Remembering the Vietnam War in Graphic Narratives

This project discusses the relation between memory and graphic novels, mainly focusing on the ongoing narration of the Vietnam War. It adopts a diachronic and philological approach to reconstruct the history of the medium and its entanglement with war, be it as instrument of propaganda or as a memory project. It follows the development of the medium in Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers, analyzing how mass culture helped consolidating a persuasive ‘war mentality’. It reflects on the role that comics played in the creation of the myth of the ‘good war’. It also shows how the ‘god war’ pattern became increasingly contested during the Vietnam War, following the questioning of the traditional “American values” promoted by the counterculture of the time. Finally, it explores how the narration (and memory) of the Vietnam War has changed after September 11, 2001, and it describes the emergence of graphic narratives written by diasporic Vietnamese graphic artists.