You may be asking, “what is an autobio comic?” Let’s break it down to it’s components. First, autobiography, which is an account of a person’s life written by that person. Next, comic, which is a medium used to express ideas through images, as well as the reason we are all here at the Columbus Scribbler. So putting it together, an autobiography comic, or autobio comic for short, is a comic about one’s own life.
It’s pretty much a given that an autobiographical book is written by the person whose life the work is about, otherwise it would just be a biography. But comics are often a collaborative medium, and it’s not always one person doing the writing, penciling, inking and coloring. In fact, most mainstream comics have an entire team devoted to them. This may or may not be the case with autobio comics. In some instances one person will do all the work, such as with Raina Telgemeier’s Smile. Sometimes the author finds an artist to draw their story, as is the case with the works of Harvey Pekar, like Our Cancer Year, which was written by Pekar and his wife Joyce Brabner, but was actually drawn by Frank Stack.
And here’s where things get even more interesting: within this genre lie a multitude of sub-genres. Since autobio comics are about people’s lives, they can be written to fit any number of genres. For example, some of these comics focus on major historical events. Maus, Art Spiegelman’s illustrations of his father’s life as a Holocaust survivor, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, about growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, and March, the story of U.S. Congressman John Lewis’s experiences in the Civil Rights movement, as written by Lewis and Andrew Aydin and illustrated by Nate Powell are a few examples.
Other sub-genres include journal comics, which are comics that are often drawn as page-a-day reflections on the author’s life. These can be interesting to read as they are drawn in the moment, and when read as a complete work can reveal big changes the author was unaware of at the time. Examples of this subgenre include local talent and contributor to the Columbus Scribbler Brian Canini with Fear of Flying and The Big Year as well as Chris Monday with Drink More Water.
As with autobio books, coming of age is a big theme in autobio comics. Examples of this include both the aforementioned Smile by Raina Telgemeier, detailing her life from sixth to tenth grade and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. Beyond just coming of age, big life events make for some emotional autobio comics, such as Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner’s Our Cancer Year, and Marisa Acocella Marchetto’s Cancer Vixen, both of which deal with their author’s surviving cancer.
All these suggestions are just the tip of the iceberg. Just like autobio books, autobio comics can be written for any number of reasons and deal with any number of events that affect an author’s life. Like the authors and illustrators creating them, they each have their own unique style and are an excellent way to view another’s life experiences.