Abstract:
Stereotyping based on ethnic and racial
difference has also led to a practice whereby artists represent, and viewers understand,
the “Other” as monstrous in comics and cartoons. Building on the idea that comics rely
on physical exaggeration, on Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s seven theses on monstrosity, and on
Spain’s multicultural and multiethnic history, this chapter explores the depiction of
monstrosity and alterity from two divergent moments in Spain. More specifically, it
argues that two chosen examples represent the extremes of a range of practice in using
stereotypes to depict monsters, from near absolute appropriation of monstrous
characteristics, on the one hand, to unadulterated “othering” of the monstrous enemy on
the other.
