The Ambiguities of European Comic-book Bikers

Navigating the Twists and Turns

By: David Walton

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Hardcover | 15 August 2024

At a Glance

Hardcover
218 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.42

Hardcover

RRP $180.00

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In this book, David Walton explores European comic-book biker publications as a subgenre of popular culture. Using a multidisciplinary approach, he reveals an intricate amalgam of ingenuity, irony, and highly ambiguous humor. The creative resourcefulness of the comic-book biker authors is seen to dramatize and celebrate the material existence of motorcycles and lifestyles while laughing at the foibles, inconsistencies, manias, fantasies, and practices of those characterised as motorized fl neurs. At the core of Walton's analysis is the exploration of identity formation, marked by tensions between individualism and collective affinities, undermined by egoism and competitiveness.

At the same time, Walton argues that the storylines (despite much comic invention, caricature, and exaggeration) create resonances which hold up a distorted but highly revealing mirror to the multiple subgroups of people who ride motorcycles for pleasure. The author also demonstrates how the implied biker-readers of this subgenre confront comic representations of themselves which repeatedly undermine any positive self-image they may possess. Yet the comics are also seen to offer valuable insights into much broader cultural concerns ranging from subculture, consumption habits, (in)authenticity, taste, freedom, risk, and delinquency - without forgetting other key aspects of cultural studies like class, race and ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and ecocriticism.

Industry Reviews

"This is a first-of-its-kind, comprehensive study of long-running European cartoon series about motorcyclists, including Ogri and Joe Bar Team. Walton unpacks the comics for audiences unfamiliar with the series (and potentially their languages), mapping how they engage with motorcycles, motorcyclists, and motorcycling. Touching on topics from 'laddism' to 'ecocriticism', the book delves beneath the comics' surface humor. With impressive critical rigor, Walton proves that 'comic-book bikers' merit serious consideration for they participate directly in wider cultural discussions about class, gender, race, ethnicity, identity, sexuality, and the environment-and challenge stereotypical pop-culture images of bikers as outlaws. -- Steven E. Alford and Suzanne Ferriss, authors of Motorcycle and An Alternative History of Bicycles and Motorcycles

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