Grown Up Boyz and Girlz. Italian Graphic Novelists’ Trans-European Paths and Gendered Representations

ABSTRACT Encouraged by a growing tendency towards international training and education as well as by the precarity that dominates artistic production in Italy, Italian comics artists are the protagonists of a diaspora as they emigrate to other European countries. This article investigates the effects of migration and geographical in-betweenness on the work of two Italian graphic novelists, Nicoz Balboa and Alice Socal, whose texts feature explicitly gendered representations. A hybrid methodology is employed, combining textual analysis supported by a nomadic feminist theoretical framework with semi-structured interviews with the authors. The article argues that Balboa and Socal inhabit a ‘diasporic space’ both as artists and individuals. This space is characterised by the constant contestation of socio-cultural boundaries and divisions. Furthermore, the gendered representations delineated by these authors systematically interrogate the inflexible binarisms imposed by the patriarchal socio-cultural order. These interrogations extend beyond gender boundaries, challenging the rigid dichotomy that separates youth from adulthood.

according to the publisher's description, 15 and is just the most visible and renowned example of this trend, which had already attracted scholarly attention (Vari, 2021).The theme of precarity echoes other Italian graphic novels published in the first twenty years of the millennium, including, among others, Gipi's LMVDM -La mia vita disegnata male (2008), Niccolò Pellizzon's Gli amari consigli (2014), Nuke's Effetto Casimir (2015), Giulia Sagramola's Incendi estivi (2015), Nova's Stelle o sparo (2018). 16Moreover, scholars have investigated precarity and its representation in work by Italian women graphic novelists who have provided readers with specifically gendered reflections on the liminal condition that characterises the sentimental lives of those who need to 'negotiate between a new model of freedom anchored to the neoliberal dogma of individualism [. ..] and the old patriarchal paradigm of sentimental stability'. 17his article contributes to current debates on the thematic relevance of diasporic movements and youth/adulthood in-betweenness in contemporary Italian graphic narratives by looking at its specifically gendered manifestations in the works by two authors, Nicoz Balboa and Alice Socal.Living in France and Germany respectively, the two authors are part of the aforementioned diaspora of Italian comics artists who left the country in the 2000s and decided to remain abroad in the years that followed the 2008 economic crisis.Both Balboa and Socal engage in graphic selfnarrations where the state of perpetual liminality caused by the highly transnational dimension of the authors' existences and careers productively intersects with the depiction of a specifically sexed and gendered, as well as always non-conclusive, process of growth or self-discovery.The study employs a hybrid methodology that combines textual analysis supported by theories of diasporic connections and e-connections and nomadic feminist subjectivities with semi-structured interviews with the two authors.It underscores the productive correlation between the encounter with cultural hybridity, which is imposed upon the diasporic artists, and an approach to gender identity that overtly contests the binarisms inherent in patriarchal cultural norms.In other words, the article argues that Balboa and Socal inhabit a 'diasporic space' where they (artists, individuals and subjects of their own autofictional representations) constantly challenge socio-cultural boundaries and divisions.Furthermore, the gendered representations delineated by these two authors systematically interrogate the inflexible polarisations imposed by the patriarchal socio-cultural order.These interrogations extend beyond gender boundaries, challenging the dichotomy that rigidly separates youth from adulthood.

