Between Comics and Memories, other Stories of Brazil

Abstract

With the changes in Brazilian politics and the resurgence of an extremely conservative and authoritarian thinking, inequality, violence, intolerance and prejudices of class, gender, race and ethnicity have increased. In contrast, concern for those excluded from history and for the recording of their memories eventually contaminated the pages of comics. Therefore, our goal is to reflect on the relationship between history and memory, set in contemporary Brazilian comics, considering the way comic book artists turn to the past, investigate the visual/material culture to give visibility to experiences lived by ordinary people, characters who were erased or marginalized, offering other narratives about the events. In this text, we will analyze two works published in 2017: Marcelo D’Salete’s Angola Janga, published by Veneta and Luli Penna’s Sem Dó published by Todavia. Marcelo D’Salete focuses on the daily life of slaves – men and women who fled to Angola Janga (“little Angola” in Bantu Kimbundu language), known as Quilombo of Palmares. The angles and frames highlight the tensions, fears, strength and hope of men and women fighting for freedom. Luli Penna tells a fictional love story set in São Paulo in the 1920s. References from movie posters, fashion magazines, newspaper ads and very few dialogues aligned the universe of work and household chores as a collection of memories. The characters face social conventions, normative behaviors, beauty standards and markers of class distinction. These graphic novels break away from a dichotomous and deterministic view, reinterpreting contexts, showing the contradictions of each time period, the tactics and strategies of negotiation and resistance. In the current arena of representational disputes, these comics challenge history, questioning power relations, letting us listen to multiple voices, overlapping temporalities, allowing readers to participate in this resignification process.