The medium Is the message : Olivier Schrauwen’s Arsène Schrauwen beyond expectations of autobiography, colonial history and the graphic novel

his article proposes a close reading of Olivier Schrauwen's Arsène Schrauwen, focusing on the various cultural discourses that it engages with, and particularly its ironical self-positioning within the field of comics. First of all, Schrauwen playfully questions the entrenchment of autobiography in the contemporary graphic novel by presenting a wholly fantasized adventure as biographical family history. This play with generic expectations is continued through Schrauwen’s reliance on the tropes of the adventure story and its figuration of the voyage. Arsène Schrauwen also draws on stereotypical... Mehr ...