List of autobiographical comics

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Template:Infobox comics genre An autobiographical comic (also autobio, graphic memoir,<ref>Nicoll, Gina. "100 MUST-READ GRAPHIC MEMOIRS," Book Riot (Feb. 10, 2017).</ref> or autobiocomic<ref>Bramlett, Frank, Roy Cook and Aaron Meskin (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Comics, Routledge, 2016, p. 200.</ref>) is an autobiography in the form of comic books or comic strips. The form first became popular in the underground comix movement and has since become more widespread. It is currently most popular in Canadian, American and French comics; all artists listed below are from the U.S. unless otherwise specified.

Autobiographical comics are a form of biographical comics (also known as biocomics<ref>Template:Cite thesis</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>).

1880s

  • Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro (1846–1905) "made an attempt of an autobiographical comics exercise"<ref name=Farrajota>Marcos Farrajota, "Desassossego" (reprinting his article of introduction to Portuguese comics for Š! magazine)</ref> in his 1881 graphic reportage book No Lazareto de Lisboa ("The Lazaretto of Lisbon"), by including himself and personal thoughts. Some of Bordalo Pinheiro's panels and strips were also autobiographical, such as self-caricatures of personal anecdotes from his travel in Brazil.

1910s

File:Cartoonist's Confessional - Fay King, 1918.jpg
"Cartoonist's Confessional", a 1918 autobio strip by Fay King. Second-to-last cartoon refers to her widely-covered 1916 divorce from boxer Oscar "Battling" Nelson.
  • Fay King (1910s–1930s newspaper cartoonist) drew herself as a character later used as Olive Oyl in autobiographical strips portraying her reportages, opinions, and personal life.
  • Hinko Smrekar (1883–1942, Slovenian painter, newspaper cartoonist) drew and wrote a 24-page booklet Črnovojnik about his experience in the army and army prisons. This self-ironical proto comic has been published in 1919 – two years after he finished it. All of the pages have up to four illustrations, some include typical comic book balloons. The complete text was handwritten.

1920s

  • Carlos Botelho (1899–1982) had a weekly comic page in a "style that mixed up chronicle, autobiography, journalism, and satire"<ref name=Farrajota /> running from 1928 to 1950 in the Portuguese magazine Sempre Fixe.

1930s

  • Henry (Yoshitaka) Kiyama's The Four Immigrants Manga (drawn 1924–1927, exhibited 1927 in San Francisco, self-published 1931). These 52 two-page strips drew from the experiences of Kiyama and three friends, mostly as Japanese student immigrants to San Francisco between 1904 and 1907, plus material up to 1924.

1940s

  • The artist Taro Yashima (born Atsushi Iwamatsu) published his autobiographical graphic works The New Sun in 1943 and The New Horizon in 1947 (both written in English). The first book describes his early life as well his as his wife Mitsu Yashima's imprisonment and brutalization by the Tokkō (special higher police) in response to their antiwar, anti-Imperialist, and anti-militarist stance in the 1930s. The second book describes their post-prison life in Japan under militarist rule up until the time they emigrated to the United States in 1939.
  • Miné Okubo published Citizen 13660, a collection of 198 drawings and accompanying text chronicling the author's experiences in Japanese American internment camps during World War II.<ref name="Pace - Miné Okubo, 88, Dies">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Japanese in America">Template:Cite news</ref> Named after the number assigned to her family unit, the book contains almost two hundred of Okubo's pen-and-ink sketches accompanied by explanatory text.<ref name="Bierwirth">Template:Cite journal</ref> Published in 1946, the book has been in print for more than 75 years.<ref name="JANM">Template:Cite web</ref>

1960s

1960s in Japan

USA

  • In 1969, Justin Green published his first autobiographical comic strip in Gothic Blimp Works #3 titled, "When I Was Sixteen 'Twas a Very Bad Year."

