Men of Steel, Cups of Tea: Transatlantic Narratives and Exchange in Contemporary Comics
This study investigates comics that have been produced by three British writers, John Wagner, Garth Ennis and Grant Morrison, for the American comics industry, alongside comics produced for the British comics industry that focus on America or are influenced by American popular culture. The aim is to develop a deeper understanding of the relationship between these two comics cultures, and these two countries, as expressed through the comics produced by these writers. A feature of the relationship between British and American comics industries since the 1980s has been the flow of British comics creators to the more financially rewarding, though sometimes more creatively constrained, American comics industry. Over time these creators’ outsider perspectives have greatly influenced American comics and have produced controversial but highly successful works that often critique American politics and culture through the lenses of satire and parody. Although many British comics creators fit these criteria, this study focuses on three writers – John Wagner, Garth Ennis, and Grant Morrison – who have made significant contributions to transatlantic comics but who have been somewhat neglected by existing scholarship. Also, unlike much of the current literature, this thesis examines the wider socio-political and industrial implications of transatlantic comics’ uses of satire and parody when depicting America, via a theoretical framework oriented around the concepts of hauntology and simulacra. Additionally, the thesis draws upon the greatly expanded corpus of comics criticism that has arisen over the last thirty years, with an emphasis on political representation, but also expanding upon existing scholarship that explores how comics communicate meaning through their unique sequential combinations of word and image. Chapter One focuses on John Wagner, co-creator of Judge Dredd from the British science fiction weekly 2000 AD, with an emphasis on the comic’s satirical portrayals of America. Chapter Two examines how Garth Ennis’ Preacher and The Boys parody and satirise genres such as the western and the superhero comic to critique America’s use of mythic narratives to define itself. Chapter Three focuses on Grant Morrison’s use of metafiction to present the relationships between post-9/11 American superheroes and imperialist politics as a perpetual, self-annihilating cycle that reduces the real to fiction. The thesis concludes with a look at current developments in transatlantic comics, especially with regard to reciprocal exchange, and recommendations for future research in this area in the context of the key issues discussed herein.
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