Branford the Best Bee in the World. The Socio-Culturally Imprinted Self of Anthropomorphic Bodies

Abstract

Chris Ware’s comic conglomeration Building Stories (2012) has already received a lot of attention, but one of its protagonists played a subordinated role so far: Branford. The Best Bee in the World. This essay seeks to shed light on this character, his graphic and stylistic appearance as well as his relationship with the human protagonists. By referring to findings of gender and masculinity studies, human-animal studies as well as cultural studies, this essay investigates how the animal character functions as a substitute for humanness and simultaneously is in a constant correlation with the human protagonists. Furthermore, I will examine the socio-cultural implications of animal representation, especially the entanglement of the bee character with gender and identity constructions, as well as the questioning of the reading viewers’ own anthropocentric perspective.