Comic Nature Research Articles

To Problem of Defining the Influence of Comics on Media Culture and Media Studies

The relevance of the article derives from increasing popularity of comics, which forms a certain need for qualitative research of this phenomenon. The purpose of the article is to identify the dominant research points of view on the concept of “comics” in media studies, as well as to spot out problematic aspects in the issue of evaluating the influence of comics on modern media culture and society. The research methodology can be considered as traditional for works which are devoted to the study of comics and is based on a structural-semiotic approach. The need to use this methodology is determined by the narrative specifi cs of comics, based on its semiotics, which combines verbal and non-verbal narrative elements within a single system. The study focuses on revealing the specifi c aspects of the two dominant positions regarding the defi nition of comics and spotting out problematic aspects which are common for the most studies based on these points of view. The fi rst position defi nes comics as a genre, while the second identifi es it as a narrative format. The results of the study showed that due to the key differences in the defi nition of nature of comics, existing points of view assess the impact of the comics on culture and society differently. The position which defi nes comics as a genre mainly concentrates on the social aspects of comics as a cultural phenomenon, without taking into account aspects related to the narrative specifi cs and the form of this phenomenon. Meanwhile the point of view which considers comics as a narrative format, on the contrary, shifts the focus of attention towards the linguistic aspects of comic books without taking into consideration its social and cultural characteristics. Despite the fact that each of the defi ned positions is applicable to a specifi c fi eld of knowledge, these gaps in modern studies do not allow to formulate comprehensive defi nition for comics and properly assess its impact on society and culture. Keywords: comics, popular culture, transmedia storytelling, narrative form, creolized text

Drawing invisible illness: an interview with Claire Lordon

ABSTRACT The depiction of illness narratives within the comics medium has garnered renewed scholarly attention since the advent of graphic medicine in 2007. This interdisciplinary field aims to reconceptualise the emotional landscapes associated with illness, disability, and healthcare. Leveraging the unique affordances of comics, memoirists employ vivid verbo-visual elements that facilitate a more immersive and emotionally resonant depiction of their lived experiences with illness, treatments, and healthcare. Unlike prose narratives, which can be hindered by the limitations of language, comics allow readers to see and feel the struggles, fears, and triumphs of individuals living with illness. The visual nature of comics enables the use of metaphors and visual allegories to represent abstract or internal aspects of illness, such as pain, fatigue, or mental health struggles. The present interview discusses Claire Lordon’s debut graphic novel, One in a Million, a graphic memoir about Cushing’s disease, a rare condition. In this email interview, Lordon explores her artistic vision, community engagement, the comics industry, graphic medicine, future prospects in healthcare and self-care, and her ongoing projects.

Visual Narratives in Health Communication: Evaluating Comics as Tools for Health Literacy by the Indonesian Ministry of Health

This study investigates the efficacy of comics as a strategic communication tool for health promotion, utilizing a qualitative analysis of literature and examples from the “Sehat Negeriku” website managed by the Indonesian Ministry of Health. The multifaceted nature of comics, incorporating visual storytelling and character-driven narratives, offers a unique method for conveying complex health messages in an accessible and engaging manner. This research identifies several key advantages of comics in health communication, including increased appeal and interest among diverse demographics, enhanced memory retention through visual cues, emotional engagement that deepens message impact, stimulated creativity and imagination, and the ability to reach a broad audience. Data collection involved a thorough review of existing literature and content analysis of health communication comics, focusing on their structure, content, and reception. The findings highlight how comics, by blending entertainment with educational content, can effectively reduce resistance to health messages, facilitate behavioral change, and contribute to public health knowledge. Furthermore, the study underscores the importance of considering cultural relevance and audience-specific characteristics in comic design to maximize their educational impact. This paper contributes to the understanding of visual communication in public health and supports the integration of comics into broader health promotion strategies.