Diasporic Connection/Nomadic Ethics
Those who embark on a journey of migration from Italy nowadays, both skilled and non-skilled migrants, deviate from the historical archetype of emigrants carrying cardboard suitcases and being forced to sever ties, whether emotional or imaginary, with their country of origin.In contrast, lowcost flights, as well as information and communication technologies (ICT) facilitate the persistence of a sense of connectedness with the homeland for the majority of Italians who start a migratory process towards another European country.The Internet in particular, has been deemed so powerful that some have argued that it provides a set of 'growing interconnections [. ..] for transnational migrants, who now arrive at their destination without ever fully leaving the place of origin'. 18In addition to various programmes and apps like Skype, Zoom, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter that enable migrants to sustain personal connections with family and friends, scholars have emphasised the importance of blogs, groups, and forums.These platforms have proven crucial in   establishing virtual communities among Italian expats residing abroad or creating spaces where individuals, particularly researchers, artists, and highly skilled migrants, can continue to exert influence within the public communication sphere of their countries of origin. 19hen it comes to comics artists living outside Italy, the intensification of ICT and, more generally, the improvement of connectivity have resulted in the establishment of closer relationships with the Italian comics industry.In previous years, these tended to lapse as a result of migration and the consequent decision, by creatives, to focus on entering the comics market of the destination country.This phenomenon is particularly clear in the case of France, where the formation of a 'sottocampo' of Italian fumettisti, whose interest was mainly that of being recognised in the place where they were working and living, gradually gave way to a new tendency: that of exploiting the recognition gathered abroad in order to re-establish or continue cultivating connections with the Italian comics scene. 20The cases of Nicoz Balboa and Alice Socal that are examined in this article are also quite interesting in this regard: both artists entertain a close relationship with the Italian comics industry, as testified by their presence in major events organised in the peninsula to promote the fumetto and by their ongoing or previous ties with Italian publishing houses.Moreover, the artists' presence on social media such as Facebook and Instagram, which are nowadays widely exploited by comics artists to promote their work, 21 is sustained by a significant presence of Italian followers and fans, to the point that Alice Socal recognised that 'le persone che mi seguono su Instagram sono principalmente italiane'. 22In light of this, the current migration of Italian comics artists abroad should be recognised as characterised by a clear diasporic dimension, which is to say by a propensity to produce 'groups of migrant origins residing and acting in host countries but maintaining strong sentimental and material links with their countries of origintheir homelands'. 23f it is true that 'both the homeland and the host society influence diaspora identity', 24 diasporic phenomena such as those of the fumettisti that we consider in this article produce subjectivities that are strongly characterised by a state of professional and existential in-betweenness, where both creative practices and personal identities are impacted by a process of fluid and constant renegotiation.As Sandra Ponzanesi has argued, diasporic imagination and sensibility are conceptually linked to ideas of 'transgression and hybridisation', which distinguishes them from a 'migrant predicament' connected to processes of 'uprooting and resettling'. 25This transgression mostly applies to the ability of the connected diasporic subject to overcome and challenge oppositions.Contemporary migration dynamics, facilitated significantly by ICT, enable migrants to sustain connections with their origins while assuming active roles in a new country.This phenomenon engenders transnationalising forces that frustrate the established conceptual opposition that forms the basis of discourses and understandings surrounding migratory flows. 26In this regard, the geographical and cultural binarism here versus there is the first to collapse, 27 followed by numerous others, such as the connected Self versus Other or us versus them, 28 on which discriminatory discourses rely.
As Avtar Brah has suggested, diasporic sensibility and its propensity to challenge oppositions is deeply connected to what she calls 'a theoretical creolisation', 29 that is, a tendency towards the deconstruction of broader dichotomous models that are applied at an intersectional level across different 'analytical frames capable of multiple, intersecting, axes of differentiation'. 30In this sense, it is not a coincidence that feminist theory has drawn significantly on transnational, diaspora, and border studies in order to formulate 'political fictions', which is to say, narratives that serve to advocate for hybridisation and amalgamation as fruitful notions that challenge patriarchal oppositions and hierarchies. 31The first of these political fictions is Gloria Anzaldúa's theorisation of the figure of the 'mestiza', 32 which famously exploits the image of the borderland with the aim of deconstructing existing symbolic systems of exclusion by means of a feminist interpretation of ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and, obviously, gendered contaminations.However, it is Rosi Braidotti's famous idea of nomadic ethics that has inspired the most prolific mixture of diasporic sensibility and feminist theory.In her internationally acclaimed and now canonically recognised Nomadic Subjects (1996), the feminist philosopher explained how the dynamics of nomadism -namely, its intrinsic rejection of fixity and oppositionality, as well as its tension towards a situatedness that is always contingent and never dogmatic -could be addressed as a conceptual paradigm on the basis of which feminists should design a new model of subjectivity.This new model of feminist subjectivity relies on the imperative of movement and fluidity, thus challenging the modern and patriarchal notion of the subject as a stable and immutable entity constructed on the premise of an opposition with the Other. 33Despite its fluidity, this feminist subjectivity remains perfectly functional and accountable. 34Braidotti's nomadic ethics offers, therefore, a conceptualisation of the Self that questions not only cultural and geographical, but also gendered binarisms -such as the one that rigidly labels women as the radical other of men -without losing contact with the bodily and sexed dimensions of being.Nomadic subjects, according to Braidotti, challenge normativity by repudiating firmness in terms of place, cultural position, and (gendered) identity, but also in relation to time.They are subjects 'in transit', 35 'subjects in becoming' who rely on the principle of mobility though still cultivating memory, a combination that allows them to be 'not only in process, but also capable of lasting through sets of discontinuous variations'. 36o summarise, the set of qualities outlined by Braidotti and by the diaspora scholars mentioned so far pertain to subjectivities who manage to find a sense of Self and a voice despite occupying a space between nations and cultures, notwithstanding their eccentric relationship with gender identity or roles and as a result of their ability to recognise growth as a never conclusive process of becoming.This characterisation will be crucial to describe the personal and professional experiences of Nicoz Balboa and Alice Socal, along with their graphic self-narratives.Within these narratives, the continual renegotiation of predetermined gendered categories and belongings, intertwined with a life lived between two countries, initiates an extended phase characterised by openness and possibility that conceptually coincides with that of youth.

