Moving from the rising popularity of biographic comics in Italy, especially since the 2000s, the paper focuses on the work of the publishing Becco Giallo. Founded in 2005, its name is a tribute to the courageous editorial experience of the anti-fascist satirical sheet “Il Becco Giallo,” which in the 1920s used drawing -along with written journalistic inquiry- to criticize and press the Power. Its Biographies series hosts about 115 lives of writers, scientists, poets, activists, journalists, committed to legality and the fight against mafias. Becco Giallo publishing project assigns important role to graphic biographies as primary sources for a transgenerational readership to understand social changes and the historical contexts they relate to: the biographies combine the documentary reconstruction of controversial events in recent history with the multimodality of comics, naturally able to express the coexistence of past and present, facts and emotions, and to incorporate multiple perspectives and topics in one single panel. Within the growing transnational publishing phenomenon of refugee comics, which has led to experimentation with new forms of graphic narratives, blending fiction and investigative journalism, personal testimony and collective history, the representation of female migration is an interesting aspect to explore due to the intersectionality of subordination and discrimination constructed around the axes of gender, race and class. This contribution examines three graphic biographies published by Becco Giallo, with the aim of highlighting the ability of the biographical genre to represent different dimensions of female migration, thanks to the semiotic peculiarities of comics and the use of paratextual devices. In particular, the visual, graphic, textual and para-textual strategies adopted will be investigated, following two objectives: to analyze the diversity of the three biographies, in terms of theme and form, to understand whether biographical graphic novels of the last two decades offer a multifaceted and complex picture of the female migrant experience; to understand how the narrative can counteract the passivising representation of migrant women, or whether it unintentionally contributes to the reproduction of victimising tropes and a depoliticised defence of human interests.
Speaking for others. Voice and representation in three Italian (bio)graphic stories of female migration
Ilaria Filograsso
2026-01-01
Abstract
Moving from the rising popularity of biographic comics in Italy, especially since the 2000s, the paper focuses on the work of the publishing Becco Giallo. Founded in 2005, its name is a tribute to the courageous editorial experience of the anti-fascist satirical sheet “Il Becco Giallo,” which in the 1920s used drawing -along with written journalistic inquiry- to criticize and press the Power. Its Biographies series hosts about 115 lives of writers, scientists, poets, activists, journalists, committed to legality and the fight against mafias. Becco Giallo publishing project assigns important role to graphic biographies as primary sources for a transgenerational readership to understand social changes and the historical contexts they relate to: the biographies combine the documentary reconstruction of controversial events in recent history with the multimodality of comics, naturally able to express the coexistence of past and present, facts and emotions, and to incorporate multiple perspectives and topics in one single panel. Within the growing transnational publishing phenomenon of refugee comics, which has led to experimentation with new forms of graphic narratives, blending fiction and investigative journalism, personal testimony and collective history, the representation of female migration is an interesting aspect to explore due to the intersectionality of subordination and discrimination constructed around the axes of gender, race and class. This contribution examines three graphic biographies published by Becco Giallo, with the aim of highlighting the ability of the biographical genre to represent different dimensions of female migration, thanks to the semiotic peculiarities of comics and the use of paratextual devices. In particular, the visual, graphic, textual and para-textual strategies adopted will be investigated, following two objectives: to analyze the diversity of the three biographies, in terms of theme and form, to understand whether biographical graphic novels of the last two decades offer a multifaceted and complex picture of the female migrant experience; to understand how the narrative can counteract the passivising representation of migrant women, or whether it unintentionally contributes to the reproduction of victimising tropes and a depoliticised defence of human interests.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
