Towards an Ecographics

Abstract

What role do comics have to play in cultural conversations about and in the face of environmental collapse and mass extinction? This article takes bande dessinée as a case study to propose the concept of ecological storylines as part of an ecographics that recognises the specificities of comics as a drawn and narrative medium as well as its shifting place in culture. This is developed with reference to a range of graphic texts and along three axes. The article first explores drawing as material practice in ecographic engagements with radioactivity, gender and landscape. It then turns to redrawing as a mode of contestation as well as repair on a postcolonial planet, before closing with a discussion of flowlines across panels, pages, human and non-human bodies and across cityscapes, seascapes and petroscapes.