The Work Behind the Work of Graphic Künstlerroman
This chapter examines self-portraiture in contemporary graphic novels and how they oppose the standard theoretical skepticism regarding the viability of cognitive mapping, or the ability to plot oneself in a social order defined by the arrangements of late capitalism. Autography's peculiar textures of visuality and capitalism in self-portraiture are explored through an analysis of Julie Doucet's cover image of My New York Diary (1999) and David Small's Stitches (2009). Doucet's cover image resembles two types of the medieval colophon: one showing scribes and illuminators busy at work, and the other showing them transfixed in spiritual rapture. Doucet's colophonic cover invests in a fantasy of artistic self-representation that is replicated in Stitches Stitches. The chapter argues that Stitches aligns with the tradition of the künstlerroman, or narratives of the artist's development. It concludes by considering how artistic escape and expressivity produce narrative stitches for artistic labor to cover over.