1970s

  • Justin Green, Binky Brown Makes Up His Own Puberty Rites published in Yellow Dog #17, March 1970
  • Sam Glanzman started in April 1970 his U.S.S. Stevens autobio stories (1970–1977) about his war service, as 4-pagers in DC Comics's title Our Army at War. Beside memoirs of war actions he witnessed, many are personal vignettes of embarrassing moments, including as an artist. As comics historian John B. Cooke noted, those "autobiographical tales about the sometimes mundane, frequently horrifying experiences aboard a Fletcher-class U.S. navy destroyer during World War II were beginning to appear regularly, debuting two years before Binky Brown."<ref>John B. Cooke, "Introduction: A Sailor's History, the Life and Art of Sam J. Glanzman", in U.S.S. Stevens: The Collected Stories (2016, Dover), p. xi.</ref>
  • Shinichi Abe (born 1950) started in 1971<ref>"Garo 88", Three Steps Over Japan, February 20, 2011.</ref> his autobiographical series Miyoko Asagaya kibun ("The Miyoko Asagaya feeling" or "Miyoko, Asagaya's feeling") for Garo magazine. It chronicled his 1970s bohemian life with his model girlfriend Miyoko in the Asagaya district of Tokyo. (The manga was adapted into the 2009 film Miyoko.)
  • Justin Green, though not the first author of autobio comics, is generally acknowledged to have pioneered the confessional genre in English-language comics, because of the immediate influence of his "highly personal autobiographical comics"<ref>Robert Crumb, on the backcover of Justin Green's Binky Brown Sampler, Last Gasp, 1995.</ref> on other creators (Kominski, Crumb, Spiegelman, Pekar, see below). This was done through the veiled autobio of his alter ego's "Binky Brown" stories, notably the March 1972 comic book Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary, an extremely personal work dealing with Green's Catholic and Jewish background and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Binky Brown continued his adventures in "Sacred and Profane" with a story called Sweet Void of Youth.
  • In October 1972, Japanese manga artist Keiji Nakazawa created the 48-page story "I Saw It" ("Ore wa Mita"), which told of his firsthand experience of the bombing of Hiroshima. (This was followed by the longer, fictionalized work Barefoot Gen (Hadashi no Gen), later adapted into three films.)
  • Aline Kominsky followed Green in November 1972 with her veiled autobio 5-pager "Goldie, a Neurotic Woman"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (in Wimmen's Comix #1).
  • Art Spiegelman followed Green in 1973 with his 4-page "Prisoner on the Hell Planet"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (in Short Order Comix #1), about his feelings after the suicide of his Holocaust-survivor mother (a strip later included in Maus, see below).
  • Robert Crumb and Aline Kominsky released in 1974 Dirty Laundry Comics #1, a joint confessional comic book documenting their budding romance, though depicted aboard a fantasy spaceship.
  • In 1976, Harvey Pekar began his long-running self-published series American Splendor, which collected short stories written by Pekar, usually about his daily life as a file clerk, and illustrated by a variety of artists. The series led to Pekar meeting his wife Joyce Brabner, who later co-wrote their graphic novel Our Cancer Year (1994) about his battle with lymphoma.
  • In 1977, the Italian magazine Alter Alter starts publishing Andrea Pazienza's Le straordinarie avventure di Pentothal (Pentothal's Extraordinary Adventures), in which the author details in a stream of consciousness his own experiences with drugs, arts, politics, counterculture, and the Movement of 1977, through a thinly veiled alter ego.
  • In 1978, Eddie Campbell started his autobio strip "In the Days of the Ace Rock 'n' Roll Club" (March 1978 – March 1979). (This led to his Alec stories, see below.)
  • In 1979, Malaysian cartoonist Lat published his childhood memoir The Kampung Boy (drawn 1977–1978).
  • In the late 1970s, Jim Valentino began his career with some autobio minicomics, released in the early 1980s.<ref>Jim Valentino at Lambiek Comiclopedia</ref><ref>"A Touch of Image: An interview with Jim Valentino", CBR.com, February 1st, 2002</ref> In 1985, he published his autobio series Valentino (later collected in Vignettes). In 1997, he created the semi-autobio series A Touch of Silver about a boy coming of age in the 1960s. In 2007, he revisited autobio with Drawings from Life (also collected in Vignettes).
  • Throughout the 1970s, autobiographical writing was prominent in the work of many female underground cartoonists, in anthologies such as Wimmen's Comix, ranging from comical anecdotes to feminist commentary based on the artists' lives.

