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Ernst - Authenticity in Graphic Memoirs PDF
Ernst - Authenticity in Graphic Memoirs PDF
Nina Ernst
Abstract
This article examines the use of photography in relation to the creation of meaning in graphic memoirs.
The use of photography is contextualised as one of a range of documentary sources, and discussed
as a means of mediating other forms which otherwise would not be readily included in the graphic
novel format. Authenticity is explored in relation to the autobiographical works of two Nordic authors,
Hanneriina Moisseinen and Mats Jonsson in which it is possible to see the role of photography in the
reflexive gaze, and in the creation and management of self-image. It is argued that photographic images
are a mixture of candid and posed, public and private, and are strategically used to convey a sense of
process in the creation of identity. In addition, they contribute to the creation of cultural memory and
its dissemination to new audiences. The article also illustrates how photographs themselves can be
mediated as drawings, and how they relate to peritext, fictionalisation and narrative framing, aiding in
the exploration of themes of loss, identity, and memory creation.
Résumé
Cet article s’intéresse à l’usage de la photographe dans ses rapports avec la production du sens dans les
mémoires graphiques. Cet usage est contextualisé comme une des sources documentaires possibles, et on
l’aborde comme un instrument de médiation avec d’autres formes que sans cela il serait difficile d’inclure
dans le format du roman graphique. Nous étudions plus particulièrement la notion d’authenticité dans
les travaux autobiographiques de deux auteurs noridiques, Hanneriina Moisseinen et Mats Jonsson, dont
l’écriture a une forte dimension réflexive et contribue à la mise en place et la gestion d’une image de soi.
L’analayse cherche à démonter que les images photographiques sont un mélange de caméra cachée et
d’images posées, tant publiques que privées. En plus, ces images jouent aussi un rôle dans la production
d’une mémoire culturelle et de sa dissémination à travers de nouveaux publics. L’article examine aussi
comment ces images photographiques peuvent être communiquées comme des dessins, quel est leur
rapport avec les notions de péritexte, de fictionnalisatio et de cadrage narratif, et comment elles servent
aussi à explorer les thèmes de la perte, de l’identité et de la création mémorielle.
Keywords
memory creation,authenticity, narratives, photography, peritext, cultural memory, Hanneriina
Moisseinen, Mats Jonsson
1. Mats Jonsson’s comics consist solely of autobiographical narratives. The works discussed in this article are
Unga norrlänningar (Young Norrlanders, 1998), Hey Princess (Hey Princess, 2002), Pojken i skogen (The Boy in
the Woods, 2005), and Mats kamp (Mats’ Struggle, 2011). Hanneriina Moisseinen’s graphic memoir Isä (Father,
2013) will also be discussed. In the following, I will refer to the work titles in my English translation.
Generally speaking, photographs are believed to create an impression of greater authenticity than drawn
images. As Roland Barthes writes, “in Photography I can never deny that the thing has been there. There
is a superimposition here: of reality and of the past. […] Photography’s inimitable feature (its noeme) is
that someone has seen the referent (even if it is a matter of objects in flesh and blood, or again in person”
(76-79). Jonsson denotes authenticity by using a photograph of himself as a child in the frontispiece of
The Boy in the Woods (Fig. 2). It shows him as a boy in his everyday surroundings reading a comics in
a private moment, unconscious of the camera. The image does not obey the formal rules of composition
and lighting, which one would expect in a professional or constructed image. The subject is not a posed
model, and does not exhibit any one of the facial and physical expressions common in professional
image making. Instead, the photograph, compositionally unstructured and naturally lit, is a typical family
snapshot. It appears to have been taken in the spur of the moment and without its subject awareness.
There could have been no photograph unless the boy ‘was there’ reading his comics. That it is a snapshot
further accentuates the photograph’s authenticity, firmly establishing the author’s past existence and his
early interest in comics.
The Boy in the Woods concerns itself with childhood memories of growing up in the north of Sweden. It
is an attempt to scrutinize fragmented memories in order to discover why that boy turned into the person
he became. In it, Jonsson intermingles photographic fictionalisations of himself and original, untampered
historical material. In contrast to his own drawn material, a third party produced this. Maps, wallpaper
designs, and newspaper clippings can be thought of as independent sources, outside his subjective
interpretation of the past. They are also injections of the outside world into his storyworld. For example,
they introduce the viewpoint of the parent who took the snapshot or the view of the journalist with an
audience to publish for. This fosters a certain interpretation of the text in the reader, namely, that these
are real events that happened in non-fictional places.
