78 research outputs found
Fantastic alterities and The Sandman
No full textThis article explores the ways in which the comics medium enhances our understanding of literary models of the Fantastic. It examines the presence and depiction of multiple worlds in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, with specific reference to the role of the comics medium and its denial of mimesis when creating such alterities.
It initially uses literature review to establish a contemporary working model of the Fantastic, taking as its basis the framework devised by Tzvetan Todorov, and incorporating the later work of Rosemary Jackson, A B Chanady, and Christine Brooke-Rose. It establishes the position of the Fantastic as a literary mode lying between the marvellous (supernatural accepted) and the uncanny (supernatural explained), and clarifies the distinction between the mode of the Fantastic (which encompasses various genres) and the genre itself.
The article then considers the ways in which both the form and content of the comics medium sustain the mode of the fantastic. It broadly discusses the ways in which the following factors contribute to this process:
• subject matter: fantastic events, super powers, alternate worlds
• non-realistic aesthetic: pop art, stylised visuals, fiction of fonts (invoking the tension between hand-drawn and computerised artwork or lettering)
• authorial reticence: the possibilities for surpassing or discarding narrative voice
• the role of the reader: as both interpreter and co-creator.
It then focuses more closely upon the genre of the Fantastic, establishing the ways in which this genre is opposed to both magical realism (outright fantasy) and realism (where such events are explained). It summarises the role of various qualities of the Fantastic in this regard, which include an antinomy between the natural and supernatural, author reticence, over- or under-determined language, and a defiance of absolute meaning in favour of interpretation or hesitation .
The article then proceeds to two case studies, taken from Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman: A Game of You and The Kindly Ones. The first analyses the construction of two contrasting alterities (‘The Land’ and ‘New York’) and examines the ways in which, despite initial appearances, these two worlds are both equally removed from the referent of ‘reality’. It proceeds to discuss the use made of over- and under-determined signifiers, the transformation motif, intertextuality, and the redefinition of static notions (home, gender) as fluid and undefined. It deconstructs The Kindly Ones in similar terms, considering the ways in which its triple alterities are all simultaneously validated by the text and the role of motifs such as multiple names and duplicated characters.
It concludes that, like the Fantastic, the comics medium exposes the notion of ‘reality’ as a constructed referent, which the text’s alterities comment on. The nature of the medium allows for the construction and sustenance of multiple worlds without recourse to a stable notion of reality. As the reader’s hesitation destabilises interpretation of reality versus fantasy, absolute meaning is denied. It therefore seems that comics offer what might be best described as a postmodern vision of the Fantastic
Using Community-Based Participatory Evaluation (CBPE) Methods as a Tool to Sustain a Community Health Coalition
No full text· Participatory evaluation has set the standard for cooperation between program evaluators and stakeholders. Coalition evaluation, however, calls for more extensive collaboration with the community at large.
· Integrating principles of community based participatory research and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Strategic Prevention Framework, which guides much coalition work, into coalition evaluation has proved useful to foster community affiliations and support reciprocal relationship building. The resulting evaluation method, named community based participatory evaluation (CBPE), takes time, money, and skilled personnel but can lead to more accurate results and coalition sustainability.
· The CBPE method has proved essential in sustaining two substance abuse coalitions in and around Boston: Revere Cares (RC) and The Charlestown Substance Abuse Coalition (CSAC).
· CBPE can help sustain coalitions by providing a degree of formality, assuring appropriate leadership and membership satisfaction, supporting conflict resolution, and strengthening relationships with external organizations. Broad-based participation allows coalition members greater access to create organizational and community change. Furthermore, it increases the capacity to collaborate because if one person quits the coalition, the affiliation with the organization may still be robust.
· Challenges to implementing CBPE include the cost, the amount of time required, and the need for a skilled evaluator who is organized, engaged, and knowledgeable about all aspects of coalition work
Transforming Shakespeare: Neil Gaiman and The Sandman
No full textThis paper considers the ways in which Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman appropriates and transforms the works of William Shakespeare. Shakespeare features in three comics from the award-winning Sandman series: ‘Men of Good Fortune’ (The Sandman #13), ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ (The Sandman #19), and ‘The Tempest’ (The Sandman #75). The series rewrites the Shakespearean legend into a Faustian bargain and provides readings of these two plays that not only sustain their traditional interpretations and performance legacies, but also subsumes them within a wider treatise on the nature of literary creation. In this sense The Sandman transforms Shakespeare’s works into metafictional diatribes that comment both on his life and on the nature of literary creation and storytelling.
