Ethics in the Gutter: Empathy and Historical Fiction in Comics by Kate Polak

Abstract

Reviewed by: Ethics in the Gutter: Empathy and Historical Fiction in Comics by Kate Polak Martha Kuhlman (bio) Kate Polak. Ethics in the Gutter: Empathy and Historical Fiction in Comics. Ohio State University Press, 2017. 238 pp, $134.95, $29.95. Comics studies has expanded so rapidly in recent years that scholars are continually seeking new subfields to which they might lay claim, each inventing their own specific terminology to advance the critical discussion. With Ethics in the Gutter, Kate Polak offers her own contribution to this growing list of terms: historio-metagraphics. To situate her specific area of interest, some brief background about the development of comics studies can set the stage. In her introduction, she highlights the division between various forms of non-fiction graphic narrative—autographics (autobiographical comics), graphic memoir, biographical comics, comics journalism, documentary comics, historical comics—and fictional narratives that may engage with many of the same concerns, but do not garner as much attention as the canonical Maus by Art Spiegelman or Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. On the other hand, non-fiction graphic narratives must be conveyed through the subjective mark-making of the artist, and therefore are already necessarily creative constructs. Thus, the category of non-fiction inevitably bleeds into fiction and invention as well without losing credibility. As Hillary Chute points out, "Graphic narrative suggests [End Page 390] that historical accuracy is not the opposite of creative invention; the problematics of what we consider fact and fiction are made apparent by the role of drawing."1 Polak approaches this divide from the other direction by placing her emphasis on the potential of fictional graphic narratives to pose urgent ethical questions, which, in her opinion, have been unfairly overlooked in comparison to "the well-researched genre of autographics" (2). Following Linda Hutcheon's influential term "historiographic metafiction" from her foundational work on postmodernism, Polak invents "historio-metagraphics" to designate graphic narratives that are fictional but nonetheless powerful in the way that they can reveal how history is represented. In foregrounding the mechanisms of narration through temporal shifts, page layout, and the use of the gutter, Polak argues that "[the] reader's awareness of the graphic narrative as something produced is embedded in the form" (11). Unlike autographics, the author and the artist frequently have no personal connection to the historical trauma that is narrated, and it is this level of mediation and distance that Polak finds useful insofar as it prompts self-reflection in the reader. She chooses five narratives as case studies from widely diverse cultural contexts to apply her critical lens: J. P. Stassen's Deogratias (concerning the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide), Alan Moore's and Dave Gibbon's Watchmen, Jason Aaron's and R. M. Guera's Scalped (which reflects upon the situation of Native Americans and the shootings at the Pine Ridge Reservation, although it is called the "Prairie Rose Reservation" in the story), Jeremy Love's Bayou (which bears similarity to the Emmett Till murder), and lastly an issue of Hellblazer by Mike Carey and Marcelo Frusin that addresses the massacre of Tasmanian Aborigines. Her intention is not to suggest that these instances of trauma are equivalent, but rather to tease apart the various levels of ethical engagement between the implied author and the reader in each example. Formally speaking, she is interested in the way that each author manipulates focalization and point of view in order to destabilize the ethical position of the reader. It's an ambitious project, and she delivers some surprising and nuanced readings of texts from very different historical and cultural perspectives. Although each reading has its merits, the strongest chapter is probably her opening analysis of Stassen's Deogratias. Polak argues that Stassen frustrates the Western reader's preference for a sympathetic protagonist and a redemptive ending by choosing a Hutu perpetrator as the main character. She further notes that readers objected to the graphic novel first and foremost because it is difficult to relate to Deogratias, a character who ultimately rapes and kills two of his Tutsi classmates. Secondly, the confused chronology and fragmented style of narration posed a problem for many readers, especially since the novel lacked a consistent...