https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9137-9380
![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Encouraged by a growing tendency towards international training and education as well as by the precarity that dominates artistic production in Italy, Italian comics artists are the protagonists of a diaspora as they emigrate to other European countries. This article investigates the effects of migration and geographical in-betweenness on the work of two Italian graphic novelists, Nicoz Balboa and Alice Socal, whose texts feature explicitly gendered representations. A hybrid methodology is employed, combining textual analysis supported by a nomadic feminist theoretical framework with semi-structured interviews with the authors. The article argues that Balboa and Socal inhabit a ‘diasporic space’ both as artists and individuals. This space is characterised by the constant contestation of socio-cultural boundaries and divisions. Furthermore, the gendered representations delineated by these authors systematically interrogate the inflexible binarisms imposed by the patriarchal socio-cultural order. These interrogations extend beyond gender boundaries, challenging the rigid dichotomy that separates youth from adulthood.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Roberta Ricucci, The New Southern European Diaspora: Youth, Unemployment, and Migration (Lenham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2017), p. 3.
2 Valentina Cuzzocrea, ‘Squeezing or Blurring? Young Adulthood in the Career Strategies of Professionals Based in Italy and England’, Journal of Youth Studies, 14.6 (2011), 657–74.
3 Valentina Cuzzocrea, ‘“Flexi-Lives”. Facing the Mobility Imperative’, in Youth and the Politics of the Present, ed. by Enzo Colombo and Paola Rebughini (London: Routledge, 2019), pp. 44–55.
4 Ricucci, p. 3.
5 Carola Spadoni, ‘Genere e valori nell’arte italiana’, Il Manifesto, 8 December 2018 <https://ilmanifesto.it/genere-e-valori-nellarte-italiana> [accessed 2 February 2023]; Alessandro Caruso, ‘Professione artista. Che differenza c’è tra un medico e un artista? Il primo è considerato un lavoro, il secondo no. Ma qualcosa sta cambiando’, Insideart <https://insideart.eu/2021/05/13/professione-artista-che-differenza-ce-tra-un-medico-e-un-artista-il-primo-e-considerato-un-lavoro-il-secondo-no-ma-qualcosa-sta-cambiando/> [accessed 2 February 2023]; Francesca Naima, ‘Arte e moda: l’Italia non forma alle sue eccellenze’, L’indipendente <https://www.lindipendente.online/2022/04/16/arte-e-moda-litalia-non-forma-alle-sue-eccellenze/> [accessed 2 February 2023].
6 Agnese Malatesta, ‘Fumettisti italiani all’estero e “fuga dei pennelli”,’ Ansa, 29 October 2020 <https://www.ansa.it/canale_lifestyle/notizie/people/2020/10/25/fumettisti-italiani-allestero-e-fuga-dei-pennelli_cb7d706c-6ce5-43f5-97e7-2c0353b200c4.html> [accessed 3 February 2023].
7 Malatesta.
8 Daniele Comberiati, ‘La migrazione artistica dei fumettisti in Francia dagli anni Settanta ad oggi’, Studi culturali XV.2 (2018), 295.
9 Ibid., p. 309.
10 Sara Dallavalle, ‘Alcuni dati sull’andamento dell’editoria fumettistica in Italia tra graphic novel e fumetto seriale,’ Simultanea 1.2 (2020) <http://italianpopculture.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Dallavalle_EditoriaFumettisticaFinaleFinale.pdf> [accessed 20 June 2023].
11 Simone Castaldi, ‘A Brief History of Comics in Italy and Spain’, in The Routledge Companion to Comics, ed. by Frank Bamlett, Roy Cook, and Aaron Meskin (New York and London: Routledge, 2017), pp. 79–87; Dallavalle, ‘Alcuni dati sull’andamento dell’editoria fumettistica in Italia tra graphic novel e fumetto seriale.’
12 María Porras Sánchez and Gerardo Vilches, ‘Introduction’, in Precarious Youth in Contemporary Graphic Narratives: Young Lives in Crisis, ed. by María Porras Sánchez and Gerardo Vilches (New York and London: Routledge, 2022), pp. 1–16 (p. 10).
13 Nicoletta Mandolini and Giorgio Busi Rizzi, ‘What Is Love? Precarious Lives, Precarious Loves in the Works of Italian Graphic Novelists,’ in Precarious Youth in Contemporary Graphic Narratives: Young Lives in Crisis, ed. by María Porras Sánchez and Gerardo Vilches (New York and London: Routledge, 2022), pp. 73–87 (p. 74).