The Sandman #19 (Neil Gaiman/Charles Vess) tells of Dream’s first performance by Lord Strange’s Men to a faerie audience that includes many of the play’s characters, allowing Gaiman to situate ‘real’ versions of the play’s characters and events alongside their actor counterparts. In this way Sandman #19 both performs and comments upon Dream. Drawing on previously published criticism, this article briefly discusses the ways in which the comic sustains many semantic and structural themes of the Shakespearean text. These include the play’s reality/illusion dichotomy, the play-within-play motif, the entertainment of the faerie cast by the mechanicals, and the doubling of many characters and events. However, Gaiman’s treatment of many of these elements may also be said to simultaneously subvert the original text, as his faerie characters are often opposed to their Shakespearean counterparts.
The article then moves to consider The Sandman #75 (Neil Gaiman/Charles Vess). This comic surrounds the text of The Tempest with a metafiction that replicates the play’s motifs, themes and specific scenes. In so doing it comments on the small amount we know about Shakespeare’s life, and draws parallels between the author, its titular character, Morpheus, and even Gaiman as the comic’s creator.
The main body of this article proceeds to discuss the effects of this transformation of Shakespeare’s life and work. As metafiction that deals not only with the creative process and the telling of stories, but also with the nature of fact and fiction/reality and illusion, The Sandman provides an informative example of the uses and effects of metafiction that is of interest not only to students of literature, but also accessible to general readers. This article closely examines The Sandman #13 (Neil Gaiman/Michael Zulli and others), which details the pact made between Morpheus and Shakespeare. It concludes that while this scenario initially appears to attack Shakespeare and reference the history of doubt surrounding his works, the mystical nature of this pact means it can also be read as sustaining ‘bardolatry’.
The article concludes that subversive and supportive elements coexist in both the Shakespearean content of The Sandman and its medium (which challenges elitist notions of Shakespearean drama while retaining an emphasis on spectacle and performance). In many respects comics align with dramatic texts: both are subject to constant reinterpretation and re-creation with each new reading/production and, while having a textual basis, therefore exist in no original form. As such, Gaiman and Vess offer a reinterpretation of the plays and playwright that renews and relocates Shakespeare by aligning the man’s life with his fictions, and in this regard sheds light on academic discourse that habitually sets literature against popular culture
Canon or Common? Sandman, aesthetics and literariness (Keynote address)
No full textSandman’s mythic qualities and literary aspirations are well documented, so this paper will go beyond this and explore its storyline against the critical, promotional and audience discourses that surround the comic. I want to explore how the competing discourses from critics, scholars and fans reflect the changing cultural value and material qualities of Sandman. Alongside this, I want to consider the ways in which Gaiman uses intertextuality as both a narrative strategy and key theme of his story. This complicates the discourses around Sandman by problematizing simple definitions of control and authorship. My conclusion will draw these points together to argue that, despite its literary branding and auteur label, Sandman’s aesthetic and content in fact subverts the author function and empowers its active audience. Reading Sandman, like dreaming, produces mutable, shifting individual understandings. There are no grand truths, only ideas, which are multiple, shifting and contingent
Sandman Stories
No full textA large-format, clothlike book that includes two fables: Elephant and the Whale (in which the rabbit proves to each that he is stronger) and Rabbit and the Porcupine. The presentation makes the stories cute both visually and verbally.John S. Morga
Methods of displaying death in the Sandman comic books
No full textThis thesis deals with the depiction of death in the Sandman comic books written by Neil Gaiman. It aims to explore the forms of death that the author presents in his comics through pictorial and textual codes. The work begins with a reflection on the phenomenon of death and how this phenomenon and its depiction stand in time and in current perception. The theory of visual semiotics is used for research, especially the findings of Ch. S. Peirce and the theory of multimodality, which is described in the theoretical part. The focus is then shifted to the comics itself and towards the characteristics of individual elements of visual language applicable for describing comic images, such as color, perspective, panel size, framing, etc. The analysis of images is preceded by research depicting death from the perspective of western culture in its historical context. In the description of the images, the essential features of the individual modes are determined and their meanings are interpreted. The conclusion is summarizing author's findings and try to confirm the initial thought presented at the beginning of the work: that Gaiman perceived the character of Death very differently than is usual in contemporary commercial images
