Marni Stanley teaches English and Women’s Studies at Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. Her academic research and publication areas include Nineteenth Century Women Travellers, television, cinema, and graphic narrative.
In a Queer Time & Place Judith Halberstam argues that metronormativity—the assumption that one can only be out and proud in urban spaces, and that rural and small town homosexuals should be pitied—dominates in gay and lesbian literature. The metronormative narrative sees the city as a space of liberation and formation of identity. But urban environments have their own threats, and the power of identity politics can make urban cliques exclusionary as well as welcoming. How do gay and lesbian comic artists use the urban spaces associated with the enabling of identity—bars, sex shops, the neighborhood—to explore the complexity of finding community in the complexity of urban space? Examples will be drawn from the work of some of the following: Ariel Schrag, Leanne Franson, Eric Orner, Tim Barela, Tim Fish, Alison Bechdel, and Howard Cruse.
TCAF 2012 PODCASTS: New Narrative V: Marni Stanley – “Metronormativity in Queer Comics” by Sequential Radio on Mixcloud