The dissertation (diploma thesis) with the topic "Comics as the medium of the artistic expression" consists of theoretical and practical parts. The theoretical part represents a definition of the comics, its short history and some important terms of the comics terminology. Next this part concerns with specific narrative constructions of the comics medium and also describes functions and cooperation of the visual and verbal components. In the individual charter is shortly described Japanese comics (manga), its characteristic and different aspects against the classic European and American comics. The end of the theoretical part is dedicated to the theory of the artistic expression and its particular elements, which are used in the comics. The practical part comprising the analysis of two classic comics works and one Japanese manga. Namely it is The Crow, The Crow: Skinnig the Wolves and The City of Light. These works were chosen intentionally because of their technical, thematic and cultural aspects, so the analysis can work with the wider scale of the artistic elements. The dissertation tries to defend the opinion, that the comics medium is multifunctional, it can contain full-blown artistic expression and it is able to work with any content. For better specification there are contained some...

Estudo sobre a publicação nacional dos super-heróis dos comic books dos EUA pela Editora Brasil-América (EBAL) entre meados dos anos 60 e 70. Para tanto, será traçado um panorama histórico, acrescido das coordenadas teóricas que norteiam a análise da iconografia dessas revistas. Houve uma extensa pesquisa iconográfica focalizada nas edições da EBAL, além de levantamento de histórias em quadrinhos de outras editoras e épocas. Mesmo sendo um produto típico da indústria cultural do século 20, as histórias em quadrinhos apresentam inflexões que permitem relacionar arte, cultura, sociedade e imaginário. O estudo inclui ainda entrevistas com leitores da EBAL. / Study on the publication in Brazil of American comic books superheroes by Editora Brasil-America (EBAL) from the mid-60\'s to the mid-70\'s. With such an aim, work traces an historical panorama to which shall be added the theoretical coordinates guiding the analysis of these magazines iconography. Extensive iconographic research focused in EBAL?s publications has been made, besides a survey of comics from other publishing houses and from other decades as well. Even being a typical product of 20th century cultural industry, comics show contradictions allowing to establish relations between art, culture, society and the imaginary. Study also includes interviews with frequent readers of EBAL publications.

Estudo sobre a publicação nacional dos super-heróis dos comic books dos EUA pela Editora Brasil-América (EBAL) entre meados dos anos 60 e 70. Para tanto, será traçado um panorama histórico, acrescido das coordenadas teóricas que norteiam a análise da iconografia dessas revistas. Houve uma extensa pesquisa iconográfica focalizada nas edições da EBAL, além de levantamento de histórias em quadrinhos de outras editoras e épocas. Mesmo sendo um produto típico da indústria cultural do século 20, as histórias em quadrinhos apresentam inflexões que permitem relacionar arte, cultura, sociedade e imaginário. O estudo inclui ainda entrevistas com leitores da EBAL. / Study on the publication in Brazil of American comic books superheroes by Editora Brasil-America (EBAL) from the mid-60\'s to the mid-70\'s. With such an aim, work traces an historical panorama to which shall be added the theoretical coordinates guiding the analysis of these magazines iconography. Extensive iconographic research focused in EBAL?s publications has been made, besides a survey of comics from other publishing houses and from other decades as well. Even being a typical product of 20th century cultural industry, comics show contradictions allowing to establish relations between art, culture, society and the imaginary. Study also includes interviews with frequent readers of EBAL publications.

