The Danish comic scene is more diverse than ever. The launch of the feminist collab Yngel in 2018, modelled after the Swedish Dotterbolaget and the Finnish FemiComics, marked a new and strengthened focus on issues such as gender, sexism, motherhood, sexuality, and gendered violence in Scandinavian comic books. Moreover, the diversity is also visible in the immensely contrasting styles of Scandinavian comic artists exemplified by works of Aiden Kvarnström, Karoline Stjernfelt and Rikke Villadsen. The works of two latter demonstrate the popularity and respect, which the “new comic book” also known as the graphic novel, has gained in Denmark, as both Villadsen and Stjernfelt have received grants from the Danish Arts Foundation. The esteemed graphic novel in all its different versions, the increase in readership, as well as a flourishing new generation of web comic artists are all signs of a comic scene in development, which as a reader is interesting to follow.
But comics are not only entertaining, they may also affect the way we view societal structures. This thesis applies a methodology that merges comic analysis with queer theory as well as theories of affect and violence. The subject of analysis will be the Scandinavian short graphic novels: Villadsen and Rasmussen’s The Ride, Stjernfelt’s ‘Tide’ and Kvarnström’s abstract comic ‘Dysphoria’.
Using the foundations of Sara Ahmed’s work The Cultural Politics of Emotion, this thesis examines how notions of gender are represented in connection with violence in modern Scandinavian graphic novels. To accomplish this, the field of comic theory (defined as the fundamental resources deployed by comics for the production of aesthetic affects and meaning) will serve as the theoretical foundation for the study of gender and different notions of violence. The issue of violence will be exemplified by Slavoj Žižek’s distinction between systematic, symbolic and subjective violence.
The comics all display bodily and mental changes in human encounters. The works, however, all show variation in style, use of conventions and narration etc. This thesis shows that the spatio-topical structure of the comic, the thematic profundity of the graphic novel, and the means deployed by comics for the production of aesthetic affects and meaning all work to mediate the difficulty of the (violent) encounters. The analysis displays forms of nostalgia present in each of the works, be it a visual intertextual reference, a postcolonial critique or an adaptation in terms of genre.
The sense of alienation in the three works is present in the bodily and spatial changes we witness. The works can be perceived as a critique towards social norms such as heteronormativity. Violence is not only physical, but can also be contained, expressed verbally, and passed on - similar to the way affect passes between the (literary) work of art and the reader.