Nicoz Balboa. Beyond the Frontier of Fixed Gender Identity
Born in Rome, Nicoz Balboa is a transgender and transfeminist visual artist based in La Rochelle (France), where he works at the tattoo studio project Strangeland. 37During his career, in addition to a transnational training at European Institute of Design (IED) and École Supérieure d'Arts Graphiques et d'Architecture (E.S.A.G.), he has experimented with different media and genres pertaining to the broad area of visual art: painting, drawing, pyrography, body art, and comics.As a comics author, he specialised in the genre of graphic journaling, a practice devoted to the rendering of personal daily experiences and emotions through the comics medium.His regular activity as a teacher of online courses of graphic journaling is sustained by a rich production in this area.Balboa started experimenting with graphic journaling in the Nineties when, still in Rome, he was a prolific actor within the Italian capital's scene of underground comics, to which he contributed with mostly autobiographical and self-published zines such as Catholic Girls, Caccapiscia, Cuoricini, and Pochi intimi. 38Although contemporary critics now acknowledge it as a predominant movement within both Italian and international graphic novel production, self-narration did not constitute a prevailing trend at the time. 39For this reason, Balboa encountered difficulty in embracing this form of self-expression, lacking the confidence to adopt it.Nevertheless, he consistently viewed it as an essential practice for cultivating self-awareness.As he explained in our interview, it is only through the discovery of the Canadian comics artist Julie Doucet and her graphic narrative Dirty Plotte (1991-1998) that Balboa found inner legitimisation for his autobiographical artistic tendency: Ho sempre avuto bisogno di mettermi sul foglio.[. ..]Ho sempre avuto bisogno di creare delle robe per capire un po' che vivevo.All'epoca io disegnavo questi fumetti, ma avevo un po' l'impressione che non fossero veri fumetti perché erano queste cose mie, autobiografiche, che fotocopiavo e con cui facevo delle fanzine.Quando andavo al negozio di fumetti io queste cose non le vedevo.[. ..]Finché un giorno, non mi ricordo in che modalità, qualcuno mi mise tra le mani una copia di Dirty Plotte, di Julie Doucet.E lì fu un po' una rivelazione.Perché mi sono detto: 'questa sta pagine e pagine a parlare di lei che c'ha il tampax pieno'.E lì ho detto: 'allora questa cosa si può fare, non c'è vergogna a usare l'autobiografia.C'è almeno una persona, una donna, che lo fa.Perché poi all'epoca, con tutta la mia dissociazione, la mia disforia, io ero socializzato in quanto donna.[. ..]Quindi ho letto le cose di Julie Doucet in Italia, quando ancora non erano state pubblicate in italiano.Io facevo questa fanzine che si chiamava Catholic Girls, da una canzone di Frank Zappa, e presi i fumetti di Julie Doucet, li fotocopiai, li bianchettai e li tradussi e a un certo punto, non so come, trovai il suo indirizzo e quindi glieli spedii. 40 light of this, it is clear how, since the beginning of his creative trajectory, transnational exchanges proved vital in the process towards Balboa's important self-recognition as a comics artist.Moreover, he further legitimised his own practice of graphic self-narration by translating and reproducing Doucet's work in his own zine, an act that testifies to the authors' early ability to create spaces where transnational dialogue could flourish.
