Seriemediet inkorporerar lingvistiska och ikoniska tecken för att uttrycka etiska, moraliska, sociala och politiska budskap, vilka kan slätas över av en underhållande och tilltalande form. Detta gör mediet lämpligt för en retorisk analys. Ett omdiskuterat ämne inom seriemediet är dess gestaltning av kvinnor, å ena sidan i form av stereotypa könsroller och underrepresentation av verkligt intressanta kvinnliga karaktärer, å andra sidan sexualiserande porträtteringar, våld och övergrepp. Denna uppsats undersöker hur våld mot kvinnor gestaltas i mötet mellan olika typer av bilder och texter i ett och samma serieförfattarskap. Undersökningen genomförs med hjälp av Roland Barthes ”Rhétorique de l’image” (1964) och teorin om the male gaze som Laura Mulvey diskuterar i artikeln ”Visual pleasure and narrative cinema” (1975). Analysen inspireras av en komparativ metod beskriven av Lennart Hellspong i Metoder för brukstextanalys (2001). Uppsatsen granskar utdrag ur Watchmen, Batman: The Killing Joke och The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen av Alan Moore, en av vår tids mest ansedda författare inom seriemediet, också känd för att porträttera våld mot kvinnliga karaktärer.  Uppsatsens påvisade en ambivalens i porträtterandet av våld mot kvinnor i utdragen ur Alan Moores graphic novels, samt behovet av att problematisera såväl Alan Moores serier som Laura Mulveys the male gaze, men också möjligheten att använda hennes och Barthes teorier inom retorikdiskursens och seriemediets ramar för att granska hur samspelet mellan bild och text kan uttrycka olika typer av budskap och attityder.

« Comic book » est un terme anglo-saxon, plus spécifiquement américain, employé pour désigner les fascicules de bande dessinée. Il a trouvé son autonomie en 1938 avec la création de « Superman » qui a amorcé l'hégémonie de la figure du « super-héros » dans la production. Au cours du vingtième siècle, éditeurs et auteurs ont eu recours à des stratégies de conquête et de fidélisation du lectorat dont le procédé de la réécriture est le plus significatif. Le super-héros fut alors soumis à l'interprétation de nombreux créateurs et devint le témoin à multiples facettes de l'Histoire des États-Unis. Il s'est dessiné à partir des années quatre-vingt une tendance réflexive qui prend cette figure comme objet critique et qui a donné naissance à ce qu'on appelle ici le « metacomic ». À partir d'un corpus représentatif, cette thèse est consacrée aux stratégies qui fondent cette réflexivité et aux discours qu'elle véhicule dans les œuvres. Elle se divise en quatre chapitres. Le premier est un descriptif de l'industrie du comic book qui explique ses particularités et l'hégémonie en son sein du genre « superhéroïque ». Le second est dédié aux processus formels qui permettent de justifier la constitution du corpus en définissant la réflexivité des œuvres. Le troisième est voué à une analyse du caractère idéologique de cette métafiction, afin de montrer en quoi la mise en crise du super-héros sert un discours sur l'Histoire et la politique américaines. Le dernier s'intéresse à la manière dont les œuvres consacrent le super-héros comme figure de l'imagination : adoptant une approche fictionnaliste, on y démontre comment transfictionnalité et univers fictionnels sont utilisés pour revisiter / “Comic Book” is the Anglo-Saxon, more specifically American term employed to describe a specific material medium for comics. The epochal moment in the history of the comic book was the 1938 publication of « Superman », which marked the starting point of the hegemony of the figure of the superhero in comic production. Over the course of the twentieth century, authors and publishers have used various strategies for winning over readers and securing their loyalty. Among these, the technique of rewriting is the most significant. Thus, the superhero has been the subject of many reinterpretations, and consequently, has born witness to many facets of the United States’ history. The publications of the 1980s have seen the rise of a reflexive approach in which the superhero becomes an object of critique himself. This new genre is here referred to as Metacomic. Drawing on a representative body of works, the doctoral thesis at hand examines the strategies that constitute this reflexivity, as well as the multiple discourses that it gives rise to. The thesis is divided into four chapters. The first chapter gives an account of the comic book industry and explains its particularities, as well as the hegemonic position of the superhero genre in the industry. The second chapter attempts a definition of reflexivity in comic books, which permits to establish a body of works to be examined. The third chapter attempts an analysis of the ideological aspects of this metafiction in order to show how the crisis of the superhero reflects on a certain discourse on American history and politics. The fourth and last chapter examines how the analysed comics establish the superhero as an agent of imag

