sempozyum_bildiri_kitabi

two brothers grow in this liminal, in‐between space of artificiality where human contact is desired
but not fully achieved. Bechdel talks about not being able touch or kiss her father during her
childhood. In these non‐communicative spaces, each member coils further into his private space:
It was a vicious circle, though, the more gratification we found in our own geniuses,
the more isolated we grew. Our home was like an artists’ colony. We ate together but
otherwise were absorbed in our separate pursuits. And in this isolation, our creativity took
on an aspect of compulsion. 25
Alison tries to understand why her father chooses to lead such a life with limited private space but
eventually comes to an understanding and acceptance of her father’s decision to live in a provincial
setting. Thus, the story ends with reconciliation. The last scene depicts Alison as a child leaping into
the pool, confident that her waiting father would catch her before she sinks to the bottom. These last
drawings establish the father as a concerned and loving parent despite his psychological and
emotional struggles to maintain a proper masculine fatherly image.
Conclusion
All three autographics are effective in conveying ideas through drawings and text. Visuality
certainly adds another dimension when compared to sole textual renderings. Yet, interpreting this
genre can be complicated since graphic drawings both enhance and proliferate the interpretations of
the text. Autographics are hybrid forms that resist easy classifications and “the readers are
imaginatively required to arrive at a closure between the panels on the page.” 26 Yet, these narratives
carry innovative possibilities in constructing memoirs and instigate discursive vistas in understanding
life experiences.
Keywords: Graphic life narratives, Autographics, American, Women artists, Self‐representation
Bilge MUTLUAY ÇETİNTAŞ
Hacettepe University
Department of American Culture and Literature
Notes
1
This talk is part of an ongoing research on women’s graphic life narratives. Thus, parts of this
speech are repeated in other conference papers the author has presented. Yet, this particular
presentation has been reworked, expanded and formatted for the symposium Writing Women’s
Lives, April 19‐20, 2014, Yeditepe University, İstanbul, Turkey.
2
Gillian Whitlock, “Autographics: the Seeing ‘I’ of the Comics,” Modern Fiction Studies, 52, no. 4
(Winter 2006), 965‐979.
3
Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), 169.
4
Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (New York: HarperPerennial, 1994), 30.
5
Hillary Chute, “Lynda Barry’s One Hundred Demons,” in Graphic Subjects: Critical Essays on
Autobiography and Graphic Novels, ed. Michael A Chaney (Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press, 2011), 292.
6
Lynda Barry. One Hundred Demons (Seattle: Sasquatch Books, 2002), 70.
7
Barry, One Hundred Demons, 72.
8
Barry, One Hundred Demons, 72.
9
G. Thomas Couser, Recovering Bodies: Illness, Disability and Life Writing (Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1997), 64.