world in which all cultural texts speak the same language.
- Matthew J. Pustz, Comic Book Culture: Fanboys and True Believers (2000)

The graphic novels examined for this project have their weaknesses, but overall, each
represents a powerful gesture toward alternative representation and creating a third space for
decolonial, differentially conscious expression. The warning about possibilities of
misinterpretation from Rey Chows analysis is illuminative; the use of iconography and
stereotype always carries the potential for misreading or overlooking, particularly in graphic
novels that pack a lot of detail into each panel (like Jaime Hernandezs stories from Love and
Rockets). However, this possibility decreases as the creators employ more standard elements
that subvert normative expectations of how spatiotemporal flow, racial/ethnic, gender, and
sexuality identity formation, and the formulation of truth and knowledge operate. Trinh T.
Minh-has ideas of repetition, pushing the boundary between art and non-art, and challenging
notions of good, clear, professional work are all evident in the works analyzed here, as the
artists challenge conventional methods of distribution and plot advancement, as well as the
fourth wall that divides the artist from the reader. The emphasis on fluidity, ambiguity, and
affirmation of intuition brought forth by Gloria Anzalda and expanded by Emma Prez and
Chela Sandoval are also reflected in these works.
The creators refrain from rigidly defining characters identities, allowing the reader to see
how social context and hegemonic forces impact possible modes of identification and self-
presentation for the character; the authors also play on audiences beliefs about knowledge and
reality, creating moments of surprise that uncover societal and personal assumptions. These
graphic novels also represent progress toward the goals of Scott McClouds unfinished

95
revolutions of gender balance, minority representation, diversity of genre, digital production,
and digital delivery (22). The creators of the books examined here are a diverse bunch in
themselves, including people of color, queer people, and women, whom McCloud specifically
notes are generally underrepresented in the comic industry. Diversity of genre is also evident in
these works. Jaime Hernandez combines elements of science fiction, fantasy, soap opera, and
slice-of-life story to create the Locas universe; Jaime Cortez mixes educational content with
biography and sample from a multitude of diverse artists, including Frida Kahlo, Japanese wood-
block print artist Yoshitoshi Tsukioka, and magic realist painter Paul Cadmus (Cortez i); Lynda
Barry applies a standard Asian brush-and-ink technique to her colorful autobifictionalographic
stories, which defy boundaries between fact and fiction. Cortezs use of free digital distribution
for Sexile/Sexilio also speaks to McClouds concerns, paving a path for other amateur artists to
connect with organizations that can help fund, publicize and digitally distribute their work.
While the work is not over in terms of fulfilling these revolutions and creating more spaces for
alternative representation, the texts examined in this project are models for both creators and
readers, demonstrating the unique potential of graphic novels in portraying Chicana/Latina and
Asian American womens identity formation and consciousness in holistic, non-dichotomous,
and ultimately empowering ways. It is my hope that this project will further the discourse on
differential consciousness and alternative representation, and the ways in which emerging media
are contributing to challenging normativity in cultural representation across many different
genres and categories of identity not only for Asian American and Chicana/Latina women, but
for any marginalized/border subject. As Linda Chvez states in her thesis, this conclusion is
not really an ending, but rather a continuation: an encouragement of the continued pushing of
artistic and scholarly boundaries, and a gesture toward finding a space to call home.

96
Works Cited
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Anzalda, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute
Books, 1999.

Arcilla, Jose S. Roots; Glimpses into Hispanization [sic]. Business World 28 May 2007: S1/4.

Arnold, Andrew. Best and Worst of Comix in 2002: The Best Comix. TIME Magazine. 2002.
8 May 2009. <http://www.time.com/time/bestandworst/2002/comics.html>.

Artist Bio Los Bros. Hernandez. Fantagraphics Books: Artist Bios. 2009. Fantagraphics
Books. 10 February 2009.
<http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=69&Ite
mid=82>.

Artze, Isis. Building Characters: Latinos in Alternative Comics. Hispanic 13.10 (2000): 36-
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Bender, Aimee. Flat and Glad. Give Our Regards to the Atomsmashers!: Writers on
Comics. Ed. Sean Howe. New York: Pantheon Books, 2004.

Brown, Wendy. Wounded Attachments. States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late
Modernity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.

Campbell, Eddie. What is a Graphic Novel? World Literature Today 81.2 (2007): 13.

Carrier, David. The Aesthetics of Comics. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University
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Chvez, Linda Yvette. The Healing of Latina Identity: Misrepresentations of Latinas in
Popular Film and the Affirmation of Spirit Through Performance. BA thesis. Stanford
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Cheng, Anne Anlin. The Melancholy of Race: Psychoanalysis, Assimilation, and Hidden
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97
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Lorde, Audre. The Masters Tools Will Never Dismantle the Masters House. Sister Outsider:
Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde. Freedom: The Crossing Press, 1984.

Love and Rockets Book 22: Ghost of Hoppers. Fantagraphics Books. 2007. 10 February
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McCloud, Scott. Reinventing Comics: How Imagination and Technology are Revolutionizing an
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Meskin, Aaron. Defining Comics? Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 65.4 (2007): 369-
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Moore, Anne Elizabeth. Preface. Best American Comics 2007. Eds. Chris Ware and Anne

98
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Prez, Emma. The Decolonial Imaginary: Writing Chicanas into History. Bloomington:
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Pustz, Matthew J. Comic Book Culture: Fanboys and True Believers. Jackson: University Press
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Sandoval, Chela. Methodology of the Oppressed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
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Schmitt, Ronald. Deconstructive Comics. Journal of Popular Culture 25.4 (1992): 153-161.

