Drawing Eco-sickness: Industrial disaster comics, Postmemory, and The Minamata Story: An Eco Tragedy

Abstract

ABSTRACT The shared trauma and slow violence caused by industrial disasters alter the collective environmental memory of the surviving population. The survivors and victims of mercury poisoning are a case in point that exist as memorial remains of eco-sickness. Industrial disaster comics galvanise such discussions as concerns of environmental, social, and biological damage. The Minamata Story: An Eco Tragedy, written by Sean Michael Wilson and Akiko Shimojima, visualises the chaotic memories of the mercury poisoning disaster that ravaged the Japanese village of Minamata in 1956. Mediated through witness accounts and the research expeditions of the protagonist Tomi, the comic portrays the spatial landscape of Minamata as a container of memories. The Minamata Story illustrates the psychosomatic damage of the eco-crime on human body, and the resultant social vulnerability of victims in their post-disaster lives. It exposes the typical portrayal of the victims as toxic embodiments and assumes an empathetic perspective which is pitted against the medicalisation of the identities of survivors. The long-lasting nature of the biological damage qualifies the text as a case for intergenerational trauma and postmemory. Taking these cues, the present article analyses the representation of environmental memory, and reviews the visualisation of eco-sickness in industrial disaster comics.