Colonialist Heroes and Monstrous Others: Stereotype and Narrative Form in British Adventure Comic Books

‘My basic point [is] that stories are at the heart of what explorers and novelists say about strange regions of the world…’(Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism, 1993).

This paper explores the representation of colonialist stereotypes and the colonised ‘Other’ in British comic book adventure stories. It is argued that from the 1950s to the 1980s traditional comic books, such as the Eagle, Hotspur and Victor, contained adventure stories that used ‘exotic’ locations and caricatured representations to both maintain mythological stereotypes and shape narrative structure. Essentially these comic books continued the traditions, and imperialist outlook, of the adventure stories contained in boy’s illustrated magazines of the early 20th century such as the Gem, Magnet and Champion.

It is remarkable that these colonialist values were still evident in British comic books until the late 1980’s, long after the collapse of empire. Even more notable is the idea that similar stereotypes and mythologies are also central in driving the narrative in more innovative contemporary British comic books. Focusing on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill, and using Edward Said’s concept of the ‘Other’, this study will examine the ways in which outmoded representations of racial stereotype and colonialist mythologies still govern narrative structure. Following Said’s notion that these narratives tell us more about the coloniser than the colonised, it is suggested that the survival of these stereotypes and mythologies is indicative of Britain’s difficult relationship with its colonial past. In the period covered by this study Britain had withdrawn from many of its colonial ‘possessions’ but these comic books, both traditional and innovative, still used representations of the ‘Other’ to communicate concepts of ‘Britishness’ and national identity.