A term which designates the graphic and storytelling style developed by comics artists who worked for various Valencian publishers, such as Editorial Valenciana or Maga, from the 1940s onwards. In contrast to Bruguera School (check this key term as well), sociopolitical burden used to be less frequently adressed as preferences were higher for a naive comedy kind of tale, supported also by a powerful sense of wonder . On the other hand, backgrounds were more detailed, and graphics were usually less abstract as smooth and rounded shapes were favoured.
Published in Chapter:
About Some Spanish Graphic Novels in Times of COVID-19 Pandemic: Cathartic Panels for the End of the World
Eduard Baile-López (Universitat d'Alacant, Spain)
Copyright: © 2023
|Pages: 18
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-4735-2.ch006
Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to attend to comics produced during COVID-19 pandemic, especially those referring to the hardest moments of confinement and which may allow to observe the use of comics as a tool to analyze reality, both from a psychological point of view and from a sociopolitical one. Being such a recent phenomenon, corpus selection is introduced as temporary since new items continue to emerge, and furthermore, it is still early to assess its significance. As a pragmatic criterion, two vectors will be used: on the one hand, focus will be stressed on works belonging to the Spanish comics market in order to portray a particular cultural environment; on the other hand, four items will be selected to establish a coherent story which may adapt the stages of the hero's journey into a new paradigm (1. Fear, 2. Anger, 3. Humor, and 4. Healing).