Introduction: Trans/formation and the graphic novel

In early 2014, the Australian government’s Department for Immigration and Border Protection launched a controversial graphic novel on their website, directed against those intending to enter the country “illegally”. Titled using simple, brutal phrasing carrying ironic echoes of lazy anti-Australian stereotyping, No Way was a wordless 18-page comic discouraging potential immigrants. Although there has since been a change of Australian Premier (in September 2015, Malcolm Turnbull replaced Tony Abbott, who had been outspoken in his opposition to “the boats” a metonymical reference to those entering the country by sea [Abbott 2013], the campaign around No Way – the ominously named “Operation Sovereign Borders” – remains active. This says much about the Australian people’s capacity for consuming anti-immigration rhetoric, but it is not only Australians who think like this. As has been clear in a range of responses to the recent refugee crises in North Africa and Europe – from the output of global news networks to the content of numerous internet comment sections – attitudes towards migrant peoples have seen a steady hardening in the face of perceived increasing threats to personal and financial security in the west: from the “War on Terror” to the “credit crunch”.