Os perpétuos e os incompletos: permanência e movimento nos gibis de super-heróis e na série Sandman
No full textA tese analisa as narrativas ficcionais da série de revistas em quadrinhos
Sandman, do autor britânico Neil Gaiman, publicadas originalmente nos EUA pela editora
estadunidense DC Comics e no Brasil, a princípio, pela editora Globo, entre 1989 e 1996, a
partir da tradução e apropriação de elementos provenientes de diferentes contextos culturais
para as construções da narrativa, com o objetivo de demonstrar que Sandman apresenta maior
tendência à mobilidade e à articulação do que os gibis de super-heróis, que geralmente
enfatizam as estruturas de permanência e isolamento. Em nosso trajeto, investigamos como o
princípio de identidade, desenvolvido por determinados núcleos do pensamento ocidental, é
aproveitado, assim como características distintas, de outros contextos culturais, colocando em
jogo conceitos como centralidade/descentralidade, realidade/ficção, estabilidade/instabilidade,
etc. Para fundamentar nosso percurso, recorremos às teorias sobre processos e sistemas
semióticos da cultura, explorando e articulando estudos de Iuri Lotman, Severo Sarduy,
Amálio Pinheiro, Jésus Martín-Barbero e Edgar Morin, enquanto as teorias de Scott McCloud
e Will Eisner embasaram o estudo da linguagem recente e ainda em formação da mídia
quadrinhos em conjunto com as teorias do romance e da carnavalização de gêneros de
Bakhtin, dando suporte aos aspectos da linguagem narrativa da série analisada. Sandman,
composta por 75 edições e algumas publicações especiais, combina aspectos dos quadrinhos
de super-heróis estadunidenses, mitologia, cultura pop, literatura, religiosidade, paganismo,
magia, fantasia, horror gótico, fatos históricos, referências filosóficas, elementos da epopeia
clássica e do folclore para contar a história de Sonho, também chamado Oneiros, Morpheus,
Tecedor de Formas, etc., soberano do Sonhar, e suas complexas relações com a humanidade e
outros seres, entre eles seus irmãos Destino, Morte, Destruição, Desejo, Desespero e Delírio;
os deuses modernos e os que já foram esquecidos; suas amantes mortais e imortais; Lúcifer e
seus demônios e mesmo os anjos. Na periferia de tal trama em mosaico, pervertendo os
elementos épicos clássicos, há resquícios do drama de um herói ausente , inacabado e
absurdo, incapaz de permanecer igual a si mesmo e que insiste em habitar vários aspectos
fronteiriços: ilhas entre a realidade e o Sonhar, regiões brandas, onde o tempo se torna
maleável (locais de tradução entre o familiar e o estrangeiro), e seu próprio reino, fronteira
metafórica entre a vida e a morte. Tais articulações possibilitam que sejam discutidos o
ambiente de operação sígnica proposto por Lotman, a semiosfera, e suas fronteiras
móveis/tradutórias, noção-chave para a compreensão das tendências de permanência e de
mudança dos textos da cultura. Finalmente, Sonho, protagonista ocasional que é a
personificação dos sonhos, questiona, ao longo das histórias, as noções objetivas de
identidade, de verdade e de imutabilidade. Pode ser questionado, analogamente, o princípio de
identidade de culturas autocentradas e autorreferentes baseadas em lógicas binárias e em
sistemas preponderantemente fechados que costumam gerar exclusão, por meio da ideia de
verdade e de tolerância, ao contrário dos ambientes do reino do Sonhar de Sandman, afeitos à
ideia de hospitalidade discutida por DerridaThis thesis analyzes the fictional narratives of the comics books series
Sandman, written by the British author Neil Gaiman, originally published by DC Comics and,
in Brazil, by Globo, from 1989 to 1996, noting the translation and appropriation of elements
from different cultural contexts for the construction of the narrative, in order to demonstrate
that Sandman has a higher tendency to mobility and articulation than the superhero s comic
books, which generally emphasize the structures of permanence and isolation. We investigate
how the principle of identity, developed by certain core of Western thought is used, as well as
different characteristics from other cultural backgrounds, bringing into play concepts such as
centrality and periphery, reality/fiction, stability/instability, etc. In support of our journey, we
