만화와 자서전의 접점에서 본 앨리슨 벡델의 문학

초록

Comic books have never been regarded as objects of serious study, at best tagged as a juvenile genre. It is surprising then that Alison Bechdel`s two graphic novels garnered both critical acclaim and commercial success. In Fun Home (2006) and Are You My Mother? (2012), Bechdel probes into her familial background to better understand her complex life as a lesbian graphic memoirist. Indeed, her graphic artifact is "a pioneering work" that experiments with both comics and autobiographies, as hailed by Sean Wilsey in The New York Times. First, this paper explores Bechdel`s graphic novels at the literary juncture of comics and life writing studies. Then, based on the process of composing her books, I propose to see Fun Home as ethnographical writing and Are You My Mother? as a metafictional one.