Swedish Norm-Critical Comics and the Comics Pedagogy of Lynda Barry

Abstract

This article considers the parallel developments of feminist comics and norm-critical pedagogy and in Sweden in order to explore comics as a medium for questioning norms of representation, in part by way of the influence of Lynda Barry's comics pedagogy on Swedish comics publications and comics curricula. Barry's pedagogical works are inspired by the spontaneous drawing exercises of Ivan Brunetti and rooted in her theory of the image as an embodied, living experience. In dialogue with Barry's comics pedagogy, the article shows how a number of contemporary Swedish graphic novels by Freja Erixan, Ester Eriksson and Lisa Ewald lend themselves to norm-critical approaches that challenge conventional representations of gender and identity through an aesthetics of play and surprise. Rather than mainstreaming or institutionalizing norm-critique, contemporary Swedish feminist comics actively involve the reader in a dialogic process of challenging and reimagining dominant norms.