The Monster Within and Without: Spanish Comics, Monstrosity, Religion, and Alterity

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.