1980s

  • In 1980, Art Spiegelman combined biography and autobiography in his Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus (serialized 1980–1991), about his father's Holocaust experiences, his own relationship with his father, and the process of interviewing him for the book. This work had a major effect on the reception of comics in general upon the world of mainstream prose literature, awakening many to the potential of comics as a medium for stories other than adventure fantasy.
  • In 1982, Eddie Campbell's Alec stories started with the Scottish/Australian artist as a young man drifting through life with his friends, and followed him through marriage, parenthood, and a successful artistic career. (They were later collected in The King Canute Crowd, Three Piece Suit, and other books.)
  • Campbell's English colleague Glenn Dakin created the Abraham Rat stories (collected in Abe: Wrong for All the Right Reasons), which began as fantasy and became more contemplative and autobiographical.
  • Spain Rodriguez drew a number of stories, collected in My True Story, about being a motorcycle gang member in the 1950s.
  • In the mid 1980s, Carol Tyler shifted from making paintings to autobiographical comics. Her first published comics piece appeared in Weirdo in 1986.
  • Underground legend Robert Crumb focused increasingly on autobiography in his 1980s stories in Weirdo magazine. Many other autobiographical shorts would appear in Weirdo by other artists, including his wife, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Carol Tyler, Phoebe Gloeckner (see below in 1990s section), and Dori Seda.
  • In 1987, Sam Glanzman released his WWII graphic memoir A Sailor's Story (Marvel Comics), a more personal extension of his 1970s U.S.S. Stevens war stories.
  • In 1988, Andrea Pazienza releases Pompeo, his last graphic novel, depicting the gradual downfall of a heroin addict (a largely autobiographical character), up to his eventual suicide.
  • Jim Woodring's unusual "autojournal" Jim combined dream art with occasional episodes of realistic autobiography.
  • David Collier, a Canadian ex-soldier, published autobiographical and historical comics in Weirdo and later in his series Collier's.
  • In 1987, DC Comics' anthology Wasteland (1987–1989) featured, unusually for a mainstream title, as well as more conventional forms of black comedy and horror, semi-autobiographical stories based on the life of co-writer Del Close. One of the stories also parodied the autobiographical stories of Harvey Pekar, portraying a version of Pekar's famous appearance on Late Night with David Letterman, in which Pekar's vehement critique of General Electric had earned him a longtime ban from the program.
  • In 1989, John Porcellino started in his long-running autobio series King-Cat Comics (still ongoing).

1990s

Autobiographical work took the English-speaking alternative comics scene by storm during this period, becoming a "signature genre" in much the way that superhero stories dominated American mainstream comic books. (The stereotypical example of an alternative autobiographical comic recounted the awkward moment which followed when, the cartoonist sitting alone in a coffee shop, their ex-girlfriend walks in.) Slice of life comics and comics strips gained popularity during this period as well. However, many artists pursued broader themes.

1990s in France

This period also saw a rapid expansion of the French small-press comics scene, including a new emphasis on autobiographical work:

  • Fabrice Neaud's acclaimed Journal was the first lengthy autobiographical series in French comics.
  • David B., another artist who had first published fantasy comics stories, produced the graphic novel L'ascension du haut mal (published in English as Epileptic) applied B.'s distinctive non-realistic style to the story of his equally unusual upbringing, in which his family moved to a macrobiotic commune and sought many other cure's for B.'s brother's grand mal seizures.
  • Lewis Trondheim portrayed himself and his friends, albeit with animal heads, in Approximative continuum comics, some of which was later published in English as The Nimrod.
  • Much of Edmond Baudoin's later work is based on his personal and family history.
  • Dupuy and Berberain's "Journal d'un album" and Jean-Christophe Menu's "Livre de Phamille" also had a significant influence on the French autobiographic graphic novel scene.

2000s

2010s

The "graphic memoir" really came into its own this decade, with many of the books by female authors. Lucy Knisley and MariNaomi each published a number of full-length autobiographical comics in the 2010s. The market expanded into middle grade as well, witnessed by such well-received examples as Raina Telgemeier's books, the March series, and Cece Bell's El Deafo.

2020s

The autobiographical graphic novel started to bloom to the point, where it is hard to follow the constant production.

  • 2022:
    • On the 19th of September 2022, Slovenian artist Žiga Valetič published a 149-page autobiographical graphic novel The Highway, which was made with the help of artificial intelligence – the computer program Midjourney. The book has been published online while the Slovenian version has also been printed.

References

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