After this legitimisation, Balboa continued to draw autobiographical comic strips and vignettes, and in 2004, when he was already living in France, he collected some of them in Nicozrama, 41 his first solo comic book published with the support of the Centro Fumetto Andrea Pazienza.Years later, in 2008, he persists in practicing self-representation, as demonstrated by the publication, by the French publisher Diantre !, of Les larmes de crocodile. 42However, it was during the second decade of the 2000s that the author attained recognition among both readers and critics.This success was garnered through the publication of Born to Lose, 43 in collaboration with the prominent Italian comics publisher Coconino Press, and notably, through the explicit endorsement by the esteemed comics artist Igort.This work distinctly referenced the practice of graphic journaling, as evidenced by the deliberate choice to include in the book's layout the typographic lines that often feature in printed journals and diaries.In Born to Lose, Balboa (at the time socialised as a woman) retraced one year of personal vicissitudes by focussing on self-representation while dealing with the rampant precarity of a life divided between artistic work and the lack of financial resources, between the joys of motherhood and the insecurities that come with it, between two countries: Italy and France.With Play with Fire (2020), his next graphic novel (which is now also published in French) 44 the decision to engage with a less fragmented and more linear approach towards self-narration resulted in the production of an autofictional representation of the process that lead him towards his coming out first as a lesbian and then deciding to assume a non-binary identity.Transformer (2023), 45 Balboa's third graphic novel, adopts the same autofictional mode to recount a further step in the author's gendered life: his hormonal and social transition into a man.
Throughout his artistic trajectory, Balboa has always entertained a close relationship with social media and internet-based platforms, which helped him to share his work at a transnational level.In the first years of his life in France, in the early 2000s, he managed two blogs, a more standard one that allowed him to maintain contact with his Italian followers and a comics-based blog through which he started to navigate the sphere of the French comics industry where, at the time, the BD blog was a trend. 46Later, he started using platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Patreon for his project Momeskine.Momeskine is a collection of autobiographical vignettes and strips where Balboa recounts his experiences first as a precarious mother and more recently as a transgender mother.It is published in English, a language that he defines as 'esperanto', given its ability to facilitate a transnational communication for both Italian and French followers. 47alboa is an active part of the Italian diaspora of fumettisti who, as seen above, maintain a presence in the Italian comics scene despite living and working abroad.He is appreciated as a comics author in France, where, he affirms, he is benefitting from the system of recognition and help that the country has established to sustain creatives in the field of comics production 48 ; he is published in France and he regularly participates in local comics festivals such as that of Angoulême.However, he never cut the ties that link him to Italy, where he frequently travels even for long periods of time, where his graphic novels are first published and where he is often invited to attend events, exhibitions, and festivals.In other words, he works and lives between two cultures and contexts or, as he maintains by referencing the French saying 'avoir le cul entre deux chaises', 'ho il culo tra due sedie'. 49When asked how it feels to live while always occupying a median position, Balboa recounts the challenges that this role implies and focuses on the difficulties introduced by the continuous and never linear process of (re)adaptation that necessarily accompanies his frequent travels and transnational exchanges.He discusses the sense of belonging that he generally experiences when landing in Rome, which often disappears rapidly when the idiosyncrasies of the city (mostly, its chronic disorganisation and chaotic social dynamics) emerge, thus impacting the structured and organised mentality that have been shaped by his life in France.However, he also recounts how, following a brief phase of (re)adjustment in Italy, the subsequent departure to France generally coincides with a prolonged moment of longing that, in turn, determines another phase of (re)adaptation to the life in the country of destination. 50hese dynamics are systematically transposed into the representation that Balboa offers with his graphic narratives.Here, the inner diasporic space 'where boundaries of belonging and otherness, of "us" and "them", are contested', often takes the shape of a symbolic territory that the protagonist painfully traverses in distressing phases of his life. 51It is precisely the act of crossing this symbolic territory that leads him to question other aspects of his (especially gendered) identity.An example is a scene included in Play with Fire where the protagonist travels to Italy, straight after a vacation in the United States that turns into a prefiguration of his as yet undisclosed homosexuality and transgenderism.While in Ponza at the beach with a friend, Nicoz is torn by a series of contradictory feelings and small experiences.On the one hand are the positive sensations triggered by the smell and colours of the Mediterranean, together with Lucio Dalla's music, which brings to mind memories and reinforces the connection with the friend.On the other, he experiences undifferentiated negative thoughts and even an episode of intense dysphoria caused by people's reactions to his eccentric appearance: the persistent visual scrutiny of his body, that is covered in tattoos, and an act of vandalism on the LGBT pride t-shirt that the protagonist was wearing (Figures 1-3).The first of the two feelings is represented, among other things, by a red caption located at the end of the first page dedicated to the Ponza trip (Figure 1). 52Like all the other red captions included in Play with Fire, this aims to contextualise or to comment on the rapid flow of events portrayed in the panels.The caption praises Italy for being able to bring back tridimensionality to life and it makes a direct comparison with France, a country that Nicoz admits he does not love.However, the part of the caption that includes this last statement (the fact that Nicoz does not love France) is readable but 'sous-rature'.The erasure testifies to the protagonist's conflictual relationship with the country where he lives. 53A similar conflictual link, this time towards the country of origin, is later demonstrated by the subsequent scene, where the magic of being in Italy suddenly evaporates following the LGBT t-shirt incident, where the protagonist finds his t-shirt covered in sand.This results in a dysphoric moment that the author represents, using a pattern that is then reproduced throughout the whole book, by a fire-like halo surrounding the protagonist's body (Figure 2). 54fter diving into the sea, Nicoz uses another red caption to convey the sense of uneasiness generated by the close-minded Italian atmosphere that prevents him from being able to fully express himself and fosters a sense of inadequacy (Figure 3). 55The significance of this scene is confirmed by the recurring motif of deep-water swimming that is used in the second part of the book as a metaphor for the in-between and fluid process of gender transition.