An ethical understanding of responsibility should entail a richly qualitative comprehension of the links between embodied, unique individuals and their lived realities of behaviour. Criminal responsibility theory broadly adheres to ‘rational choice’ models of the moral self which subsume individuals’ emotionally embodied dimensions under the general direction of their rational will and abstracts their behaviour from corporeal reality. Linking individuals with their behaviour based only on such understandings of ‘rational choice’ and abstract descriptions of behaviour overlooks the phenomenological dimensions of that behaviour and thus its moral significance as a lived experience. To overcome this ethical shortcoming, engagement with the aesthetic as an alternative discourse can help articulate the ‘excessive’ nature of lived reality and its relationship with ‘orthodox’ knowledge; fittingly, the comics form involves interaction of rational, non-rational, linguistic, and non-linguistic dimensions, modelling the limits of conceptual thought in relation to complex reality. Rational choice is predicated upon a split between a contextually embedded self and an abstractly autonomous self. Analysis of the graphic novel Watchmen contends that prioritisation of rational autonomy over sensual experience is symptomatic of a ‘rational surface’ that turns away from the indeterminate ‘chaos’ of complex reality (the unstructured universe), instead maintaining the power of rational and linguistic concepts to order the world. This ‘rational surface’ is maintained by masking that which threatens its stability: the chaos of the infinite difference of living individuals. These epistemological foundations are reconfigured, via Watchmen, enabling engagement beyond the ‘rational surface’ by accepting the generative potential of this living chaos and calling for models of criminal identity that are ‘restless’, acknowledging the unique, shifting nature of individuals, and not tending towards ‘complete’ or stable concepts of the self-as-responsible. As part of the aesthetic methodology of this reconfiguration, a radical extension of legal theory’s analytical canon is developed.

This work aims to study to homonymous works, From Hell, the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell and the film adaptation directed by Albert and Allen Hughes, so as to develop a media study as well as plot and script analysis, Based on the Media Studies, focusing the theories of Cluver, Moser, Genette and Diniz, among others, we intend to approximate the distance between the corpora in the tension caused their autonomy. Therefore, the analysis seeks to understand the idiosyncrasies of each art s composition and, by the distance between each work, to apprehend their singularities given by the authors. To approach the composition, authors such as Eisner, Cagnin, Barthes and Eisenstein gave support to understand the functioning of both the film and the graphic novel. To analyze and organize the plots, the theory of Barthes guided once again the understanding of the compounding elements of the story like main and complementary events, character description and atmosphere. In addition to this there is also the symbol study, essential to From Hell study, based on Brenda Mallon s reflections. Finally, the understanding of the film and the graphic novel is done by means of two themes gender and sex , followed by Hell aiming to measure the range of each work. Therefore, when we follow the trajectory of the smaller parts up to the main event, we build the understanding of the whole corpus, comparing the synchrony of each work and their form and content. / Este trabalho tem por objetivo confrontar duas obras homônimas, Do inferno, sendo uma o romance gráfico de Alan Moore e Eddie Campbell e a adaptação dos diretores Albert e Allen Hughes, feita com base na primeira obra, a fim de desenvolver um estudo de media e de enredo. Com base nos estudos de intermidialidade, arrolando as teorias de Claus Clüver, Walter Moser, Gerard