The Shameful Art: McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Comics, and the Politics of Affect

This essay examines McSweeney's Quarterly Concern Number Thirteen, edited by Chris Ware, and its use of intimacy, shame, and gender melancholy to make a case for the artistic merit of comics. Through readings of contributions to the issue by artists such as Lynda Barry, Ivan Brunetti, Charles Burns, Joe Matt, John Porcellino, Archer Prewitt, and Chris Ware, the essay finds that the McSweeney's comics issue interpellates readers through "comic shame" and uses modernist tropes to establish comics as high art. Affect is central to contemporary independent comics and the readerly participation they elicit.