turn to theories about the processes and semiotic systems of culture, exploring and articulating
studies of Yuri Lotman, Severo Sarduy, Amálio Pinheiro, Jesus Martín-Barbero and Edgar
Morin, while the theories of Scott McCloud and Will Eisner served as basis for studying the
recent and still in process language of the "comics" as art and media; we counted, as well,
with the major contributions of Bakhtin s theories of novel and literary genres
carnavalization, to support aspects of narrative language on the studied comics. The Sandman
series, with 75 editions and some special publications, combines aspects of the American
superhero comics, mythology, pop culture, literature, religion, paganism, magic, fantasy,
gothic horror, historical facts, philosophical references, elements of the classic epic and
folklore to tell the story of Dream, also called Oneiros, Morpheus, etc., ruler of the Dreaming,
and their complex relations with humanity and other beings, including his siblings Destiny,
Death, Destruction, Desire, Despair and Delirium; modern gods and those who have been
forgotten; their mortal and immortal lovers; Lucifer and his demons; and even the angels. In
the periphery of such a mosaic plot, perverting the classic epic elements, remnants of the
drama of a missing hero, unfinished and absurd, unable to remain equal to himself, and who
insists in to inhabit different borders: islands between reality and the Dreaming; soft regions
where time becomes malleable (local of translations between the familiar and the foreign),
and his own kingdom, which is a metaphorical border between life and death. Such
arrangements allow the discussion of the signic operating environment proposed by Lotman,
the semiosphere, and its mobile/translation borders, a key concept to understanding the trends
of permanence and change of the cultural texts Finally, Dream, occasional actor, the
personification of the dream itself, questions, over the stories, the objective notions of
identity, truth and immutability, as well as we may question, similarly, the principle of
identity in self-centered and self-referencing cultures based on binary logic and mainly closed
systems that tend to generate several ways of exclusion, through the idea of truth and
tolerance, unlike the Sandman s realm environments, linked to Derrida's discussion of the
idea of hospitalityConselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológic
From comic to graphic and from book to novel: Sandman’s invisible authors and the quest for literariness.
No full textThe comic book is dead – long live the graphic novel! These words might make a fitting epitaph for the British-American comics industry’s development during the twentieth century. During this time the discourse around comics publishing and the books themselves have undergone a series of aesthetic, commercial, conceptual and cultural changes. This talk will explore the move towards bookishness and literariness in contemporary British-American comics, using DC Vertigo’s Sandman series (Gaiman et al, 1989-present) as a case study. Sandman is best remembered for its mythological content and literary allusions, and these elements have allowed it to claim its place as a canonised graphic novel by both academics and fans. This paper compares the discourses that surround the comic and reflects on both text and paratext to draw out some of the contradictions that emerge when we approach graphic novels as solely literary artefacts. It begins by revisiting the launch and original run of Sandman (1989-1996) as the flagship title for DC’s Vertigo imprint back in the 1990s. Vertigo contributed to the cultural revaluation of comics as graphic novels by placing an emphasis on the author function and offering a critical and aesthetic distance from DC’s other publications. It counters the literary paratexts around Sandman by exploring its visual elements: considering the multiplicity of these (collage, multiple artists) and arguing that this matched the diversity of the comic’s content and raised its critical profile. It extends this examination to Sandman: Overture (2013-15). It argues that Sandman enacts the particular status struggles of the collaborative comics medium against the ‘graphic novel’ brand. It concludes by mapping its findings back onto the processes and changes at work in comics today, and reflecting on what this means for definitions of cultural worth, the performativity of the author function, and our understanding of artistic creation and ownership
Improving dialogue with communities
No full textThis manual gives clear-cut guidelines for planning and undertaking effective environmental health risk communication. Intended for use by state agencies, this manual summarizes practical lessons learned from successful as well as unsuccessful efforts to generate two-way communication with affected publics
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