Sexual Violence in Comics
The Ethics of Visualizing Trauma
Sexual Violence in Comics
The Ethics of Visualizing Trauma
Description
An examination of how comics represent, confront, and sometimes perpetuate gendered violence.
Lee Okan argues that comics, with their hybrid form of image and text, possess an ability to express the unspeakable dimensions of trauma while also raising ethical questions about spectatorship, representation, and storytelling. Through close analysis of contemporary and independent comics, as well as anthology collections, this book shows how artists navigate the tension between testimony and spectacle, visibility and exploitation.
Rather than treating comics as an isolated medium, Okan situates these works within broader cultural and media discourses on sexual violence, arguing that comics shape and are shaped by feminist activism, visual culture, and reader response. Sexual Violence in Comics traces how creators reframe the terms of witness, challenge dominant narratives, and reclaim narrative authority, particularly in the wake of the #MeToo movement and beyond.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Introduction
1. The Language of Trauma
2. The Language of Comics
3. Comics and Trauma Narratives
4. The Ethics of Representing Trauma
5. Fridging the Heroine: Sexual Trauma and Superhero Narratives
6. The Culture of Visual Misogyny in Una's Becoming Unbecoming
7. Time, Trauma, and Selfhood in Whit Taylor's Ghost Stories
8. Everyday Coercions in Commute by Erin Williams
9. Shared Narratives, Shared Trauma: Comic Anthologies of Sexual Violence
Conclusion: Frames of Recognition, Ethics of Representation
Notes
Bibliography
Product details
| Published | Feb 05 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 280 |
| ISBN | 9781978759763 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 12 b/w illus |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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