14 Zerocalcare, Macerie Prime (Rome: Bao Publishing, 2017).
15 https://baopublishing.it/prodotti/macerie-prime/ [accessed 27 December 2023].
16 Gipi, LMVDM – La mia vita disegnata male (Rome: Coconino, 2008); Niccolò Pellizzon, Gli amari consigli (Rome: Bao Publishing, 2014); Nuke, Effetto Casimir (Milan: Rizzoli Lizard, 2015); Giulia Sagramola, Incedi estivi (Rome: Bao Publishing, 2015); Nova, Stelle o sparo (Rome: Bao Publishing, 2018).
17 Mandolini and Busi Rizzi, p. 85.
18 Teresa Graziano, ‘The Italian e-Diaspora: Patterns and Practices of the Web’, e-Diasporas Atlas (Paris: Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme) <http://www.e-diasporas.fr/working-papers/Graziano-Italians-EN.pdf> [accessed 7 February 2023], p. 4.
19 Graziano, p. 4; Sara Marino, ‘Transnational Identities and Digital Media: The Digitalisation of Italian Diaspora in London’, JOMEC Journal 7, 2015, ‘The Meaning of Migration’ ed. by Kerry Moore <http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/29785/1/Jomec.pdf> [accessed 07 February 2023].
20 Comberiati, p. 312.
21 Maya Quaianni Manuzzato, ‘Promoting Comics in Digital Landscape: Comic Artists as Content Creators’, Studies in Comics (forthcoming 2024).
22 Private interview (online, 20/01/2023).
23 Gabriel Sheffer, ‘A New Field of Study: Modern Diasporas in International Politics’, in Modern Diasporas in International Politics, ed. by Gabriel Scheffer (London and Sydney: Croom Helm, 1986), pp. 1–15 (p. 3).
24 Jennifer Brinkerhoof, Digital Diasporas. Identity and Transnational Engagement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 32.
25 Sandra Ponzanesi, ‘Diasporic Subjects and Migration’, in Thinking Differently: A Reader in European Women’s Studies, ed. by Gabriele Griffin and Rosi Braidotti (London and New York: Zed Books, 2002), pp. 205–20 (p. 208).
26 Peter Jackson, Phil Crang, and Clare Dwyer, ‘Introduction: The Spaces of Transnationality,’ in Transnational Spaces, ed. by Peter Jackson, Phil Crang, and Clare Dwyer (New York and London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 1–23 (p. 2).
27 Dana Diminescu and Dominique Pasquier, Les migrants conectés: TIC, mobilités et migrations (Paris: La Découverte, 2010).
28 Avtar Brah, Cartographies of Diaspora: Contested Identities, first ed. 1996 (New York and London: Routledge, 2005), p. 205.
29 Ibid., p. 207.
30 Ibid., p. 208.
31 Rosi Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), p. 4.
32 Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderland/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1987).
33 Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects, p. 25.
34 Ibid., pp. 30–31.
35 Rosi Braidotti, Transpositions. On Nomadic Ethics (Cambridge: Polity, 2006), p. 9.
36 Ibid., p. 156.
38 Balboa’s zines, as most self-published zines, were photocopied versions of original comics that were distributed in underground comics festivals and markets.
39 Jan Baetens and Hugo Frey, The Graphic Novel: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 10–13; Andrea Tosti, Graphic Novel: Storia e teoria del romanzo a fumetti e del rapporto tra parola e immagine (Latina: Tunué, 2016), p. 695; Elisabetta Bacchereti, ‘Introduzione: Un crossover per la modernità letteraria. Il graphic novel’, in Il graphic novel: Un crossover per la modernità letteraria, ed. by Elisabetta Bacchereti, Federico Fastelli, Diego Salvatodori (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2020), pp. VIII–XV, (p. XIV); Lisa Maya Quaianni Manuzzato and Eva Van de Wiele, ‘Labelling Oneself Fumettista?’, in Precarious Youth in Contemporary Graphic Narratives: Young Lives in Crisis, ed. by Mária Porras Sánchez and Gerardo Vilches (New York and London: Routledge, 2022), pp. 151–64, (p. 157–60).
