1,720,961 research outputs found
Per una critica hauntologica del fumetto: spettri, precarietà e futuri perduti nel fumetto italiano contemporaneo
No full textThe present research aims to propose a systematic study of a corpus of contemporary Italian comics under the aesthetic lens of spectrality and hauntology, to investigate the aesthetic-representational modes through which the texts elaborate and conceptualize an inherently contemporary absence such as that of the future. It will be shown, in fact, how the cultural imaginary of our era has seen a progressive removal of futuribles horizons, in response to endemic phenomena of precariousness (laboral, economic, relational and existential). This absence leaves a deep mark on the contemporary imaginary, which seeks tools to represent and elaborate it: the spectre, as a metaphorical figure, indeed conceptualizes the return of a future that was considered lost, and thus stands as a key ontological presence to narrate and interpret the contemporary. Building on Jacques Derrida's early theorizations of hauntology, later reworked by Mark Fisher, the present research proposes an actualization of the theoretical framework related to the “ontology of the spectral” and its application to the comics medium. The latter proves to be particularly suited to be analyzed in the light of spectral aesthetics, both because of its porosity towards the contemporary imaginary and because of its medial specificities, its multimodal semiotic functions and the sense-making dynamics. These involve, at various levels, a continuous dialectic between presence and absence. This work will thus build an original methodology of analysis that focuses on the dialogue between comics, the imaginary and the most significant instances of our present, resulting in an investigation of the possibilities of negotiation that the comics medium can propose of the spaces and times of the contemporary through its aesthetics.
La provincia e la periferia: tecniche e strumenti per raccontare lo spazio marginale nel fumetto italiano contemporaneo = The province and the periphery: techniques and tools for narrating the marginal space in contemporary Italian comics
No full textThis paper aims to analyze how the centrality of marginal spaces such as the province and the periphery is realized in contemporary Italian comics through the discussion of three case studies: Non mi posso lamentare by Paolo Cattaneo (2019), Malibu by Eliana Albertini (2019), and Padovaland by Miguel Vila (2020). After a brief historical contextualization, some of the main approaches to spatiality in comics will be illustrated, a complex and layered aspect of this multimodal medium. This will be followed by an introduction to the three selected comics, the stories they tell and the relationship they establish with the different Italian territorial realities they refer to. Finally, the analysis will be conducted, trying to take into consideration all the aspects related to spatiality, whether these are the graphic and drawing style or the mise en page and the layout, without ever disregarding the narrative dimension. It will be conducted a medium-specific analysis which will allow for the identification and discussion of the techniques through which the focusing of marginal spaces is achieved within some contemporary Italian comics
Mon Semblable, Mon Frère: Identity Needs, Imaginary, and Aesthetics in Marco and Antonio Manetti’s Diabolik Trilogy
No full textDiabolik has marked a decisive watershed in Italian culture and imagination. Confronting the way it tra- versed sixty years of Italian history allows us to examine the complex plot that links Italian comics to me- dial and socio-cultural changes. This article investigates the relationships between the comics series and the cinematic Diabolik, discussing the mechanisms of adaptation and remediation, the changes in aesthetic forms and symbolic references that have aimed to intercept a vast and heterogeneous audience over several years and different media. We will analyze the evolution that Diabolik’s storyworld has undergone, from the establishment of the comics series to the film adaptations, examining how the franchise has traversed and adapted to the changing imaginaries and spaces (physical and medial) in constant metamorphosis, and considering how it has responded to the identity needs of Italian audiences from the 1960s to the present. Finally –- and, crucially – we will focus on the trilogy recently directed by the Manetti brothers (Diabolik, 2021; Diabolik - Ginko all’attacco!, 2022; and Diabolik - Chi sei?, 2023), considering the relation it bears to the comics series, discussing the semiotic and aesthetic choices through which the filmmakers have adapted the hypotexts and remediated the original material, and highlighting its palimpsestuous character
Disegnare l’indicibile. La rappresentazione dell’attacco di panico in tre fumetti italiani contemporanei
Full text linkWithin the medical dictionary, panic is defined as a "sense of severe anxiety," and the panic attack is described as a manifestation of uncontrollable anxiety or a spike of fear. When it occurs, it can lead to irrational behavior, along with a range of physical symptoms.For these reasons, panic is identified in many cases as an emotion that is difficult to describe effectivelyandmetaphors are used to describe it. Strategies to represent it through media can also be disparate and resort to medium-specific tools. Among the attempts, is the comics medium: as both narrative and visual, the language of comics lends itself to telling an episode with a strong emotional factor that deeply engages the body of the person who experiences it. Turning to contemporary Italian production, three comics have been identifiedthat deal with the representation of the panic attack, an analysis of which will be proposed, going on to discuss what graphic and stylistic strategies the medium has at its disposal to tell it, with particular attention to the representation of bodies and their gestures, as well as their manipulation through drawing and the effect of embodiment that can be elicited.All’interno del dizionario medico, il panico è definito come “senso di forte ansia”, e l’attacco di panico viene descritto comeuna manifestazione di ansia incontrollabile o un picco di paura. Quando si manifesta, può portare a comportamenti irrazionali, insieme a una serie di sintomi fisici.Per queste ragioni, ilpanico viene identificato in molticasi come un’emozione difficile da raccontare efficacementeeper descriverlo si ricorre a metafore e similitudini. Anche le modalità di rappresentazione attraverso i media possono essere disparate e fare ricorso a strategiemedium specific. Tra i tentativisvolti in questo senso,figura il medium fumetto: in quantosia narrativo che visuale, il linguaggio dei comicssi presta per raccontare un episodio con un forte fattore emotivo che coinvolge profondamente il corpo di chi lo sperimenta.Rivolgendoci alla produzione italiana contemporanea, sono stati individuati tre testi a fumetti che affrontano la rappresentazione dell’attacco di panico, di cui verrà proposta un’analisi, andando a discutere di quali strategie grafiche e stilistiche il medium dispone per raccontarlo, con particolare attenzione alla rappresentazione dei corpiealla loro gestualità,come anche alla loro manipolazione attraverso il disegno e all’effetto di embodimentche può essere suscitato
