Humour as a Strategy in Communicating Sexual and Domestic Abuse of Women in Comics

Abstract

The media presentation of sexual abuse has the power to turn an instructive and/or cautionary tale into one of titillation. This chapter considers three comics works that demonstrate how contemporary women cartoonists are using the comics form to interrogate an understanding of sexual abuse and to visually convey its effects. Maria Stoian’s Take it as a Compliment (2015, Jessica Kingsley Publishers) and Rosalind B. Penfold’s Dragonslippers (2006, Grove Press) are examples that address the common understanding, or misunderstanding, of sexual abuse. Stoian’s work is a collection of anonymous narratives of sexual violence, gathered and visually portrayed as part of her research towards a Master’s Degree in Illustration at Edinburgh College of Art. The disparate experiences highlight the ambiguity surrounding the term and its definitions. Penfold’s graphic memoir invites us to reflect on entrenched stereotypes that inform a common comprehension of domestic abuse. Her use of the comic form challenges such assumptions. A third example, Dr Nina Burrowes’s The Courage to Be Me (2014, NB Research Ltd), is a collection of women’s personal stories of the effect of rape presented in comics form. The reason for choosing these works is that in each case explicit imagery is avoided, yet the ambiguity, as well as periodic horror surrounding sexual abuse and its consequences, is successfully communicated. Drawing on theories of humour and feminism a close visual analysis of specific images from the works demonstrates how sexual abuse myths can be squarely contested through the use of the comics form. It is argued that a key aspect is a reliance on the use of humour and that this is an inherent characteristic of the comics form. The implication of this enquiry is that where explicitly graphic communication of sexual abuse can condone sexual violence, by confining it to a specifically defined set of practices, the comics form can offer an alternative reading. In this way, the form can invite a deeper understanding and interrogation of the experience of abuse and its ramifications.