The pregnant body in Polish comics: Reading Agata Nowicka’s Projekt: Człowiek (‘Project: A human being’) and Olga Wróbel’s Ciemna Strona Księżyca (‘The dark side of the moon’)

This article examines fascinating, yet not widely researched, forms of graphic storytelling located at the intersection of comics studies, feminism, autobiography and the medical humanities, namely comics devoted to pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood. I focus on two contemporary Polish autobiographical comic books, Agata Nowicka’s Projekt: Człowiek (‘Project: A human being’) (2006) and Olga Wróbel’s Ciemna Strona Księżyca (‘The dark side of the moon’) (2014). Torn between their roles as ‘bodies’ and their personal and professional aspirations and needs, both authors visually conceptualize their pregnant selves as unstable, multiple and serial. They document and reflect on their state, trying to negotiate their subjectivity in and through the medium of comics. Nowicka conceptualizes her pregnancy as a ‘project’, something she will complete within a specified period of time. The metaphor of the project is bittersweet. On the one hand, it points to the excitement associated with completing a creative task – something that reinforces her role as a creator. On the other hand, it also points to the insecurities and fears associated with being a freelance artist (i.e. lack of social and financial security during and after pregnancy). Respectively, Wróbel attempts to draw ‘the dark side of the moon’, the dark side of her pregnancy, including weight gain, haemorrhoids, skin problems, anxiety and depression. Indirectly, both comics also engage in sociopolitical critique, commenting on/representing the experience of childbirth in Poland.