Sexuality and Mental Illness in Comics. Co-editor: Irene Velentzas. Spec. issue of Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, vol. 11, no. 4, 2020.

Sexuality and Mental Illness in Comics is a collection of academic and comics essays that explore the complex intersections between sexual identification, practice, and performance and mental illness in comics. Contributors to this special issue of Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics draw on historical and contemporary theories that are central to sexuality studies to investigate what the particular verbal-visual art form of comics can add to current debates surrounding sexuality and mental illness. Sexuality and Mental Illness in Comics’ four main sections -- Non-fiction Comics, Cartoonist Essays, Alternative Comics, and Superhero Comics -- cohere to present a strong case for how comics propose alternative ways of understanding sexuality as it intersects with mental illness. The volume’s organization according to genres underscores the vast diversity of formal practices adopted by comic artists who address the challenges of representing sexuality and its relation to mental illness. A genre division thus encourages readers to consider genre-specific narrative strategies, as well as the ways in which creators experiment with them to communicate and challenge notions of how sexuality intersects with mental illness. It also highlights that sexuality is far from invisible in comics whose narratives include characters who endure mental illness.

Table of Contents

Pedri, Nancy and Irene Velentzas. "Sexuality and Mental Illness in Comics: Notes towards an Introduction."

Gormally, Cara. "Baby-making Black Hole."

Heifler, Sydney Phillips. "Romance Comics, Dangerous Girls, and the Importance of Fathers."

Michael, Olga. "PTSD and Female Sexuality in the Aftermath of Childhood and Adolescent Sexual Abuse in Una’s Becoming Unbecoming."

Deman, J. Andrew. "Busting Loose: Ms. Marvel and Post-Rape Trauma in X-men Comics."

Doran, Fionnuala. "Alone amidst X-men: Rogue, Sexuality, and Mental Illness."

Wright, Aneurin. "Shame, Sexuality, Mental Health, and Comics."

Mutard, Bruce. "Vita Longa Ars Breva or: My Troubles with Comics."

Barker, Meg-John (team). "Plural Selves, Queer, and Comics."

Rüggemeier, Anne. "Transformative List-Making: Challenging Heteronormativity and Ableism in Ellen Forney’s Somatographies."