Good Girl Art – facing images of women in David Mack's Kabuki

Abstract

This article suggests that the eroticized representation of female characters in graphic fiction in general, and female superheroes in particular, can be discussed in productive ways if we trace the double meanings of visual and verbal representation in David Mack's graphic novel series Kabuki. Kabuki can be seen to address the ‘Good Girl Art’ tradition into which it inserts itself and to use this tradition to open for a reconfiguration of pre-determination of female roles. By looking at the way in which visual and verbal signs can be negotiated from within, our reading of Mack's work enables us to expand the theoretical tools with which we approach and understand the mysteries of contemporary graphic fiction. By making it possible to read ‘Good Girl Art’ in terms of univocity, Kabuki offers enabling modes of agency in the midst of the gendered inscriptions of graphic fiction.