The back cover photograph also shows the protagonist as a child, this time outdoors viewing
his hometown in the winter landscape of the far north (Fig. 3). The photo suggests a melancholic
atmosphere, a metaphoric reference to the bleak emotional landscape and loneliness examined in the
memoir itself. The boy surveys the world he knows from above, looking out at the northern landscape
that is sparsely dotted with a few houses. We see the boy from behind and cannot ascertain if it really is
The cover of Hey Princess shows Jonsson with his girlfriend Victoria, embracing and kissing as they
lie on a lawn covered with autumn leaves. The frontispiece of Mats’ Struggle is a photo of Jonsson and
his daughter Ellen. She stands next to her father, a peritextual indication that she plays a major part
in the memoir. She holds her father’s hand, and in her other hand she has a bill. The comics creator
looks straight into the camera while the girl casts a watchful eye at the bill. A metaphor for a cutting
implement, the bill is suggestive of a saw, and will become increasingly significant in the narrative,
repeated in the prologue and epilogue of the memoir, and on the flap of the backcover, where Jonsson
The cover picture of Hey Princess must also be interpreted as constructed after the story has been
completed. A representation of the romantic crush is created to indicate the central content of the story.
The photograph fixes and freezes a moment, a kiss, certainly staged in retrospect, but experienced
nonetheless and, indeed, reexperienced in the frontispiece. The story’s happy ending is suggested on
Additional photographs are incorporated in Mats’ Struggle; one containing a collage of reviews of his
breakthrough comic book Hey Princess, and another of a tabloid interview with Jonsson, which includes
his picture. This photograph functions as a counterpart to the integrated interview in the previous work,
The Boy in the Woods. The intercalation of ongoing work with new self-representations, reviews of
completed works and accompanying interviews, creates a dense weave of Jonsson’s entire creative
process. His anxiety, his writer’s block, pride, self-mirroring, and vanity all share the panel space with
cartoon images of his daily struggle to produce new frames. As such, they form the life journal of Mats
Jonsson.
Jonsson’s method comprises a fictionalisation of photographs of himself, first in the frontispieces
and later by incorporating supposedly authentic material from old newspapers into his comics art. These
photographs, which are the central ingredients of the author’s visual method, function to create a sense
of something genuine and true. At the same time, by arranging memories in reconfigured photographs,
they raise for consideration the question of creating authenticity. This is because “[o]ur awareness of the
subjective imaging is in constant tension with the legacy of objectivity that clings to the cameras and
machines that produce images today” (Sturken and Cartwright 17). The photographs and press clippings
The original newspaper photograph serves a different function here. Before the protagonist realises
who the photograph represents, the boy in the picture is an unknown person, an object it is possible to
laugh at. However, once he realises that the boy is himself, the boy is transformed into a subject. Finally,
with the safe distance of time and within the safety of the cartoon storyworld, the author can recount
the memory of his discovery by distancing himself from his material. This, in turn, enables him to face
himself as an object once again. By using different source material, his work becomes an establishment,
a regulation, and a shaping of his own identity. Through it, he stages a dialogue with his own self.
A comparison of the two versions provides evidence of a vanished past that existed, but is long lost. In
recreating an existing photograph, Moisseinen imbues it with additional subjective meanings. In contrast
to Jonsson’s practice of using photographs as cover pictures, Moisseinen transforms a private photo into
a drawn image that fits into her memoir’s black and white visual style. Elizabeth El Refaie suggests that
“[w]hen photographic images are redrawn by hand, some of the aura of authenticity associated with
photography is likely to be maintained, but this will be weakened by the loss of indexicality involved in
the translation from one medium to another” (165). Moisseinen’s reinterpretation of a private photograph
is an aesthetisation that creates a distance to the events. To a certain degree, it fictionalizes the snapshot.
The first page of Father consists of a single panel showing a photograph of a towel with the
Finnish word for “father” (Isä) woven into the fabric (Fig. 9). It is the kind of mundane, everyday
domestic object that goes unnoticed in most narratives. However, in this instance, it reinforces the father
as the theme of the narrative. Counterintuitively, its documentary power lies in its ordinariness. The
towel, which will never be used by the intended person, serves to magnify the absence of that person. It
establishes a context of family life from a child’s point of view.
At a later point in the narrative, a drawn panel shows the towel rack in the bathroom with three towels
and one missing below the nameplate of “father”. It is the juxtaposition of the drawings without the
towel with the photographic representation of the authentic towel that conveys emotions of loss and
grief. The photographed towel at the beginning establishes the presence of the father in the memoir.
However, when we as readers set eyes on the empty space on the drawn towel rack, we register the
absence of the towel and therefore, the absence of the father.
The second frame in the book introduces readers to Moisseinen’s overarching subject matter,
namely, the disappearance of her father. In it, a scanned and reproduced press clipping torn from a
Finnish newspaper features a notice about Seppo Johannes Moisseinen’s disappearance. It provides brief
information about the circumstances, time, and place of his disappearance, and also describes the missing
person. It ends with a request to contact the police with information. Additionally, there is a sea chart of
the geographical area in which the search took place. The work ends with a handwritten letter from the
artist and a photograph of the memorial inscription on the island where her father disappeared. These
narrative strategies frame the otherwise cartooned memoir, like a prologue and epilogue of authenticity.
