scholarly journals “Sometimes Your Memories Are Not Your Own”: The Graphic Turn and the Future of Holocaust Representation

Humanities ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 136
Author(s):  
Victoria Aarons
Keyword(s):  
Graphic Novels ◽  
Holocaust Survivors ◽  
Graphic Novel ◽  
Third Generation ◽  
Text And Image ◽  
Hybrid Form ◽  
Literary Representation ◽  
Eva Hoffman ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future

“The legacy of the Shoah” writes Eva Hoffman, a child of Holocaust survivors, “is being passed on to … the post-generation … The inheritance … is being placed in our hands, perhaps in our trust.” We are entering an era that will witness the end of direct survivor testimony. As we move farther and farther from the events of the Shoah, subsequent generations, who see their own lives shaped by the defining rupture of the past, continue to respond to the call of memory. The current era has seen a burgeoning of Holocaust literary representation in the evolving genre of graphic novels, narratives that reanimate and materialize the past through the juxtapositions and intersections of text and image. Calling upon the Deuteronomic imperative to “teach your children,” second and third-generation Holocaust writers, through the hybrid form of the graphic novel, attempt to give shape to the traumatic imprint of the Shoah and its haunting aftermath for generations extending beyond that history.

scholarly journals Social Criticism through Humour in the Digital Age

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-128
Author(s):  
Javier Muñoz-Basols ◽  
Marina Massaguer Comes
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Graphic Novels ◽  
Social Criticism ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Graphic Novel ◽  
Text And Image ◽  
Narrative Frame

Numerous authors of comics and graphic novels have used the economic crisis in the Iberian Peninsula as a narrative frame for social criticism. Prominent amongst them is the Catalan cartoonist Aleix Saló, who burst onto the comics scene with his animated YouTube video Españistán, a book trailer for his graphic novel Españistán: Este país se va a la mierda [Españistán: This country is going to hell] (2011). This article shows how Saló offers a humorous and didactic portrait of the devastating effects of the economic crisis: he does this through multimodality (using specific shapes, colours, fonts and components of orality) and through creating ‘multimodal extensions’, intertextual relations between published books and book trailers. This analysis presents a case study of the multimodal techniques that authors use to shape and develop their work in the context of the powerful relationship between text and image in the digital age.

Dissecting Graphic Fiction: A Study of the Hybrid Form of the 21st Century

Think India ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-256
Author(s):  
Dr M. S. Xavier Pradheep Singh
Keyword(s):  
Graphic Novels ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Graphic Novel ◽  
Hybrid Form ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Cave Paintings ◽  
History Of ◽  
Unique Approach ◽  
Meaningful Interaction

“Comic art does possess the potential for the most serious and sophisticated literary and artistic expression, and we can only hope that future artists will bring the art form to full fruition” (176), prophesied Lawrence Abbott in 1986. It became true when Graphic Fiction emerged as a hybrid genre and entered into the academia. It is a meaningful interaction of words, image panels, and typography. They have a long history dating back to cave paintings and Egyptian hieroglyphics. Though there are “more genetic similarities between the comic book and the graphic novel” (Sardesai 28), Graphic Novel has a unique approach to plot, narration, and theme. This new genre combines visual and verbal rhetoric and thus offers a hybrid form of reading. The use of blank spaces between image panels provides “imaginative interactivity” (Tabachnick 25), as the reader tends to fill in these blanks, imagining a good deal of action. Text boxes, speech bubbles, and thought bubbles streamline the narration and create a sense of interactivity in a reader. This paper records the history of Graphic Novel and makes an anatomy of it. It also enlists recent Graphic novels and major techniques employed in them.

scholarly journals Social Criticism through Humour in the Digital Age

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Muñoz-Basols ◽  
Marina Massaguer Comes
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Graphic Novels ◽  
Social Criticism ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Graphic Novel ◽  
Text And Image ◽  
Narrative Frame

Numerous authors of comics and graphic novels have used the economic crisis in the Iberian Peninsula as a narrative frame for social criticism. Prominent amongst them is the Catalan cartoonist Aleix Saló, who burst onto the comics scene with his animated YouTube video Españistán, a book trailer for his graphic novel Españistán: Este país se va a la mierda [Españistán: This country is going to hell] (2011). This article shows how Saló offers a humorous and didactic portrait of the devastating effects of the economic crisis: he does this through multimodality (using specific shapes, colours, fonts and components of orality) and through creating ‘multimodal extensions’, intertextual relations between published books and book trailers. This analysis presents a case study of the multimodal techniques that authors use to shape and develop their work in the context of the powerful relationship between text and image in the digital age.

scholarly journals Social Criticism through Humour in the Digital Age

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-128
Author(s):  
Javier Muñoz-Basols ◽  
Marina Massaguer Comes
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Graphic Novels ◽  
Social Criticism ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Graphic Novel ◽  
Text And Image ◽  
Narrative Frame

Numerous authors of comics and graphic novels have used the economic crisis in the Iberian Peninsula as a narrative frame for social criticism. Prominent amongst them is the Catalan cartoonist Aleix Saló, who burst onto the comics scene with his animated YouTube video Españistán, a book trailer for his graphic novel Españistán: Este país se va a la mierda [Españistán: This country is going to hell] (2011). This article shows how Saló offers a humorous and didactic portrait of the devastating effects of the economic crisis: he does this through multimodality (using specific shapes, colours, fonts and components of orality) and through creating ‘multimodal extensions’, intertextual relations between published books and book trailers. This analysis presents a case study of the multimodal techniques that authors use to shape and develop their work in the context of the powerful relationship between text and image in the digital age.

Computing Literary Surplus Value: Alan Moore and the Density of the Comic Book as Graphic Novel

2021 ◽  
Vol 139 (1) ◽  
pp. 195-223
Author(s):  
Alexander Dunst ◽  
Rita Hartel
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
Graphic Novels ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
Graphic Novel ◽  
Text And Image ◽  
Specific Element ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
Graphic Narratives ◽  
Textual Content ◽  
Alan Moore

Abstract The term graphic novel has increasingly functioned as a catalyst for understanding comic books as an emergent literary genre. This article focuses on one specific element within this historical process: the claim, made by artists such as Alan Moore, that graphic novels are characterized by greater formal complexity, or density, than serial comics. These claims are evaluated by combining computational text and image recognition of a corpus of 131 graphic narratives with sociological metadata on production and circulation. The results show that Moore’s own book-length comics, in particular Watchmen and V for Vendetta, rank among the densest graphic narratives in the sample in both their visual and textual content. Graphic memoirs, in contrast, only show an increase in textual complexity. With Pierre Bourdieu, the article understands complexity as a social and aesthetic strategy that aims at increasing the cultural capital of comics creators. At the same time, the article contextualizes computational results against the background of a changing marketplace for comics, in particular the decline of serial comics, the shift towards digital printing, and increased access to book distribution. This analysis shows that graphic narratives pursue both literary and popular aesthetic strategies, challenging Bourdieu’s account of a clear opposition between profit and prestige in cultural production.

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