This chapter focuses on a selection of single-panel comics by two Swedish comics artists, seeking to explicate how gender norms are invoked and subverted in depicted talk-in-interaction. Informing the analyses are theories of positioning and framing, which aim to help us make sense of interactions as taking place in different sorts of occasions, how these differences are signalled, and how we behave according to social conventions and moral commitments. The female perspective on these conventions and commitments is expressed in the comics of Hemmingsson and Sjöberg, in which frames and positions are made particularly salient in the single-panel format. Of particular significance is the use of humour to reveal absurdities of gender roles, gender inequality, and sexism. The chapter thus also investigates how linguistic resistance to positioning, framing, and conversational script represents a feminist act of subversion and solidarity.

This edited collection explores how the relationship between comic art and feminism has been shaped by global, transnational, and local trends, curating analyses of multinational comic art that encompass themes of gender, sexuality, power, vulnerability, assault, abuse, taboo, and trauma. The chapters illuminate in turn the defining features of the aesthetics, materiality, and thematic content of their source material - often expressed with humorous undertones of self-reflection or social criticism - as well as recurring strategies of visualising and narrating female experiences. Broadening the research perspective of feminist comics to include national comics cultures peripheral to the cultural centers of Anglo-American, Franco-Belgian, and Japanese comics, the anthology explores how the dominant narrative or history of canonical works can be challenged or deconstructed by local histories of comics and feminism and their transnational connections, and how local histories complement or challenge the current understanding of the relationship between feminism and comic art. This is an essential collection for scholars and students in comics studies, women and gender studies, media studies, and literature.

The first chapter of the anthology Comic Art and Feminism in the Baltic Sea Region: Transnational Perspectives introduces the reader to the field of feminist comic art and graphic narrative in the Baltic Sea region. Acknowledging the contributions of Anglo-American feminist comics artists of the 1970s who laid the groundwork for continued production and progress transnationally, the authors highlight parallel developments in Sweden and Finland, which have resulted in the current era of comic art dominated by each country’s growing cadre of feminist comics artists. The success and momentum of Swedish and Finnish feminist comic art warrant an exploration of transnational reverberations, in order to highlight practices and characteristics which have mobilised to extend across national boundaries. Exploring a wide range of work by comics artists from the Baltic Sea region, the anthology’s 12 chapters both illuminate the defining features of aesthetics, materiality, and thematic content of feminist comic art, and analyse the recurring strategies of visualising and narrating female, non-binary, or queer experiences.

Swearing has traditionally been associated with spoken language; however, swear words are appearing more often in print and, notably, explicitly featured in commercial products. In this paper, we consider this development an example of the commodification of swear words, or 'swear words for sale'. Our analyses of English-language swear word products show that the taboo nature of swear words is exploited and capitalized upon for commercial gain. We argue that swear word commodities trade on sociolinguistically incongruous aspects of swear word usage, increasing salability of the swear word products by targeting specific demographics. Specifically, we analyze (1) women's apparel and accessories, (2) domestic items and home décor, and (3) children's products for adults or articles targeting parents of young children. The study concludes with a discussion of whether the popularization of swearing via such commodification may ultimately result in a loss of distinctiveness and devaluation.

This book focuses on the unexplored context of contemporary Swedish comic strips as sites of innovative linguistic practices, where humor is derived from language play and creativity, often drawing from English and other European languages as well as social and regional dialects of Swedish. The overall purpose of the book is to highlight linguistic playfulness in Swedish comic strips, as an example of practices as yet unobserved and unaccounted for in theories of linguistic humor as applied to comics scholarship. The book familiarizes the reader with the Swedish language and linguistic culture as well as contemporary Swedish comic strips, with chapters focusing on specific strategies of language play and linguistic humor, such as mocking Swedish dialects and Swedish-accented foreign language usage, invoking English language popular culture, swearing in multiple languages, and turn-final code-switching to English to signal the punchline. The book will appeal to readers interested in humor, comics, or how linguistic innovation, language play, and language contact each can further the modern development of language, exemplified by the case of Swedish.