This chapter examines social representation and class in the graphic novel. The turn towards book-length comics since the 1970s has often meant a replacement of the sprawling character networks of serial comics and an intense focus on individual protagonists. Section 5.2 explains the need for manual annotation of visual character in comics and looks at fourteen social networks of the most popular and prestigious graphic novels in the entire corpus. While superhero narratives like Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns retain elements of the more expansive social representation of popular comics, literary graphic novels often focus on individual protagonists within middle-class families. Section 5.3 adapts the empirical class analysis pioneered by Erik Olin Wright and discusses how this framework can be made to include an intersectional focus on gender and race.

On June 11, 2020, Michael Hickson died of complications of COVID-19. The father of five was forty-six years old. He had contracted the infection the previous month while in a nursing home, and he was transferred on June 2 to a hospital in Austin, Texas. A Black man, Michael Hickson had a career as an auto insurance claims estimator, a career cut short when he experienced sudden cardiac arrest at just forty-three years of age. Complications left him with quadriplegia, blindness, and brain injuries. Although he had difficulty speaking and remembering things, Michael Hickson continued to participate in his family’s life, joking with his children and talking with his wife about their lives.