Les comic books, qui font partie du 9ème art avec la bande dessinée et le manga, constituent un pan important de la culture populaire et de l’imaginaire contemporain. Ils permettent d’attester de la persistance des super-héros, dont les aventures cycliques sont très appropriées à ce moyen d’expression. La variété des modes narratifs qui transmettent aujourd’hui les super-héros, depuis le cinéma jusqu’à nos univers virtuels contemporains, permet de questionner les enjeux de la fiction et sa vitalité. Ainsi les récits audio-visuels sont étudiés au même titre que ceux de papier.Cette multimodalité narrative de nos super-héros doit tenir compte de la vaste fresque que représentent leurs récits ; et ce sont des éléments représentatifs de mouvances éditoriales, historiques, ou encore sociales qui guident le choix de notre corpus d’étude, au travers des « Ages » de nos super-héros. L’imaginaire dynamique des personnages nous amène à retenir trois d’entre eux pour lesquels la multisensorialité et la moto-sensorialité sont l’essence même de leurs narrations. Cela permet de souligner l’apport des sciences cognitives dans l’analyse des ontologies de la fiction, de sorte que ces personnages intègrent parfaitement, en dépit des objections de Sperber & Hirschfeld (2004), les « fondations cognitives » de nos cultures. Nous défendons que les super-héros font partie des êtres fantastiques et nous utilisons pour leur analyse le cadre heuristique proposé dans Armand (2015), qui permet l’étude des êtres fantastiques repérés dans la Folkloristique en s’appuyant sur les acquis de l’Anthropologie Neuro-Cognitive. Ce cadre nous a permis d’analyser les pouvoirs multisensoriels de nos super-héros en termes d’intuitions, contre-intuitions et sur-intuitions, pour mieux approcher les mécanismes cognitifs qui fondent l’imaginaire des auteurs qui nous proposent ces héros tout autant que l’imaginaire de ceux qui y adhèrent.Batman, justicier costumé en chauve-souris, intègre dans sa lutte contre le crime les représentations de cet animal dans ce qu’il a de plus ambivalent dans nos imaginaires. Il reste toutefois incapable d’employer dans sa fiction une perception biologique naturelle du chiroptère : l’écholocation animale. Bien que connue du grand public, cette capacité demeure dans son fonctionnement trop contre-intuitive pour être représentée avec justesse dans les récits.Daredevil nous permet de poursuivre notre approche de la multisensorialité, avec le cas d’un justicier aveugle aux capacités perceptives et attentionnelles décuplées. Mais ce « super-aveugle » est incapable d’avoir recours à la compétence sur-intuitive de l’écholocation humaine, une compétence qui semble au final dépendre très contre-intuitivement des aires corticales visuelles plutôt que des aires auditives (depuis Thaler et al., 2011).Superman enfin possède a priori tous les pouvoirs, mais est particulièrement reconnu par sa capacité à voler sans contraintes. Cette capacité nous a conduit à rechercher dans quel incubateur neural d’ontologies fantastiques le récit puisait la composante génératrice de ce si célèbre pouvoir de vol aptère. Nous avons pour cela dû faire appel aux expériences hors-du-corps (Out-of-Body Experiences ou OBE), rapportées de longue date et universellement dans les narrations d’expérience, et dont l’émergence n’a été vraiment comprise sur le plan neural que récemment (cf. les expériences de stimulation corticale de Blanke et al., 2002). Nous proposons une approche qui permet d’unifier la Formation de l’esprit scientifique de Bachelard (1938), qui donne les bases d’une épistémologie de la contre-intuition, avec sa poétique. Car nous avons pu requalifier la poétique de L’Air et les songes (1943), dans ses apports fondamentaux − ici le vol onirique aptère −, de sur-intuitive. Ce vol sans ailes trouve par ailleurs un réel terrain d’expression par le mouvement imaginé dans les mondes virtuels et l’expérience de corps dissocié dans la Réalité Virtuelle. / Comic books constitute with comic albums and manga the 9th art and represent an important part of popular culture and contemporary imaginary. They bear witness of the persistence of superheroes, whose cyclic adventures are appropriate for this form of expression. The variety of narrative modes (from cinema to our contemporary virtual universes) that convey superheroes today allows us to question the issues of fiction and its vitality. Audio-visual narratives are thus as studied as paper narratives.The narrative multimodality of our superheroes must take into account the large fresco represented by their stories. These elements are representative of editorial, historical or even social movements that have guided the composition of our corpus throughout the “Ages” of ours superheroes. The dynamic imaginary of characters led us to select three of them for whom multisensoriality and motosensoriality are the very essences of their narratives. This gives us the opportunity to underline the contribution of cognitive sciences in the analysis of the ontologies of fiction, so as to have these characters perfectly integrate – despite the objections of Sperber & Hirschfeld (2004) – the “cognitive foundations” of our cultures. We defend the idea that superheroes belong to the category of fantastical creatures and we therefore use, for their analysis, the heuristic frame suggested by Armand (2015) and which allows the study of fantastical beings spotted in Folkloristics with the help of Neurocognitive Anthropology. This frame allowed us to analyze the multisensorial powers of superheroes in terms of intuitions, counter-intuitions, and over-intuitions so as to better understand the cognitive mechanisms on the basis of the imaginary of theirs creators and of those who adhere to it.Batman, a vigilante dressed as a bat, uses in his fight against crime the most ambivalent representations of this particular animal in our imaginaries. He remains, however, unable to use in his fiction a natural biological perception of the chripotera, namely animal echolocation. Although it is well known by the public, the functioning of this capacity remains too counter-intuitive to be accurately represented in the stories.Daredevil allows us to continue our study of multisensoriality with the case of a blind vigilante with increased perceptive and attentional capacities. But this “super-blind” is incapable of using the over-intuitive aspect of human echolocation, a skill that seems, in the end, to depend counter-intuitively on the cortical visual areas rather than on the auditory areas (since Thaler et al., 2011).Finally, Superman apparently possesses all powers but he is particularly well known for his ability to fly. This capacity led us to look for the neural incubator of fantastical ontologies in which the narrative found the generative component of this famous wingless flight. It was thus necessary to use out-of-body experiences (or OBE), which have been reported for a long time and are universally recognized in experience narratives and whose emergence has only been recently understood neurologically (see for the instance the experiences of cortical stimulations in Blanke et al., 2002). We offer an approach that would allow the unification of Bachelard’s Training of the Scientific Mind (1938), and which gives the basis of an epistemology of counter-intuition, with his poetics. Indeed, we have been able to redefine the poetics of his Air and Dreams (1943), in its most important contributions – here the wingless dream flight – as over-intuitive. This wingless flight finds a real mode of expression in the movements imagined in virtual worlds and in the experience of body dissociation offered by Virtual Reality.

