Climate, Chaos, and Comics: Comic book as medium for creating climate awareness and discourse

Chaos and comics are no strangers. In the fantastic world of superhero comic books life as we know
it is threatened on all levels. In the street. In the country. On Earth. In the stars. In the ideological,
and even in the metaphysical (Morris & Morris 2005, Wandtke 2007, DiPaolo 2011). But comic
books represent and address more than fantastic explorations of costumed heroes and villains
(Magnussen & Christiansen 2000, Duncan & Smith 2009, Berninger et al. 2010, Meskin & Cook
2012, Kukkonen 2013, Babic 2014, Stein & Thon 2015). Comic books are currently more and more
centred on real life global issues (Mazur & Danner 2014). Observations of concerns about rising
oceans and temperatures, flooding and drought can be read even in Donald Duck comic book
magazines (e.g. https://www.donaldisme.dk/weather.htm).
In relation to the representation of global climate crisis and sustainability, we propose a close
reading of French comic book creator Jean-Christophe Chauzy’s two volume comic book on the
consequences of the climate crisis “Le reste du monde” (2015) and ”Le monde d’apres” (2016),
published in a Danish translation from 2020 (Forlaget Fahrenheit). Chauzy is one of a growing
number of comic book artists, who use comics to explore and critique contemporary societal
challenges and problems. Far from being ironic or funny, as e.g. Doonesbury (Gerry Trudeau),
Chauzy uses his drawings and storytelling to create an engaging and brutal depiction of the world in
the chosen volumes. This is an example of the communicative potential of comics as a literary
medium, having the ability to offer amplification through simplification (Eisner 1985, McCloud
1993, Sousanis 2015) of subject matters often difficult to communicate or comprehend in traditional
mimetic mediums (Furniss 1998).
Our aim is to examine the different modes of reception offered to the reader, as well as the
potentials such a medium provides regarding the discourse on sustainability and climate crisis. The
reception approach is inspired by Stuart Hall’s generic modes of reception (Hall 2015) but is
informed by modes of political or ideological fandom (Jenkins & Ito, 2015).
Chauzy’s story follows a mother, trying to get her children to a safe place in a world that collapses
due to climate changes, natural disaster, and pollution. The first volume ends on a dystopian note,
where the mother and her children discover the destruction of the world, nature, and society, as they
know it. The second volume shows even further violence and destruction, including the murder of
the mother by other men. While it ends with the merest flicker of hope, the remaining children
finding a sanctuary for the time being, even this place seems doomed. The final page shows an
empty desert-like landscape with no life left.
Bruno Latour’s Gaia storytelling (e.g. 2021) and Donna Haraway’s worlding (e.g. 2016), as well as
Slavoj Žižek philosophical observations of the young generation’s attempt to cope with living in dangerous and precarious times (e.g. 2010), is used for the theoretical framing and further analysis
of the comic book as a medium for creating climate awareness and discourse (McCloud 1993
Groensteen 2007, Sousanis 2015).