Żydowsko-amerykański komiks (auto)biograficzny: powieść graficzna czy pamiętnik graficzny?

Abstract

The first Polish edition of Art Spiegelman’s The Complete Maus coincided with the 30th anniversary of the original American publication of Maus and stimulated a delayed Polish debate about the differences between comics and a graphic novel which disregards the author’s/cartoonist’s protests against classifying his award-winning Jewish American (auto)(bio)graphical narrative as fiction and the graphic memoir. Since American theoreticians and critics of comics medium identified the tendency to overuse the term “the graphic novel” for prestige and commercial reasons, it would be useful if Polish specialists of graphic narratives also considered using such terms as the (auto)biographical graphic novel and the graphic memoir. Graphic memoirs problematizing impact of intersecting race, class and gender hierarchies on the formation of hybrid ethnic identities constitute an important contribution of many accomplished underground or alternative American male and female cartoonists of Jewish descent and it would be good if Polish anthologies reflected this trend.

Keywords

• auto/biography
• graphic novel
• graphic memoir
• Jewish American comics
• alternative comics