Disability in comic books and graphic narratives

Abstract

Chapter 3, written by Todd A. Comer, argues that in the comic Building Stories the anthropomorphized apartment building makes central the "fragmentation" and "loss" that become the prosthesis for the feelings of the disabled protagonist (54). Because of this, loss and lack of wholeness becomes a central metaphor and narrative function that ultimately colors Building Stories even though the protagonist's disability goes largely uncommented on throughout the series. [...]Gay argues that graphic narratives like Hyperbole and a Half have elements that resist totalizing medical discourses and help prevent the characters from becoming tragic figures who are in charge of rationalizing their own experience, a type of character that is a staple of the genre of autobiographical narratives.