Genette e Thais Flores Diniz, entre outros, pretende-se relativizar a distância que há entre as partes do corpus na tensão provocada pela autonomia contra a ligação que elas mantém. Portanto, a análise busca através das proximidades entre ambos entender as idiossincrasias da composição de cada arte e, através dos distanciamentos, apreender as singularidades das obras atribuídas pelos autores. Para abordar a composição, autores como Will Eisner, Luis Antonio Cagnin, Roland Barthes e Sergei Eisenstein deram suporte para compreender o funcionamento tanto filme quanto da história em quadrinhos. Já para adentrar e organizar os enredos, a sistematização de Roland Barthes mais uma vez guiou a compreensão dos elementos constitutivos da história, como eventos principais e complementares, caracterização dos personagens e atmosfera da ação. Somada a essa parte, há ainda o estudo da simbologia, fundamental para a leitura de Do inferno pautado nas reflexões de Brenda Mallon. Em última instância, a compreensão do filme e do romance gráfico é realizada por duas grandes temáticas Gênero e Sexo seguida por Inferno com o intuito de depreender o âmbito ou o tom de cada obra. Por conseguinte, ao percorrer a trajetória das menores partes até a esfera geral, constrói-se a compreensão minuciosa do corpus, comparando a articulação que cada obra faz entre sua forma e seu conteúdo. / Mestre em Teoria Literária

La transfictionnalité, concept proche de celui de transtextualité, est définie par Richard Saint-Gelais comme « le phénomène par lequel au moins deux textes, du même auteur ou non, se rapportent conjointement à une même fiction, que ce soit par reprise de personnages, prolongement d’une intrigue préalable ou partage d’univers fictionnel ». Ce mémoire de recherche-création étudie l’usage qu’Alan Moore et Kevin O’Neill font de la transfictionnalité dans leur bande dessinée The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (1999-2019), et plus spécifiquement leur recyclage du matériel narratif du XIXe siècle britannique, marqué par la Révolution industrielle et les politiques impérialistes du règne de la reine Victoria. Il s’agit de mieux comprendre comment les personnages de la littérature de l’époque victorienne sont réappropriés par les auteurs, transformés et recontextualisés de manière à critiquer la culture et la société qui les a d’abord générés. Fiction Party est quant à lui un récit transfictif et autofictif dans lequel Francis, le personnage principal, est invité par erreur à une soirée donnée en l’honneur de la fiction au château de Dracula. Il y fait la rencontre d’innombrables personnages des littératures de tous les pays et de toutes les époques, parmi lesquels Antigone, Meursault, Emma Bovary, Don Quichotte, ou encore le shérif de Nottingham. Au cours de la fête, cependant, un meurtre est commis, et ces grandes figures littéraires doivent alors résoudre le mystère et identifier l’assassin, dans un hommage aux récits d’enquêtes d’Arthur Conan Doyle et Agatha Christie. / Transfictionnality, a concept close to that of transtextuality, is defined by Richard Saint Gelais as "the phenomenon by which at least two texts, from the same author or not, relate jointly to the same fiction, whether by resumption of characters, extension of a previous plot or sharing a fictional universe". This Master’s thesis in research-creation examines Alan Moore's and Kevin O'Neill's use of transfictionnality in their graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (1999-2019), and more specifically their recycling of narrative material from nineteenth century Great Britain, which is marked by the Industrial Revolution and the imperialist policies of the reign of Queen Victoria. Our aim is to better understand how the characters of literature of the Victorian era are appropriated by the authors, transformed and recontextualized so as to criticize the culture and the society that first generated them. Fiction Party is a transfictive and autofictional narrative in which Francis, the main character, is mistakenly invited to a party in honor of fiction at Dracula's Castle. He meets countless literary characters from every country and every epoch, including Antigone, Meursault, Emma Bovary, Don Quixote, and the sheriff of Nottingham. During the festivities, however, a murder is committed, and these great literary characters must then solve the mystery and identify the culprit, in a tribute to the detective fiction of Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie.