Radical Graphics: Martin Luther King, Jr., B. R. Ambedkar, and Comics Auto/Biography

Graphic auto/biography offers a new medium and genre mode in which social issues like racism and oppression may be discussed for the purpose of critical literacy. The article examines, as case studies, a biography, Ho Che Anderson’s King, and an adapted autobiography, Bhimayana, by Srividya Natarajan and S. Anand, with art work by Durgabai Vyam and Subhash Vyam. The essay identifies three major components of this critical literacy: the humanizing of history, the construction of personal and public history and the making of the human icon.