A new generation of European cartoonists Bringing together the work of an array of North American and European scholars, this collection highlights a previously unexamined area within global comics studies. It analyses comics from countries formerly behind the Iron Curtain like East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Ukraine, given their shared history of WWII and Communism. In addition to situating these graphic narratives in their national and subnational contexts, Comics of the New Europe pays particular attention to transnational connections along the common themes of nostalgia, memoir, and life under Communism. The essays offer insights into a new generation of European cartoonists that looks forward, inspired and informed by traditions from Franco-Belgian and American comics, and back, as they use the medium of comics to reexamine and reevaluate not only their national pasts and respective comics traditions but also their own post-1989 identities and experiences. Bringing together the work of an array of North American and European scholars, this collection highlights a previously unexamined area within global comics studies. It analyses comics from countries formerly behind the Iron Curtain like East Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Ukraine, given their shared history of WWII and communism. In addition to situating these graphic narratives in their national and subnational contexts, Comics of the New Europe pays particular attention to transnational connections along the common themes of nostalgia, memoir, and life under communism. The essays offer insights into a new generation of European cartoonists that looks forward, inspired and informed by traditions from Franco-Belgian and American comics, and back, as they use the medium of comics to reexamine and reevaluate not only their national pasts and respective comics traditions but also their own post-1989 identities and experiences. Contributors: Max Bledstein (University of Winnipeg), Dragana Obradović (University of Toronto), Aleksandra Sekulić (University of Arts in Belgrade), Pavel Kořínek (Institute of Czech Literature, Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague), Martin Foret (Palacký University), Michael Scholz (Uppsala University), Sean Eedy (Carleton University), Elizabeth Nijdam (University of British Columbia), Ewa Stańczyk (University of Amsterdam), Eszter Szép (Eötvös Loránd University) General Introduction: Comics of the 'New' Europe Martha Kuhlman, José Alaniz Part 1: The Former Yugoslav States Un-Drawn Experience: Visualizing Trauma in Aleksandar Zograf’s Regards from Serbia Max Bledstein Filial Estrangement and Figurative Mourning in the Work of Nina Bunjevac Dragana Obradović Reality Check Through the Historical Avant-garde: Danilo Milošev Wostok Aleksandra Sekulić Part 2: Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic Facets of Nostalgia: Text-centric Longing in Comics and Graphic Novels by Pavel Čech Pavel Kořínek The Avant-Garde Aesthetic of Vojtěch Mašek Martha Kuhlman Regardless of Context: Graphic Novels with the Faceless (and Homelandless) Hero of Branko Jelinek Martin Foret Part 3: Germany Co-Opting Childhood and Obscuring Ideology in Mosaik von Hannes Hegen, 1959-1974 Sean Eedy Images of Spies and Counter Spies in East German Comics Michael F. Scholz Towards a Graphic Historicity: Authenticity and Photography in the German Graphic Novel Elizabeth “Biz” Nijdam Part 4: Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Hungary Women, Feminism and Polish Comic Books: Frąś/Hagedorn’s Totalnie nie nostalgia Ewa Stańczyk Igor Baranko and National Precarity in Post-Soviet Ukrainian Comics José Alaniz The Autobiographical Mode in Post-Communist Romanian Comics: Everyday Life in Brynjar Åbel Bandlien’s Strîmb Living and Andreea Chirică’s The Year of the Pioneer Mihaela Precup Avatars and Iteration in Contemporary Hungarian Autobiographical Comics Eszter Szép Acknowledgments About the authors Index