Men’s reliance on the self-portrait print to cement their legacies and secure undying fame is well established. While a few outstanding women experimented with the genre, the medium’s peripatetic, sociable life – works that were gifted, liberally shared, and even transported on the body – was at odds with traditional ideas about women’s place within the private realm. Studying the handful of examples created by women across Europe from c. 1700 onwards – including etchings by Anna Maria van Schurman, Maria de Wilde, Angelika Kauffmann, and others – this chapter examines the strategies they developed to present themselves in print, ever mindful that by showing themselves off they risked opening themselves up to a range of personal and often harsh judgements.

This chapter studies the developments of autobiography as a literary genre in the graphic novel production since the 1960s. It analyzes the formal connections between author, narrator, and character, paying attention to the pragmatic aspects of the contract between author and reader, whose commitment to authenticity distinguishes autobiography from autofiction or semi-autobiography. The chapter starts with a historical overview of the genre, absent in comics for a long time, then rapidly coming to prominence in the graphic novel. It emphasizes the role of underground comix and engages in a close reading of two works: Justin Green’s Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin (1972) and Craig Thompson’s Blankets (2001). Although both share a similar (critical) concern with the role of religion, their stylistic and narrative features and context are widely divergent. Green’s work is a clear example of countercultural transgression, whereas Blankets exemplifies the growing overlap between the graphic novel and young adult literature.