Between memory & fantasy: Autofiction & worldbuilding in autobiographical comics

Stories Worth Telling - crafting stories through the art of design

Abstract

This ar ticle locates the practice of creating autobiographical comics (autobiocomics) as products of autobiographical fiction (autofiction) and imaginary worlds. Autobiocomics is a comics genre characterised by imaginative and subjective representations of the autobiographical self. Autobiocomic stories attempt to convey an emotional truth by depicting the author’s authentic reactions to people, places, or events. With this research, we intend to contribute to the existing autobiocomic scholarship by demonstrating that autofiction and worldbuilding theories can deepen the analysis of specific autobiocomics when instrumentalised in tandem. This provides the oppor tunity to read autobiocomic texts for their shared characteristics and generate insights on the author’s relationship to their representations of self and the textual world wherein the self is revealed. In this article, we review autobiocomics, providing a brief chronological overview and identifying relevant concepts to position the analysis and discussion thereafter. The analysis suggests future research into the implications of the authors’ embodiment of their textual avatar and how they inhabit the textual world. Three autobiocomics are read, discussed, and analysed to demonstrate the characteristics of the medium as it pertains to both these theories: Drieman (2020) by Wide Vercnocke, La mer à boire (2022) by Blutch, and Fluctuat et Mergitur (2020) by Conrad Botes.