Comics, Politics, and Gender in the Arab World and Turkey

This special issue on “Comics, Politics, and Gender in the Arab World and Turkey” brings together works that analyze how comics, or graphic narratives, have become an important medium for documenting firsthand accounts of political turmoil, violence, and resilience in the region. Highlighting the work of Arab women comics artists who are less well known in the West, the issue explores the important role comics can play in documenting people’s range of experiences during moments of intense political strife and violence. The articles in this issue also serve as testaments to the challenges that creators have overcome in producing graphic narratives that transgress the boundaries between text and image, between internal thought and outward expression, between political forces and personal experience, and between “high” and “low” forms of expression. The authors of this special issue argue that comics are an excellent medium for documenting the horrors of warfare, as well as memory, survival, fear, and grief. They also demonstrate how comics creators navigate multiple forms of censorship and overcome hurdles to disseminating their work.

Contributors: Nijmeh Ali, Lina Ghaibeh, Sherine Hamdy, George Khoury, Giulia Macario, Sahar Maranlou, Ahmad Mohammadpour, Yasmine Nachabe Taan, Lalu (Esra) Özban, Hazal Özdemir, and Jenny White.