Participants
Fairytale Nightmares: Goth Comics' Female and Child Characters
Laurie Taylor
University of Florida
Ltaylor@english.ufl.edu
The rising prevalence of girl writers and readers with manga and goth comics points to an inbetween area in comics history, just as goth comics have an inbetween audience of pre-teen, teen, and adult readers. Goth comics have a manga and graffiti influenced style, and include comics like "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac," "Squee," "Courtney Crumrin," and the majority of comics published by Slave Labor Graphics. This presentation will cover the rise of the goth comics style as it differs from goth figures in other comics, like "The Sandman"'s Death character, in order to analyze the significance of women and children in goth comics. While many comics feature women and children characters, these characters are most often othered within a comics tradition that focuses more heavily on adult male characters. Goth comics more often subvert typical comic art styles and worldviews by focusing most often on child characters, but child characters that are more mature and reliable than their parental counterparts. Goth comics follow in a tradition of subversive tales, like Christina Rossetti's "The Goblin Market" and other works like it that were written by female writers for children readers as works written both by and for othered and oppressed groups. Goth comics frequently rely on revisionist tales, like the "Nightmares and Fairy Tales" goth comic series in order to rewrite the traditional tale in which children or women are disempowered. In their revisions, goth comics also revise the place of women and children in comics through a darkened lens.