Taking this into account, the hybridity resulting from the act of occupying a space between cultures is for Balboa a challenging process of continuous negotiation that involves all spheres of life and identity, including gender identity.As such, its connotations are not necessarily negative.On the contrary, as the rest of Play with Fire confirms, it is precisely within this in-between space that the subject evolves and connects with his own desires and identity beyond the categories imposed at a societal level, thus implementing personal and political change.For example, it is during one of the trips to Rome that the protagonist breaks away from heteronormativity and starts his first lesbian relationship, which will continue as a transnational long-distance liaison during which Nicoz will experiment non-canonical gender roles. 56From this point of departure, the theme of gender non-conformity and transgenderism becomes explicit and an intensification of private experiments with crossdressing ends up leading to a painful phase of self-discovery that will ultimately result in a personal and ethical endorsement of fluid transgender identity, where binarisms -like those that rigidly divide a national culture from another -are perpetually evoked and contested.
From the moment when Nicoz encounters Laura Jane Grace, the transsexual front woman of the rock band 'Against me', he acknowledges the potential of aligning his body with his internal aspirations. 57This encounter sparks his quest to present the most authentic depiction of himself.Consequently, Play with Fire evolves into a graphic contemplation on societal norms concerning gender, particularly exploring the physical expressions of masculinity, femininity, and transness.Here, the figure of the siren, described as 'mezza pesce' 58 with the aim of highlighting its composite nature, becomes the graphic emblem that sustains and summarises, at a visual level, the verbose soliloquy with which the protagonist expresses doubts about his gender identity. 59The siren also serves as the guiding figure who, by teaching him how to swim (an image that clearly evokes the practice of embracing the fluid dimension of life), ferries Nicoz to the realm of gender transition and elucidates him on the joys of in-betweenness that the journey of self-discovery presupposes.And it is precisely with a textless double page (Figure 4) 61 where the protagonist himself turns into a genderless siren with both male and female anatomical elements (beard and breasts), happily swimming in the sea, that the graphic novel ends.