Just as Jonsson incorporates maps and clippings, Moisseinen includes non-drawn material to provide
This artistic work is reaching for a kind of authenticity which photographs and maps have less power to
convey. Embroidery requires repetitive actions, which can be seen as ritualistic. It has a comparatively
long creative process compared with photography or drawing, and leads to extensive contemplation. The
action of stitching thus lends itself to thoughtfulness, and onwards to understanding one’s thoughts in the
physical forms that are under construction. The textiles both represent metaphorical images of her father
and contain emotional parallels within the structure of the stitches themselves. Embroidery has a ‘right’
and a ‘wrong’ side. The stitches are neater on the right side of the work than the wrong side. The back of
The embroidery refers to how the human body restores memories and emotions as well as the
brain. It’s the physical part of the experience. As I was stitching, the concrete thing there was that
the needle went about millions of times through the canvas to the other side, which means the
unseen, unknown. It was a way to connect to the Other Side, to get back the lost memories. At
first the memories were really messy and full of knots, and the picture was hardly visible (such as
the “shameful” other sides of an unexperienced embroiderer’s works), but in the end they became
clear and beautiful, like the finished embroideries. (E-mail conversation)
‘Things’ […] exist in nature without the need to be experienced by humans, whereas ‘objects’ -- to
be objects -- are things that are, as he [Deely] refers to it, ‘dosed’ with human experience. When
these objects are used in the processes of signification (when they are photographed for example)
they become signs. […] Deely’s distinctions suggest that the idea of presenting ‘things as they are’
-- without human intervention -- via photographs is impossible. We can never apprehend ‘things’
because, as soon as we do so, they become ‘objects’ of our experience. (110)
Applied to Moisseinen’s work, Deely’s ideas seem to grasp that emotional or experiential distance
between items as they are experienced and as they are represented. The textile is infused with human
experience, and represents the processes by which Moisseinen recovers and manages her memories of
her father and of his disappearance. The textile is a material object as well as a sign, both before and
after being photographed. This is because the textile can be, and perhaps was intended to be, shown, or
displayed even before it was photographed. The photographs of her embroidery thus function as a bridge
between the object and the sign system of the graphic memoir as a whole.
Moisseinen draws from two clear systems: those belonging to comics narratives and the discipline
of embroidery. What is original is how she adapts and combines them to create new symbolism. Through
her comic art, Moisseinen transforms the pain of losing her parent into a juxtaposition of drawings,
photographs, and textile work. The cloths in white and black, embroidered with butterflies, a bear crying
pearls, and the island where her father disappeared, are loaded with personal meaning. They validate
traditional work by Karelian women, connecting her to her paternal Karelian roots and her story to a
wider his/story. There is an echo of history reverberating in throughout the comics. Moisseinen lost
her Karelian father, and Finland lost Karelia to the Soviet Union in 1940. Jan Assmann’s exploration
of cultural memory discusses its capacity for reconstruction, proposing that it “transforms factual into
remembered history […]. This does not make it unreal -- on the contrary, this is what makes it real, in
the sense that it becomes a lasting, normative, and formative power” (38). When tying her artwork back
to a cultural and gendered background and experience, Moisseinen imbues it with an authenticity that
goes beyond the documentary. In pursuit of her memories, she creates an emotional truth.
Works Cited
Adams, Jeff. Documentary Graphic Novels and Social Realism. Bern: Lang, 2008.
Assmann, Jan. Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance, and Political
Imagination. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011.
Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida. Trans. Richard Howard. 1981. London: Vintage; Random
House, 1993.
Bull, Stephen. Photography. New York: Routledge, 2010.
El Refaie, Elisabeth. Autobiographical Comics: Life Writing in Pivtures. Jackson: UP of
Mississippi. 2012.
Erll, Astrid; Nünning, Ansgar (Eds.). A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies. Berlin/New
York: De Gruyter, 2010.
Genette, Gérard. Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation. 1987. Trans. Jane E. Lewin.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997.
Horstkotte, Silke; Pedri, Nancy. ”Photographic Interventions.” Poetics Today 29.1 (Spring
2008): 1-29.
Jonsson, Mats. Unga norrlänningar (Young Norrlanders). Stockholm: Galago, 1998.
---. Hey Princess (Hey Princess). Stockholm: Galago, 2002.
---. Pojken i skogen (The Boy in the Woods). Stockholm: Galago, 2005.
Nina Ernst is a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at Lund University, Sweden. Her doctoral
thesis deals primarily with contemporary autobiographical Swedish comics, with a comparative
perspective taking in European and North American examples. She is particularly interested in narration
and the narrative methods used by cartoonists when reconstructing memories and in the creation of
self image. She has presented her initial findings at various international conferences, including at the
NNCORE conference in Helsinki, the ISSN conference in Cambridge, and at Nanjing University. A
paper dealing with performativityin a Swedish graphic memoir about childhood trauma is forthcoming
in the Conference series published by The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities.
Email: nina.ernst@litt.lu.se