Self Wrought: The Unreliable Narrator / the Unreliable Self in Pat Grant’s BLUE and Mandy Ord’s Rooftops

Abstract

Recent scholarship on how the medium of comics intersects with autobiography studies is taking ideas about narrative and ideas about the representation of identity in multiple directions. This chapter addresses this intersection in the specific context of the contemporary Australian autobiographical comics BLUE by Pat Grant and Rooftops by Mandy Ord. The chapter first addresses itself to the assertion, as adopted in various ways by Will Eisner, Bart Beaty, Hillary Chute and Dale Jacobs among others, that the multiple layers, textures and languages inherent in the medium of comics add to its ability to present narrative ‘authenticity.' The paper then investigates points of intersection betwee..