Child soldiers in transatlantic graphic narratives of war

Abstract

In this article, I examine the image of child soldiers as depicted in Michel Chikwanine, Jessica Dee Humphreys, and Claudia Dávila's Child Soldier: When Boys and Girls Are Used in War and Matteo Casali and Kristian Donaldson's 99 Days and the choice to narrate war and genocide through the filter of young protagonists. Investigating the postcolonial approach adopted in each of these graphic narratives, I am interested in the imagery of postcolonial spaces that, I argue, is conveyed in these graphic novels as essentially savage and dangerous places, promoting colonial stereotypes, as well as in the function of the U.S. and Canada as places of salvation and safety, largely in contrast to war-torn Rwanda and Congo. I regard 99 Days and Child Soldier as powerful tools through which to communicate the problem of child soldiers to the Western world, and examine the suitability of the graphic novel as a medium in this respect.