The faces of death and the gaunt side of life according to Benett

Abstract

This research sought to highlight and study the representations of death in the productions of Brazilian cartoonist Alberto Benett. The criteria selection for the corpus was as followed: productions published on the Facebook page “Benett Apavora”; comic strips and political cartoons; c) productions that highlighted the theme of death through recognizable visual symbols (skull, reaper, skeleton). The survey resulted in 52 texts about death – 42 political cartoons, 10 comic strips. In this work, two samples were chosen for analysis, two comic strips and three political cartoons. The theoretical support consisted of studies on death symbols (Chevalier, Gheerbrant, 2015; Calabritto, Daly, 2014; Ariès, 2012; Guthke, 1999; Lousa, 2016), language and genres of comics (Cagnin, 2014; Eisner, 2010; Borges, 2022; Carmelino, Possenti, 2023; Miani, 2023; Romualdo, 2000; Ramos, 2012, 2011, 2017). The analysis proved a preference for the skull and the reaper, for their suggestive evocation of death, but the effect generated can change from text to text.