Getting to the Fun Home : A Blind Autoethnography of Graphic Narrative and a Call for Co-Reading

Abstract

The article shares a personal history of a blind reader encountering graphic novels at different times in life. Following a brief review of the low-vision accessible comics and adaptation strategies currently available, it offers a critique of the emphasis placed on high-tech adaptation strategies for idealizing “independent” reading practices. In response to the potentially ableist pitfalls of high-tech adaptation, the article offers “co-reading” as an anti-ableist reading practice which enables access to comics for blind and visually impaired readers while encouraging sighted readers to interrogate ableist assumptions about dis/ability. With reflections on Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home , the author considers why blind readers might be interested in reading a conventionally visual medium; why the privileging of independent reading works to limit accessibility of comics to blind and low vision readers; and last but not least, how the practice of collaborative comics reading—co-reading—offers opportunities to engage in anti-ableist praxis of reading comics.