In light of this analysis, Play with Fire is a hymn to queerness, here intended as the 'open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning' that a subject recognises as constituent of their gender identity, thus rejecting monolithic approaches to gender and sexuality. 62This eminently queer ethos is confirmed by Balboa, who recognises it as a guiding principle even when it comes to his ongoing transition into a man, a process that, being driven by a binary sense of belonging to a specific gender, could be interpreted as opposed to the hybridity of queerness. 63On the contrary, transition is approached by the author as a journey that does not lead to a final destination to be labelled as opposed to the point/gender of departure: La narrazione intorno alla transizione di genere è sempre stata: 'parto da qui perché devo passare la frontiera e arrivare lì.E a quel punto devo nascondere la mia lingua di partenza e devo parlare solo la lingua del paese d'arrivo perché mi devo integrare, devo far finta di essere'.Mentre invece ormai è sempre meno così, anche se c'è una frangia di persone trans che non lo accetta e che a me fa venire ancora più i capelli bianchi.[. ..]Sono d'accordo che per alcune persone, me compreso, la binarietà è importante.Cioè tu hai bisogno di transizionare, sennò se fossi super fluido, se la tua identità non ti richiedesse di prendere gli ormoni, non lo faresti, saresti free.E invece c'è una componente binaria, nell'aver questo tipo di bisogno.Però ognuno si definisce come vuole, ognuno decide.E vedo sempre di più, per fortuna, questa integrazione: la transizione non è passare la frontiera, ma rimanere un po' tra le due frontiere, anche quando vivi già nel paese dove sei arrivato: sei un soggetto a cavallo, un soggetto trans. 64 the metaphor of the frontier used by Balboa suggests, the in-between realm of the queer transition overlaps with the median space that the diasporic subject inhabits in order to cultivate his desire both to be integrated as part of a new culture and to maintain recognisability in his country of origin.In other words, Balboa and his graphic narratives advocate for the constitution of a 'diasporic queer subject', which is to say, a subject who embodies 'a decisive change of orientation away from primordial identities established alternatively by either nature or culture'. 65

Alice Socal. Existential Displacements and the Politics of Girlish Motherhood
Born in Mestre and now living in Germany, where she works as illustrator and comics artist, Alice Socal is another important figure in the contemporary diaspora of Italian fumettisti and another artist whose creative trajectory displays a clear link between the contestation of normative gender roles and the refusal of a clear national identity.
Socal moved to Hamburg in 2007, when she was twenty-one years old, in order to participate in an Erasmus project at the local HAW -Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften -as part of a student exchange programme with the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna, where she was studying at the time.The Erasmus exchange later turned into a more permanent residence, both at HAW, where she graduated in 2012, and in Hamburg, where she lived for nine years before moving to Berlin.Transnationalism is not only part of Socal's formation, which is clearly divided between the prolific Bolognese comics school and the smaller but stimulating Hamburg scene where our artist benefitted from the mentorship of Anke Feuchtenberger. 66It is also a distinctive feature of her work as a comics creator.Characterised by the adoption of a clear experimental style influenced by the Manga imaginary, Socal's production has mainly taken the form of graphic novels and small book projects distributed by independent publishers in Italy and Germany.Her debut graphic novel, Sandro, 67 is the outcome of the final project she submitted at HAW.Despite being originally written in German, it was published in 2015 by the Italian Eris Edizioni.Two years later, she published Il fratello di Jürgen, 68 written with Alessandro Romeo, with the Bolognese Canicola and Cry Me a River with Coconino Press. 69The latter was written during a long stay in Italy, where Socal temporarily returned for a summer while dealing with a personal moment of uncertainty that almost led her to the decision of permanently leaving Germany. 70In 2019, she published the short graphic book Junior with the Latvian Kuš, which originally came out in English and was later translated into Italian by MalEdizioni. 71More recently, during the years of the Covid-related pandemic and of her encounter with the personal experience of motherhood, Socal invested most of her creative efforts in publishing strips and vignettes on social media, which resulted in the publication with the German Rotopol, of Wie lange noch (2022), 72 a graphic novel that reworks the aforementioned social media posts.Despite not having published her last book in Italy yet, the author confiremed during our interview that an Italian version of Wie lange noch was among her projects, as it would have allowed her to continue to be recognised as an artist in the peninsula, to continue to have 'un piede qui e un piede lì', which can increase career opportunities. 