In the digital era, the comics medium has been transported from print to computer screen, and thus its evolution takes place in digital performances based on full-body interaction technologies. The major implication of this process is that the conventions of comics will be merging with those of performance, film, and animation. In a comics story implemented with full-body interaction technologies, representational space shifts from two to three dimensions. Physical elements can now easily be combined with virtual ones. The participants' contribution to the experience now includes a larger set of kinesthetic choices. Earlier media offer the readers the opportunity to read the story with their eyes, turn pages, and click a mouse. Instead of one or perhaps two readers of print and screen-based comics, a digital performance can be experienced by a group of viewers positioned in space in various ways. By utilizing the tools of computer vision, the projection of a participant can be made the main character of the comics story. Consequently, the comics and animation frame changes when moved to digital performance spaces. The frame becomes embodied, nested, elastic, and dynamic. The first two qualities relate to the physicality of the medium, where performers and viewers are simultaneously present in both the real and fictional spaces. The second two qualities relate to the procedurality of the medium and the potential for computational manipulation within the frame based on changing relationships across space (distance) and time (story).

Submitted by Thais Costa da Silva (thais_unirio@yahoo.com.br) on 2015-12-28T12:30:38Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Versão Final Dissertação - Thaís Costa.pdf: 21932473 bytes, checksum: 361ae5a8931030f3b152e3b2c769efcc (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Rafael Aguiar (rafael.aguiar@fgv.br) on 2016-01-19T18:50:16Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Versão Final Dissertação - Thaís Costa.pdf: 21932473 bytes, checksum: 361ae5a8931030f3b152e3b2c769efcc (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marcia Bacha (marcia.bacha@fgv.br) on 2016-01-21T11:26:28Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Versão Final Dissertação - Thaís Costa.pdf: 21932473 bytes, checksum: 361ae5a8931030f3b152e3b2c769efcc (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-01-21T11:26:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Versão Final Dissertação - Thaís Costa.pdf: 21932473 bytes, checksum: 361ae5a8931030f3b152e3b2c769efcc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-12-01 / From multiple representations that are reproduced about the city of Duque de Caxias over the years, imageries and social identities are strengthened and transformed. Although, self-representations, made by cultural agents of the city organized as a network, which much is driven by the use of the internet, seek to deconstruct stereotypes and claim the city they want and believe they have right. In this context, the first part of this research is dedicated to an investigation about how the city of Duque de Caxias was and is represented by several actors, including its own residents. The links between the cultural production of this network and the construction and redefinition of symbols and imagery of the city are highlighted. This dissertation also includes cases of study related to Mate com Angu film club, Lurdinha blog and the group of cartoonists Capa Comics. The second part of this work approaches the affective relationships between the Duque de Caxias dwellers and the inhabited territories, transformed many times by the cultural productions that emphasize the belonging perceptions to the city. The encouragement of the best use of the public spaces and the creation of leisure equipment are presented as essential in this process. The results of this research show a reflection about the Internet potential to strengthen network relations, to create opportunities for self-representations and to improve mobility. The changes occurring around the perceptions of the city, the understanding of belonging to it and the appropriation of the spaces are also highlighted in this paper. / A partir das múltiplas representações que se reproduzem sobre a cidade de Duque de Caxias ao longo dos anos, imaginários e identidades sociais são fortalecidos e transformados. No entanto, autorrepresentações, provindas de agentes culturais da cidade organizados em uma rede, que muito se fortalece com o uso da internet, buscam desconstruir estereótipos e reivindicar a cidade que eles querem e julgam ter direito. Neste contexto, a primeira parte do trabalho se dedica a uma investigação sobre como a cidade de Duque de Caxias foi e é representada por atores diversos, incluindo seus próprios moradores. São ressaltadas as aproximações entre a produção cultural dessa rede com a construção e ressignificação de símbolos e imaginários da cidade. São realizados, ainda, estudos de caso sobre o cineclube Mate com Angu, o coletivo de quadrinistas Capa Comics e o blog Lurdinha. A segunda parte do trabalho versa sobre as relações afetivas entre a população duque caxiense e os territórios habitados, em muito transformadas pelas produções culturais que enfatizam o pertencimento à cidade. O incentivo ao melhor uso dos espaços públicos e a criação de equipamentos de lazer se apresentam como essenciais neste processo. Os resultados dessa pesquisa apresentam uma reflexão sobre as potencialidades da internet para o fortalecimento das relações em rede, para oportunizar autorrepresentações e, ainda, para provocar mobilidades. As transformações ocorridas em torno das percepções sobre a cidade, a compreensão de pertencimento a ela e a apropriação dos espaços também são pontos destacados nesta dissertação.

