On the Margins: Underground Comics and Counter Culture in Contemporary Serbia Author: Lisa Mangum, Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies, University of Washington

Abstract: During the nineties, underground comics came to the forefront of Serbian visual arts. Championed by the counter culture which prized their authenticity, these comics with their unique candor, wit, and vitality addressed the social and existential predicaments in which Serbian youth found themselves. These works benefited from their medium's inauspiciousness and inherent marginality. Cheap to produce and unconventionally distributed, they were not beholden to commercial pressures or officially-sanctioned ideologies nor did they have to appeal to a wide audience. In fact, the more idiosyncratic and individual the expression, the better. That said, this body of work often displays common themes; an examination of Serbian identity as well as emotional portraits of isolation, loss, and escape prevail.

In this paper, I survey some of the key artists in the comics scene and examine their artwork and activities in political and social context. I take a look at the flourishing of alternative culture at large in nineties Serbia and the role comics and fanzines played within that culture. I thereby approach comics as a cultural representation and argue that comics (particularly underground comics) are not only a legitimate basis for social investigation, they are in fact an exceptional one owning to their relative lack of critical, political or commercial pressure. Finally, I reflect on the changes in the comics scene since the year 2000 and consider the status of comics in a post-Miloševic Serbia which is still very much in flux.