73f in the case of Balboa the issues of sexual and gender identity are central, Socal's production displays a clear propensity for the representation of in-between phases of personal growth (particularly between youth and adulthood) where the diasporic dimension of geographical and bodily displacement is a recurring theme that often intersects with other issues, such as existential and sentimental precarity, posthuman encounters and gender non-conforming bodily changes.Sandro is centred around the (mostly imaginative) adventures of a male character who, in occasion of his 26th birthday, reflects on his existential path and comes to terms with his own insecurities by reencountering and ultimately abandoning his imaginary friend.It is in Cry Me a River that the theme of the life crisis caused by the uncertainties of the limbo between youth and adult life meets the challenge of geographical displacement and migration.Here, the main character is going through a phase of readjustment while temporarily living in a foreign city with his girlfriend, with whom he is planning an inevitable break-up that coincides with the death of one of his dogs.By choosing of alternating sequences of panels where actions are displayed either in slow motion or as rapidly evolving, Cry Me a River insists on the theme of stillness and movement, a clear metaphor for the chaotic and contradictory dimension of the diasporic experience.Here, the subject is productively captured between the drive towards the new set of possibilities on offer in the destination country and a persistent sense of belonging to the homeland.The productivity of this condition is emblematised by the image of the river, a symbol where the temporal and spatial components of fluidity and stillness converge.This is explained by the short monologue of a secondary character, Paul who reflects on his decision to go back to his city of origin where a river dominates the landscape.He states: Sai, all'inizio mi sembrava una sconfitta, ma è stato un bene tornare in paese.Ho capito che qui c'è quello che mi serve per stare bene.Noi ci struggiamo con il dramma dell'inesorabile scorrere del tempo.Il fiume scorre in eterno.Il suo scorrere continuo non sembra causargli ansia.Questo mi fa sentire in pace. 74 her subsequent publication, Junior, Socal reworks the theme of displacement by providing her readers with an interiorised version of it.In this short book, the protagonist is a male with animalistic features who processes the pregnancy of his partner, a female with feline anatomical characteristics, by imagining that he himself is pregnant, like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie Junior (Reitman, 1994).The bodily investigation of in-betweenness as a phase and condition clearly related to pregnancy, is now coupled, for the first time, with an implicit reflection on gender roles.The act of representing a pregnant male character who dreams of giving birth to kids with cat or giraffe-life features is not just a provocative inversion aimed at contesting normativity.It is also a creative act that constitutes a nomadic portrayal of subjectivity such as that identified by Braidotti.In fact, Socal's narrative reinterprets sexual difference as a 'negotiable, transversal, affective space' 75 where oppositions (among subject and Other, man and woman, human and animal) are substituted by a set of continuous metamorphoses that end up characterising specific bodily features and capacities as entities in becoming. 76In other words, Junior is in tune with the Deleuzian theorisations on the 'becoming Other' that Braidotti uses as the main foundation for her conceptualisation of nomadic subjectivities because of its capacity to challenge, through artistic creation, the rigid polarisations from which exclusion stems.
A fluid approach towards gender in particular has always been a creative tendency for Socal who, as we have seen, decided to transpose her own life experiences in graphic narratives with male protagonists.When, during our interview, I asked her to explain why, she stated: Mi sono sempre riconosciuta come donna, non ho mai avuto grandi problemi con il mio genere.Però in gioventù non volevo essere facilmente identificata come donna.Volevo essere una persona e guardata come tale.Poi mi vestivo come mi andava, non mi facevo problemi.Però non mi sono mai sentita diversa da un'altra persona perché io donna e lui uomo.[. ..]Il rappresentare molti dei miei protagonisti come maschi ha a che fare un po' con questa identità gender diciamo asessuata, con questa scelta dell'ignorare il genere.Ho disegnato Sandro come personaggio maschile perché mi sentivo più a mio agio a disegnare un personaggio maschile.E mi sono sentita abbastanza rappresentata da lui, pur non essendo lui.E poi anche per una questione tecnica: fino a un certo periodo non ero in grado di disegnare le donne, cioè non avevo il coraggio, avevo paura di sbagliare o di stereotipizzare.[. ..] Pear vedere in un disegno che un personaggio è femminile devi disegnare le tette, i fianchi e io non avevo il coraggio di affrontare questa cosa.77 Socal's declared rejection of gender binarism influenced her creative practice.This is evident in her decision to avoid drawing feminine characters because, in comics, they are generally characterised by a significant degree of sexual stereotyping.This position changed with the experience of motherhood.Since the beginning of her first pregnancy, Socal has turned selfnarration into an explicit mode by starting to draw herself in comic strips and vignettes that have been published online and subsequently collected in Wie lange noch.She portrays herself either as a female cat or as a young woman with bodily features that clearly recall her own.Nevertheless, the choice to symbolically incorporate femininity by addressing themes that are commonly associated with the female sex and with the feminine gender, such as pregnancy and motherhood, appears as a conventional perspective on identity, which diverges from Braidotti's notions of fluidity and becoming.This approach, however, does not hinder Socal from presenting a portrayal of gender roles, existential transitions, and migratory patterns that is nomadic in nature and inherently linked to diasporic experiences.This is done through a graphic depiction of pregnancy and, more surprisingly, motherhood as liminal experiences characterised by a circular process of relational negotiations with the other (the foetus and the child).This challenges the patriarchal trope in which the phase of childhood, girlhood, and youth (where the subject is cared for) are conceptually opposed to that of mothering (where the subject is doing the caring).In other words, this graphic depiction projects the reader into the realm of a girlish motherhood where the boundaries established by a rigid conceptualisation of roles and positions are contested.
