Abstract:
An interdisciplinary approach is used to identify a new graphic novel genre,
'comics camet', and its key features. The study situates comics camet in a
historical context and shows it to be the result of a cross-pollination between the
American and French comics traditions. Comics camet incorporates features
from other literary genres: journalism, autobiography, ethnography and travel
writing. Its creators, primarily European rriales, document their experiences
visiting countries that Europe has traditionally defined as belonging to the
'East'. A visual and narrative analysis, using theoretical perspectives derived
from cultural and postcolonial studies, examines how comics camet represents
the non-European other and identifies the genre's ideological assumptions. Four
representative texts are examined: Joe Sacco's Palestine (2001), Craig
Thompson's, Camet de Voyage (2004), Guy Delisle's Pyongyang (2005) and
Mrujane Satrpi's Persespolis 2 (2004). The study concludes that the comics
camet genre simultaneously reinforces and challenges stereotypical assumptions
about non-European people and places.
