Embodied trace and psychological space – how embodied mark making creates alternative narratological space in comics

This paper will explore methods through which creators use materials and traces to signal different narratological spaces within graphic narratives. In trauma narratives in particular, materials and mark making can be used to establish narratological spaces outside the main action of the narrative, where subjective experiences of time and space can be inhabited by the reader.

In this paper I will discuss Una’s Becoming Unbecoming and Katie Green’s Lighter than my Shadow and argue that throughout both works recurring narratological spaces are bridged by a likeness of materiality and embodied mark making related to Groensteen’s concept of ‘braiding’ (2007). Such recurrences are consistent with elements of what Katalin Orbán (2020) has referred to as the ‘trauma aesthetic’. I will argue that the embodied trace and agency of materials used in these works generate spaces of empathy that allow the reader to dwell with autobiographical subjectivity in spaces outside of narrative time. Through such methods as soaking, folding, tearing and the use of a category of mark making that falls between writing and drawing, these works create pockets of narratological space where embodied traces are employed to deviate from the logic of the primary narrative. I will argue that embodied responses are key to understanding these works on an ethical level and discuss ways in which such embodied responses are encouraged through the material agency of the drawing materials used and the book as support.