The world of comics has traditionally been highly heteronormative and male-biased. That Leanne Franson and Ariel Schrag, two women, would engage this discourse with comics that tackle questions of identity formation for their queer heroines is, therefore, remarkable. It is in this generally hostile (homophobic, misogynist) atmosphere that their highly autobiographical characters each struggle to forge an identity that is not simply the one she is called to but one that also situates her uniquely in a subculture that has historically internalized homophobia itself. While this journey of self discovery is not portrayed in dramatic/traumatic terms in either text, each heroine is consciously trying to position herself in relation to conflicting ideas of what an acceptable identity, especially in the form of self-presentation, should look like.

Issues of sexual identity and the meaning of difference are explored, both visually and textually, in the comics of Ariel Schrag (US b. 1979) and Leanne Franson (Canada b.1963). Almost a generation apart in age, their works nonetheless expose similar anxieties about fixed sexual identities and the issue of how the adoption of a specific identity serves to position one in queer discourse. Schrag exhaustively chronicled her emotional life in her high school years in comics now collected into three large volumes, totaling almost 700 pages, which she began to publish in small self-published splits while still in school. Franson writes Liliane, Bi-Dyke which is available as a web comic and which has also been collected into mini-comics and small books dating from the early 90's. Both artists/writers are engaged in a conversation about the reductive and divisive nature of sexual identity politics. They argue against adopting any hierarchy of particular sexual identities and instead focus on proffering a challenge to normativity in general, and heteronormativity in particular.

Schrag and Franson aren't just telling queer stories in the highly heteronormative world of comics; they're telling their own stories. Schrag's comics are autobiographical; Franson describes hers as semi-autobiographical but often adds the phrase "true story" in small print at the end of a narrative sequence. Schrag uses the term "dyke" or "lesbian" for herself but portrays Ariel having sex with men as well as women, while Franson uses the term "Bi-Dyke" for her alter ego Liliane and represents her as also sexually involved with both men and women. The use of the autobiographical mode for these stories creates an authentic challenge to heteronormativity because it asserts an existing alterity. As authors, artists, and, in their original formats, distributors of these representations of their experiences and desires, Franson and Schrag are activists because they refuse silence and discretion, a discretion demanded by many heterosexuals, French philosopher Didier Eribon argues, because it "would allow the reassertion of peaceful certitudes, of the comfort of a normalcy built on the silence of others" (54). As well as creating a platform to speak their desires, the use of the autobiographical mode creates the expectation in the reader that the distance between the author, the narrator, and the central character is...