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Resource type: Web Article Language: en: English Peer reviewed BibTeX citation key: Frasisti2020 Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details |
Categories: General Keywords: "Kobane Calling", "Salvezza", Bonaccorso. Lelio, Comics Journalism, Documentary comics, Italy, Rech. Michele, Rizzo. Marco, Zerocalcare Creators: Frasisti Collection: Simultanea |
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Attachments | URLs http://italianpopc ... ling-and-salvezza/ |
Abstract |
Thanks to a close comparative analysis of two contemporary Italian comics, Kobane Calling by Zerocalcare (2016) and Salvezza by Lelio Bonaccorso and Marco Rizzo (2018), this article explores the connections between aesthetic strategies and ethic stances. Both these works combine creativity and fictionality with current events’ report and direct experiences, and share a strong political commitment. Despite their common social and political element and actuality though, their aesthetic strategies are quite different. Kobane Calling recounts what the cartoonist and his friends discovered during their journey to Syrian Kurdistan and to the Turkey-Syria border; Salvezza reports the three weeks the authors spent on the rescue-vessel Aquarius, piloted by several NGOs until December 2018, in order to rescue migrants adrift in the Mediterranean Sea. While the former work employs a cartoonish approach and stylized lines, the latter opts for a realistic tenor. The essay analyzes how visual and ethic aspects interact in these two works, considering how they relate to comics as a medium, and how comics differ from traditional journalism and other media. I suggest that what these works have in common is the intention and the capacity of intervening in the dominant narrative around the humanitarian crises. The essay describes the stance of these comics as an ethic of reframing, since they promote a critical and inquiring gaze, able to activate a displacement of thoughts in the reader.
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