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Digital and In/Visible Lives in Autobiographical Webcomics

Digital and In/Visible Lives in Autobiographical Webcomics cover

Digital and In/Visible Lives in Autobiographical Webcomics

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Pre-order. Available 19 Feb 2026
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Description

This book examines webcomics as a complex and dynamic form of self-representation that captures the trends and tendencies of contemporary digital life narrative. Webcomics represent a rich and composite site for autobiography online that allows for experiment with analogue and digital technologies in ways that are fundamentally visual but also mediated, public, and networked. Exploring a broad spectrum of case studies emerging on various digital platforms – including personal blogs, websites, and social media, author Shannon Sandford focuses on wounded bodies, mental illness, graphic medicine, and feminist webcomics to introduce complex questions around self-representation and embodiment. Works covered include: Stuart Campbell's These Memories Won't Last; Allie Brosh's blog Hyperbole and a Half; Alec MacDonald's Instagram account; Kate Beaton's “Regular Life” webcomics on Twitter and Tumblr; MUTHA Magazine (2013–present); and Australian artist Mary Leunig's short series of Facebook webcomics.

Investigating the ways modern webcomics, by inscribing subjects on the edges of representation, signal the urgencies of life narrative as a practice/ discipline that moves into increasingly networked and digital subject positions, this book considers how webcomics uniquely combine visual artistry with modern methods of production, consumption, and circulation. In a contemporary moment fascinated with life narrative in fluctuating digital spaces, Digital and In/Visible Lives in Autobiographical Webcomics considers how webcomics might transition into a representative apparatus to challenge the status quo and engage with subjects marginalised by mainstream media and the digital sphere.

Table of Contents

Introduction. Why Webcomics?
Chapter 1. From Alternative Press to Ephemeral Technologies: A Contemporary History of Webcomics
Explicit, Ugly, and Taboo: The Autobiographical Aesthetic of Underground Comix
Alternative Experimentations in Form and Materiality
Dynamic Reading and Divergent Spaces: The Wide World of Web(comics)

Chapter 2. “Loading Memories…”: Deteriorating Pasts and Distant Futures in Stuart Campbell's These Memories Won't Last
Interrogating “Living Connections”: Trauma, Memory, and Postmemory
Liminal Spaces, Narrative Ruptures: Navigating Ephemeral Technologies
A Cacophony of Sound and Energy: These Memories as Enhanced Webcomic

Chapter 3. “You Can't Combat Nothing”: Allie Brosh and the Ethical Dimensions of Graphic Medicine
Speaking in Lay Terms: Representing Illness Online
Cycles, Closures, and Confronting the Restitution Narrative
“Does Anybody Know What is Happening with Allie Brosh”: Negotiating Absence and Audience Desires

Chapter 4. Mundane Bodies, Extraordinary Embodiment in Alec MacDonald's @alecwithpen
Coding the Other: Apprehending Illness through Iconography
Navigating Everyday Life with a “Bad Brain”
Influencers of Illness: Reading Instagram Webcomics

Chapter 5. Slow Violences: The Affective Weight of Re-presenting Lives in Kate Beaton's “Regular Life” Webcomics
Mundane, Intimate, Anecdotal: Family Narratives Online
Illness, Loss, and Visual Labour
#HourlyComicsDay: Everyday Webcomics in Dialogic Spaces

Chapter 6. Subversive “Wimmen” and Bad “MUTHAs”: Genealogies of Women's Web/Comix
Reading and Reconciling the Counter-publics of Wimmen's Comix
De/constructing MUTHAhood: Self-exposure, Vulnerability, Rebellion
Digital Intimate Publics and the “Bad Mom” Movement

Chapter 7. “It's Not Brave, It's Easy”: Mary Leunig's Webcomics During the #MeToo Era
The Risk of Telling Trauma amid an Australian #MeToo
Art, Excess, Exaggeration, Imagination
“No Small Thing”: Complex Representations of Systemic Violence
Conclusion. Webcomics, What Now?
Bibliography
Index

Product details

Bloomsbury Academic Test
Published 19 Feb 2026
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 240
ISBN 9781350447578
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Illustrations 15 colour illus
Dimensions 234 x 156 mm
Series New Directions in Life Narrative
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

Shannon Sandford

Shannon Sandford is a Lecturer in Literary Studies…

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