Lived and abandoned spaces: Invisibilities in comparison
No full textThe paper aims to propose a close reading of three non-serial comics, published in Italy after 2019, with a focus on the representation of spaces and the specific invisibilities they convey and communicate. The texts selected for the analysis are Malibuby Eliana Albertini, Padovalandby Miguel Vila, and 24/7by Nova, as all three texts tell a story that takes place in a marginal environment such as the Italian province.The paper will begin by defining the theoretical framework of reference, based on the geocritical perspective to literary texts (Tanca, Peterle) and the notion of hauntologyproposed by Jacques Derrida and reworked by Mark Fisher. The analysis will begin by considering some general aspects of the representation of the province in the three comics, identifying the main features of that environment considered as a space-time.The paper will then proceed to a comparison between commercialspace and abandoned space: the ways in which these are represented will be analyzed, emphasizing the presences-absences that haunt the spaces, according to the hauntologicalperspective.These two typologies were chosen because they are exemplary, both within history and in the imaginary: non-placethe former (Augé)andcharacterized by a system of rules, heterotopiathe latter(Foucault), a place with a history and devoid of a regulating authority.From the analysisit will be possible to define some of their peculiar characteristics: the commercial space will emerge as an environmentthat seeks to impose a precise temporality that is always the same; on the other hand, the abandoned place will be opposite but still in a dialectical relationship with the former, as it is unregulated and capable of hosting a temporality different from that of the rest of the provincial environment. These presences will be related to the question of visibility: the commercial space willemerge as overseer, endowed with a gaze, while the abandoned place is itself invisibilized and thus capable of hiding those who pass through it from the gaze of the province.This analysis finds its ideal field of study in the comics medium for several reasons: the invisible is an integral part of the grammar of comics (McCloud, Rey) and by its very nature it is forced to carefully select what it includes in its spaces (panels and pages) (Barbieri) leaving ample space for what it excludes, which remains invisible but nonetheless present; on the other hand, comics, as a visual medium, represent the story in a space, more or less mimetic with respect to what we call reality. This characteristic allows us to relate the representations, to map places both physical and belonging to the imaginary (Peterle) and to propose an analysis that is also a comparison of the different forms of invisibility related to the places of our imaginary, lived and visible, abandoned and invisible, and the possibilities that comics offer to tell them
Disegnare l’indicibile : La rappresentazione dell’attacco di panico in tre fumetti ita-liani contemporanei
Full text linkAll’interno del dizionario medico, il panico è definito come “senso di forte ansia”, e l’attacco di panico viene descritto come una manifestazione di ansia incontrollabile o un picco di paura. Quando si manifesta, può portare a comportamenti irrazionali, insieme a una serie di sintomi fisici. Per queste ragioni, il panico viene identificato in molti casi come un’emozione difficile da raccontare efficacemente e per descriverlo si ricorre a metafore e similitudini. Anche le modalità di rappresentazione attraverso i media possono essere disparate e fare ricorso a strategie medium specific. Tra i tentativi svolti in questo senso, figura il medium fumetto: in quanto sia narrativo che visuale, il linguaggio dei comics si presta per raccontare un episodio con un forte fattore emotivo che coinvolge profondamente il corpo di chi lo sperimenta. Rivolgendoci alla produzione italiana contemporanea, sono stati individuati tre testi a fumetti che affrontano la rappresentazione dell’attacco di panico, di cui verrà proposta un’analisi, andando a discutere di quali strategie grafiche e stilistiche il medium dispone per raccontarlo, con particolare attenzione alla rappresentazione dei corpi e alla loro gestualità, come anche alla loro manipolazione attraverso il disegno e all’effetto di embodiment che può essere suscitato
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Architectures from Future Past. Glimpses of Utopia in Dystopian Italian Comics
Full text linkWhile science fiction traditionally serves as an imaginative laboratory for alternative futures, contemporary dystopian narratives paradoxically reveal cultural stagnation and inability to envision possibilities beyond existing paradigms. In comics, space assumes an inherent structural significance as it spatializes time, with settings evolving to central narrative elements throughout the medium’s history. This study examines architectural representations in three graphic narratives — Fior’s Celestia, Bertolini’s Da sola, and Pinto’s Lo schermo bianco — where space assumes structural significance beyond setting. Through cognitive estrangement, these works deploy unrealized architectural projects as what Fisher terms architectures of anachronism that create temporal short-circuits. Our analysis employs interdisciplinary methodologies combining philosophy and ecocriticism to examine how these architectures function as heterotopic sites. These works articulate a paradoxical nostalgia for denied futures, creating fragile utopian spaces within dystopian frameworks where characters access modes of posthuman subjectivity that resist the endoapocalyptic condition of our reality
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