Scholars in girlhood studies have clearly pointed out how, in our culture, the girl has come to exemplify 'an idea of mobility preceding the fixity of womanhood'. 78The phase of girlhood is socially and culturally constructed as finishing with the experience of motherhood, 79 which in our patriarchal societies epitomises womanhood and its connection with the historical and present burden of reproductive and care work. 80Socal's practice of graphic journaling acknowledges and ultimately rejects this distinction, and it is not coincidental that this matter is thematically explored alongside her contemplation of her own diasporic condition.In a comic strip included in the Instagram project Chronicles of a Pregnancy, called 'Heimat' (which in German means homeland), the author offers a graphic snapshot of a visit to her parents' home in Italy during the last phase of her first pregnancy. 81 which Socal explains that the objective of the trip is 'to be fed, rested and be my parents' child for the last time', is emblematic of the double approach towards the condition of pregnancy: on the one side the conscience of the aforementioned equation between end of girlhood and the beginning of motherhood; on the other the desire to still indulge in being treated and taken care of as a daughter.This is also exemplified by the images in the vignette, where the artist reproduces graphically some of the photographs of her childhood.The whole strip is marked by ambivalence and a refusal to take a position between the phase of youth that coincides with the space of the homeland and the adult chapter of her life that is associated with the independence granted by the life in the country of destination.This is exemplified in the second vignette, where the author represents herself as being fed by her parents while overwhelmed by contradictory thoughts about independence and the desire to be taken care of by someone (Figure 5).It can also be seen in the sixth vignette, where the protagonist lies on a couch because the pregnancy does not allow her much movement, but does not give up her (socially constructed as) youthful desire to party (Figure 6).The representation of motherhood that follows continues this approach, which Socal re-adapts through the technique of cartooning.Thanks to the creative possibilities that it grants in terms of alteration of bodily proportions, cartooning allows the artist to create self-representations in which she simultaneously engages with the role of carer/mother and with that of subject who is taken care by either huge puppets 82 or by the child himself. 83Moreover, her graphic style is characterised by an explicitly girlish aesthetics, in which a palette of pastel colours dominated by pink and its derivatives and childish objects are recurring features.This overall strategy contributes to the symbolic subversion of the gendered paradigm that relegates mothers to the exclusive role of carers and offers a further demonstration of Socal's capacity to portray her own Self as a hybrid, nomadic entity always occupying the porous threshold between girlhood and womanhood.

Conclusions
The diaspora of Italian comics artists abroad is one example of the possibilities granted by today's hyper-connected society, which allows migrants to occupy a prolific transnational position between two countries and two professional contexts.The experiences of Nicoz Balboa and Alice Socal confirm the presence of this paradigm and clearly shed light on the ability of contemporary comics artists to cultivate links with the Italian comics scene despite living and working abroad.Not surprisingly, this productive condition of in-betweenness is also transposed at a representational level in the graphic narratives produced by the two artists analysed here.Both Balboa and Socal engage with explicit or implicit strategies of self-portrayal characterised by the recurring themes of travel, displacement, and transcultural negotiation as often painful but always enriching and enlightening practices.In other words, as artists and people as well as objects of representation, Balboa and Socal occupy a 'diasporic space' where socio-cultural boundaries and divisions are constantly contested. 84A crucial addition to this hybrid positionality is given by both authors' interest in exploring specifically gendered depictions of their selves.As a result, their work both surpasses cultural divides and systematically questions the rigid binary identity categories imposed by the patriarchal socio-cultural order.In the case of Balboa, this translates into a graphic journaling practice aimed at showcasing the continuous process of unveiling non-heterocisnormative sexual orientations and gender identities.In the case of Socal, the highly gendered narrative that rotates around the experience of motherhood, which has historically shaped women as reproductive machines and caring figures, is deconstructed by the author's interest in representing her pregnancy and parenting practice as a continuation of (not as opposed to) the experience of childhood and girlhood.
The opening caption, in Girls: Feminine Adolescence in Popular Culture and Cultural Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), p. 47.Girl Online (London and New York: Verso, 2022), 'The oldest girl in the world'.The Reproduction of Labour Power in the Global Economy and the Unfinished Feminist Revolution', in Workers and Labour in a Globalised Capitalism, ed. by Maurizio Atzeni (New York: Palgrave), pp.85-110 (pp.100-02).