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Pendergast, Natalie B. "Frida2." Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 7. (2016): 178–96. Added by: joachim (6/15/20, 7:51 PM) Last edited by: joachim (6/15/20, 8:45 PM) |
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| Resource type: Journal Article Language: en: English Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1080/21504857.2015.1122651 BibTeX citation key: Pendergast2016 Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details  |
Categories: General Keywords: "Frida Kahlo", "Love and Rockets", Art, Comic biography, Corona. Marco, Hernandez. Gilbert, Italy, USA Creators: Pendergast Collection: Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics |
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In both Marco Corona’s and Gilbert Hernandez’s comic-book biographies of Frida Kahlo, they adapt several of her self-portrait paintings into cartoon caricatures, using her art as remade, drawn visual intertext to tell her story in a new form. Along with stylistic and compositional alterations that reshape her narrative in these comic books, Corona and Hernandez also accentuate the generic shift of selections of her oeuvre from autobiographical to biographical images. This article explores the implications of this shift from a self-reflexive genre to an other-focused one. As I show, the works of Corona and Hernandez use the formal elements of the comic book to emphasise – to varying degrees – the neutralising characteristic of intertextuality and the challenges of representing a cultural icon such as Frida Kahlo. Indeed, not only do their comics tell Frida Kahlo’s story, they also critically engage with her self-portraits as visual and autobiographical devices. The three main strategies Corona and Hernandez employ to do this include blending the identities of Kahlo the artist and Kahlo the character in intertext; using frames as seams to stitch or reconfigure her body; and, frequently referencing different pop cultural icons to add significance to their narratives. Ultimately, my analyses aim to show that these comic books make explicit the power of this medium to interweave several dimensions of life storytelling.
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