Cette thèse s’intéresse à l’émergence de l’art séquentiel aux États-Unis à partir du milieu du XIXe siècle. Né de l’illustration de magazine satirique avant d’aboutir dans les cahiers dominicaux des journaux, ce qu’on nomme d’abord comic (ou comic strip) évolue et s’adapte au gré de l’industrie médiatique à travers des contraintes de production qui répondent bientôt d’habitudes de lecture. S’articulant sur ces procédés à travers une perspective en partie deleuzo-guattarienne, cette thèse propose une interprétation écosophique, axée par des critères sociaux, psychiques et matériels, afin d’étudier les passages transmédiatiques de la bande dessinée jusqu’à la première apogée du strip journalier. Cette approche technocritique, informée par le champ des comics studies, se construit autour de l’analyse de la périodicité et des contraintes de diffusion ainsi que leur compression d’une planche, cherchant à présenter à terme une théorie du rythme de la production et de la lecture de la bande dessinée. Cette conceptualisation passe en partie par une réévaluation de l’œuvre de Sidney Smith, créateur de The Gumps, et de son recours à des stratégies de sérialisation épisodique. Ancien chalk talker (une profession d’animateur-dessinateur de foule), Smith sert de fil conducteur à cette réflexion sur le rythme et la répétition de la BD dont le corpus inclus aussi de nombreux cartoonists importants du début du XXe siècle (Lyonel Feininger, Bud Fisher, George Herriman, Frank King et Winsor McCay). / This dissertation focuses on the emergence of sequential art in the United States from the middle of the 19th century. Born from the illustration of satirical magazines before ending up in the Sunday pages of newspapers, what was first called a comic (or comic strip) changes and adapts to the liking of the media industry through production constraints that will soon meet reading habits. Articulating these processes through a Deleuzo-Guattarian perspective, this thesis proposes an ecosophical interpretation, framed by social, psychic, and material factors, in order to study the transmedia growth of American sequential art up to the first apogee of the daily strip. This technocritical approach, informed by the field of comics studies, is built around the analysis of periodicity and distribution constraints and how they compress a page, seeking to present a theory of rhythm for the reading and production of comics. Part of this conceptualization involves a reassessment of the work of Sidney Smith, creator of The Gumps, and his use of episodic serialization strategies. A former chalk talker, Smith serves as a guide for this reflection on the rhythm and repetition of comics, the corpus of which also includes many important cartoonists from the beginning of the 20th century (Lyonel Feininger, Bud Fisher, George Herriman, Frank King, and Winsor McCay).