40 Private interview (online, 13/01/2023).
41 Nicoz Balboa, Nicozrama (Cremona: Centro Fumetto Andrea Pazienza, 2005).
42 Nicoz Balboa, Les larmes de crocodile (Paris: Diantre !, 2008).
43 Nicoz Balboa, Born to Lose (Rome: Coconino, 2017).
44 Nicoz Balboa, Play with Fire (Nantes: Ici Même Éditions, 2022).
45 Nicoz Balboa, Transformer (Bologna: Oblomov, 2023).
46 Private interview (online, 13/01/2023).
47 Private interview.
48 Private interview.
49 Private interview.
50 Private interview.
51 Brah, p. 205.
52 Nicoz Balboa, Play with Fire (Bologna: Oblomov, 2020), p. 27.
53 ‘Sous rature’ [under-erasure], means that words or sentences are crossed out. A tendency to exploit this strategy has been observed in the work of one of the most influential queer contemporary comics artists, Alison Bechdel, who frequently uses it to represent the renegotiation and constant questioning of identity that characterise queer subjects’ journaling practice. See Christine Quinan, ‘Alison Bechdel and the Queer Graphic Novel’, in Doing Gender in Media, Art and Culture, ed. by Rosemary Buikema, Liedeke Plate, and Kathrin Thiele (New York and London: Routledge, 2017), pp. 153–68. For a discussion of the concept of ‘sous rature’, see Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976).
54 Balboa, Play with Fire, p. 28.
55 Ibid., p. 29.
56 Balboa, Play with Fire, pp. 68–123.
57 Balboa, Play with Fire, p. 156 onwards.
58 Balboa, Play with Fire, p. 170.
59 Ibid., pp. 171–72.
60 Ibid., pp. 193–94.
61 Ibid., pp. 202–03.
62 Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Tendencies (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993), p. 8.
63 And in fact it was, as demonstrated by the long discussion between queer and trans theorists, where the notions of anti/normativity and that of rejection/embracement of patriarchal gendered categories are central to the debate. On this, see Chu and Harsin Drager 2019.
64 Private interview (online, 13/01/2023).
65 Fortier Anne-Marie, ‘Queer Diasporas’, in Handbook of Lesbian and Gay Studies, ed. by Diane Richardson and Steve Seidman (London: Sage, 2002), pp. 183–98, (p. 183).
66 Nowadays Bologna is considered one of the main poles for comics in Italy. Apart from being tightly interlaced with the works of important creators of the Italian fumetto of the Seventies and Eighties, such as Andrea Pazienza, Filippo Scozzari, Igort, Lorenzo Mattotti and Vittorio Giardino, Bologna is nowadays considered a hub for those who want a career in the (mostly alternative and authorial part of) comics industry, thanks to the prestigious course ‘Fumetto e illustrazione’ offered by the Accademia di Belle Arti. Significant fumettisti in the Bolognese comics scene include Paolo Bacilieri, Vanna Vinci, Francesca Ghermandi, Ratigher, Tuono Pettinato, Sara Colaone, Fumettibrutti.
67 Alice Socal, Sandro (Turin: Eris Edizioni, 2015).
68 Alessandro Romeo and Alice Socal, Il fratello di Jürgen (Bologna: Canicola, 2017).
69 Alice Socal, Cry Me a River (Rome: Coconino Press, 2017).
70 Private interview (online, 30/01/2023).
71 Alice Socal, Junior (Bresci: Maledizioni, 2020).
72 Alice Socal, Wie lange nach (Berlin: Rotopol, 2022).
73 Ibid. Just before the publication of this article, the Italian version of Wie lange noch came out, titled Just Mom. See Alice Socal, Just Mom (Milan 24ore cultura: 2023).
74 Alice Socal, Cry Me a River (Bologna: Coconino Press, 2017), p. 114.
75 Braidotti, Transpositions, p. 187.
76 Rosi Braidotti, Metamorphoses. Towards a Materialist Theory of Becoming (Cambridge: Polity, 2002), pp. 117–70.
77 Private interview (online, 30/01/2023).
78 Catherine Driscoll, Girls: Feminine Adolescence in Popular Culture and Cultural Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), p. 47.
79 Joanna Walsh, Girl Online (London and New York: Verso, 2022), ‘The oldest girl in the world’.
80 Silvia Federici, ‘The Reproduction of Labour Power in the Global Economy and the Unfinished Feminist Revolution’, in Workers and Labour in a Globalised Capitalism, ed. by Maurizio Atzeni (New York: Palgrave), pp. 85–110 (pp. 100–02).
81 Alice Socal, ‘Heimat’, in Chronicles of a Pregnancy <https://www.instagram.com/p/BwzMgJIBq5D/> [accessed 17 February 2023].
82 Socal, Instagram post, 7 December 2022 <https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl3IuXOMwBF/> [accessed 17 February 2023].
83 Socal, Instagram post, 28 August 2020, <https://www.instagram.com/p/CEbtYiBi7ox/> [accessed 17 February 2023].
84 See note 51 above.