Shimizu, Celine Parreas. The Hypersexuality of Race: Performing Asian/American Women on
Screen and Scene. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.

Strauss, Stephen. Experience widespread Old Hag dream real, demon isnt. The Globe and
Mail (Canada) 12 September 1981.

Sturcken, Marita, and Lisa Cartwright. Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Trinh T. Minh-ha. When the Moon Waxes Red: Representation, Gender, and Cultural
Politics. New York: Routledge, 1991.

Trinh, T. Minh-ha. Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1989.

Wolk, Douglas. Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean. Cambridge:
Da Capo Press, 2007.

Wong, Wendy Siuyi and Lisa M. Cuklanz. Humor and Gender Politics: A Textual
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99
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Anzalda, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute
Books, 1999.

Arcilla, Jose S. Roots; Glimpses into Hispanization [sic]. Business World 28 May 2007: S1/4.

Arnold, Andrew. Best and Worst of Comix in 2002: The Best Comix. TIME Magazine. 2002.
8 May 2009. <http://www.time.com/time/bestandworst/2002/comics.html>.

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Artze, Isis. Building Characters: Latinos in Alternative Comics. Hispanic 13.10 (2000): 36-
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Barker, Martin. Comics: Ideology, Power, and the Critics. Manchester: Manchester University
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Barry, Lynda. One! Hundred! Demons! Seattle: Sasquatch Books, 2002.

Berger, Anne-Emmanuelle. Sexing Differances. Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural
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Bender, Aimee. Flat and Glad. Give Our Regards to the Atomsmashers!: Writers on
Comics. Ed. Sean Howe. New York: Pantheon Books, 2004.

Brown, Wendy. Wounded Attachments. States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late
Modernity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.

Campbell, Eddie. What is a Graphic Novel? World Literature Today 81.2 (2007): 13.

Carrier, David. The Aesthetics of Comics. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University
Press, 2000.

Chvez, Linda Yvette. The Healing of Latina Identity: Misrepresentations of Latinas in
Popular Film and the Affirmation of Spirit Through Performance. BA thesis. Stanford
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100
Cheng, Anne Anlin. The Melancholy of Race: Psychoanalysis, Assimilation, and Hidden
Grief. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Chow, Rey. Brushes with the-Other-as-face: Stereotyping and Cross-Ethnic
Representation. The Protestant Ethnic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York:
Columbia University Press, 2002.

Comic Book Sales for 2008. The Comics Chronicles: A Resource for Comics Research. 2008.
13 February 2009. <http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/2008.html>.

Cortez, Jaime. Sexile/Sexilio. New York: The Institute for Gay Mens Health, 2004.

Dunlop, Rishma. Beyond Dualism: Toward a Dialogic Negotiation of Difference. Canadian
Journal of Education/Revue canadienne de lducation 24.1 (1999): 57-69.

Gravett, Paul. Graphic Novels: Everything You Need to Know. New York: HarperCollins
Publishers, 2005.

Grossman, Lev and Richard Lacayo. Best and of Worst Books in 2002: The Best Non-Fiction.
TIME Magazine. 2002. 8 May 2009.
<http://www.time.com/time/bestandworst/2002/books.html>.

Hernandez, Jaime. Flies on the Ceiling. Flies on the Ceiling: A Love and Rockets Collection.
Los Bros. Hernandez. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books, 2003.

Jones, Jessica E. Spatializing Sexuality in Jaime Hernandezs Locas. Aztln 34.1 (2009): 35-
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Kahlo, Frida. What the Water Gave Me/Lo que el agua me dio. Isadora Ducasse Fine Arts, New
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<http://www.artchive.com/artchive/K/kahlo/kahlo_water.jpg.html>.

Licona, Adela C. (B)orderlands Rhetorics and Representations: The Transformative Potential
of Feminist Third-Space Scholarship and Zines. NWSA Journal 17.2 (2005): 104-129.

Lorde, Audre. The Masters Tools Will Never Dismantle the Masters House. Sister Outsider:
Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde. Freedom: The Crossing Press, 1984.

Love and Rockets Book 22: Ghost of Hoppers. Fantagraphics Books. 2007. 10 February
2009. <http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&
flypage=shop.flypage&product_id=582&category_id=10&manufacturer_id=0&option=c
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Indiana University Press, 1999.

Pustz, Matthew J. Comic Book Culture: Fanboys and True Believers. Jackson: University Press
of Mississippi, 2000.

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8(3): 303-311, 2007.

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History of Comic Books in Mexico. Durham: Duke University Press, 1998.

Sabin, Roger. Adult Comics: An Introduction. London: Routledge, 1993.

Sandoval, Chela. Methodology of the Oppressed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 2000.

Schmitt, Ronald. Deconstructive Comics. Journal of Popular Culture 25.4 (1992): 153-161.

Shimizu, Celine Parreas. The Hypersexuality of Race: Performing Asian/American Women on
Screen and Scene. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.

Strauss, Stephen. Experience widespread Old Hag dream real, demon isnt. The Globe and
Mail (Canada) 12 September 1981.


102
Sturcken, Marita, and Lisa Cartwright. Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Trinh T. Minh-ha. When the Moon Waxes Red: Representation, Gender, and Cultural
Politics. New York: Routledge, 1991.

Trinh, T. Minh-ha. Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1989.

Wolk, Douglas. Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean. Cambridge:
Da Capo Press, 2007.

Wong, Wendy Siuyi and Lisa M. Cuklanz. Humor and Gender Politics: A Textual
Analysis of the First Feminist Comic in Hong Kong. Comics & Ideology. Eds.
Matthew P. McAllister, Edward H. Sewell Jr., and Ian Gordon. New York: P. Lang,
2001.