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Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Visual Arts / Thesis (MA (VA)) -- Stellenbosch University, 2006. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Cultural evolution & genre: an investigation of three South African graphic narratives of the South African Border war (1975-1988) Magister in Fine Arts thesis, Department of Fine Arts, Stellenbosch University This study analyses three South African graphic narratives in the context of culture evolving in the Darwinian sense. It is deemed necessary to consider evolutionary theory in such a study of graphic narratives as it considers the development of culture as resulting from a process of evolution akin to natural selection. Special attention is paid to the theory of memetics, in the field of evolutionary epistemology, and its proposal to model cultural evolution. While this model relies on evolutionary theory, the development of culture is seen as evolving separately from biological evolution. This evolutionary perspective on culture is combined with the concepts of discourse and genre in social semiotics and media studies to investigate the changes in the depiction of the Border war in South African graphic narratives. As such this study focuses on the strategic viewpoint of cultural evolution, the role of memes in genre and its interaction with the evolution of discourse. This approach is offered as a useful method to analyse cultural artefacts. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Kulturele evolusie & genre: 'n ondersoek van drie grafiese verhale van die Suid-Afrikaanse Grensoorlog (1975-1988) Magister in Beeldende Kunste tesis, Oepat1ement Beeldende Kunste, Universiteit van Stellcnbosch Hicrdie studic ontleed drie Suid-Afrikaanse graficse verhale in die konteks van kultuur wat evolueer in die Oarwinistiese sin. Oit word belangrik gereken om evolusieteorie in so 'n studie van grafiese verhale in ag te neem aangesien die ontwikkeling van kultuur as die resultaat van 'n proses van evolusie, verwand aan natuurlike seleksie, geag word. Spesiale aandag word geskenk aan die teorie van meme, in die veld van evolusieepistemologie, en die teorie se voorstel om kulturele evolusie te modelleer. Terwyl so 'n teorie op evolusieteorie steun, word die ontwikkeling van kultuur beskou as 'n afsonderlike proses van natuurlike seleksie. Hierdie evolusienere perspektief op kultuur word verenig met die konsepte van diskoers en genre in sosiale semiotiek en media studies om die veranderende uitbeelding van die Grensoorlog in Suid-Afrikaanse gratiese verhale na te vors. Sodanig fokus hierdie studie op die strategiesc oogpunt van kulturele evolusie, die rol van meme in genre en die interaksie met die ontwikkeling van diskoers. Hierdie benadering word aangebied as 'n waardevolle metode om kulturele artefakte te ontleed.

This thesis looks at the contemporary superhero comic Hawkeye and its depiction of able-bodiedness and non-able-bodiedness, in general and more specifically the portrayal of deafness that takes place in the last story arc. Issues and depictions of various levels of functionality in comics, as a visual media, and superhero comics in particular, have been and are frequently present. They, however, rely heavily on old stereotypes, both in the visual and the textual elements. The small intersection of disability studies, crip theory and the study of superhero comics have mostly focused on the comics published between 1960 and 1980. The superhero genre is a genre known for idealized depictions of healthy and strong bodies, which is why it is such an interesting and complex theme to analyse. Matt Fraction and  David Aja’s Hawkeye comic utilizes the tools and elements inherent in the comic book style to portray disability and deafness in new enriching ways both in narrative terms and in the reader’s response to the text. Looking at both the visual and textual elements of the comic this thesis finds that the comic medium and the Hawkeye comic in particular manages to depict disability in an engaging and thought provoking way. / Inspirerad av min personliga reaktion av att läsa Matt Fraction och David Ajas superhjälteserie Hawkeye, och speciellt tidningen där protagonisten i serien plötsligt blir döv, har jag undersökt hur serien arbetar med föreställningar och normer om funktionalitet. Tidigare forskning inom just den smala intersektionen av cripteori och/eller handikappforskning samt forskningen av superhjälteserier har främst fokuserat på superhjälteseriernas så kallade Silverålder, vilket är åren mellan 1960 och 1980. Efter en kort introduktion till Hawkeyes fiktionella historia i förlaget Marvels serieuniversum och hanteringen av handikapp i tidigare tecknade serier diskuterar jag i analysen hur tematiken av funktionsduglighet och funktionsnedsatthet porträtteras. Jag undersöker såväl den visuella som den textuella skildringen samt hur denna tematik problematiseras, i själva berättelsen men även för läsaren, i seriens utformning. Jag använder mig av Mitchell och Snyders teorier om narrativa proteser och handikapp-narrativ för att undersöka hur Hawkeye förhåller sig till dessa. I början av Fraction och Ajas berättelse om Clint Barton följer handikapp-tematiken deras teori om narrativa proteser och det nedtystande och/eller ignorerande av handikappet som litterära skildringar av funktionsnedsättningar vanligtvis följer. När dövheten sedan tar plats i berättelsen förändras den attityden och Hawkeye #19 och senare serier bryter starkt mot dessa konventioner. Resultatet av denna analys är att tecknade serier, i egenskap av sin speciella medieform, är synnerhet är väldigt bra lämpad för att skildra alternativ funktionalitet och serieskaparna till Hawkeye använder detta till sin fördel för att avbilda Clints upplevelse av tillfälliga skador och dövhet.