EmoComicNet: A multi-task model for comic emotion recognition

The emotion and sentiment associated with comic scenes can provide potential information for inferring the context of comic stories, which is an essential pre-requisite for developing comics’ automatic content understanding tools. Here, we address this open area of comic research by exploiting the multi-modal nature of comics. The general assumptions for multi-modal sentiment analysis methods are that both image and text modalities are always present at the test phase. However, this assumption is not always satisfied for comics since comic characters’ facial expressions, gestures, etc., are not always clearly visible. Also, the dialogues between comic characters are often challenging to comprehend the underlying context. To deal with these constraints of comic emotion analysis, we propose a multi-task-based framework, namely EmoComicNet, to fuse multi-modal information (i.e., both image and text) if it is available. However, the proposed EmoComicNet is designed to perform even when any modality is weak or completely missing. The proposed method potentially improves the overall performance. Besides, EmoComicNet can also deal with the problem of weak or absent modality during the training phase.

On the level: a dramaturgical approach to the comics character

ABSTRACT For decades, artists and theorists have written of the ‘performative’ nature of comics with the panel as a ‘stage,’ and the design process itself as ‘acting.’ The approaches vary from passing analogies to book-length efforts. While ‘acting’ gets a great deal of attention, its substrate, the dramatic character, has gone chronically undertheorized. This article develops a dramaturgical methodology of characterisation based on the work of the late Earle Gister to analyse the function of character in graphic novels. The exercise reveals common and distinct conceptual modes or levels of function that may be understood in dramaturgical terms. The orchestration of these levels undergirds narrative complexity and may even expose the unresolved anxieties of the artist.

МЕДІАЛЬНІСТЬ УКРАЇНСЬКОГО ДОКУМЕНТАЛЬНОГО КОМІКСУ ПІД ЧАС ВІЙНИ

The communication possibilities of modern graphic narratives are extremely diverse: from the presentation of individual life stories to new cross-genre and even interdisciplinary phenomena (graphic medicine, comic journalism, data comics), which demonstrate the dialogic nature of comics, its universal openness, participatory and empathic nature. The authors pay special attention to the influence of military realities on the formation of national non-fiction discourse, and mediality is considered as a mediating strategy that depends on such influence. The article proposes a typology of forms of realization of mediality of Ukrainian documentary comics: creation of a heroic narrative (metamedial level), formation of a segment of documentary comics based on memories and spread of co-creation practices by Ukrainian and international comics makers. The functional features of the documentary comic (contextuality, multimodality, empathy, careful work with traumatic experience, destigmatization) contribute to its dissemination, and the use of new media changes one of the main features of the genre - the time distance between the event and the creation of the graphic text. Historical-heroic, biographical, journalistic comics are actively involved in the process of mediatization of memory, becoming means of archiving life stories. In line with the challenges of the "era of digital memories", Ukrainian documentary comics actively uses digital opportunities to present and disseminate new projects (e-zine Incer, series "Cyborgs", collection "PEREMOGA. Victory for Ukraine"). Important and promising for further implementation is the unique ability of comics to graphically reproduce tragic events, "to witness trauma" (G. Chut), and most importantly - to try to overcome it. This is the relevance of documentary comics for the modern Ukrainian present.

Sceny strachu, czyli lazzi di paura w komedii dell’arte

Lazzo is a short scene of a comic nature that can be compared to a modern-day gag. Italian actors had various categories of such scenes in their repertoires (mimic-gestual, acrobatic, verbal or mixed). Such a ready-made stage sequence was suitable for editing into various plots. The purpose of this paper is to analyze scenes of fear in selected scenarios dell’arte. To illustrate the variety of fear scenes improvised by Italian actors, four scenarios were chosen to adapt a single literary text, Calderón de la Barca’s La dama duende, a very popular work in the 17th and 18th centuries (La Dame Diablesse, manuscript from the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris; La dama Demonio, manuscript from the collection of the Vatican Library; La dama creduta spirito folletto from the Neapolitan collection; La dama demonio e la serva diavolo from the collection of arguments of the court of August III).

Closure, trauma and the graphical imagination

ABSTRACT Notions of law and order, protecting the vulnerable and seeking vengeance arguably dominate popular comic book narratives, reflecting societal concerns about the suffering engendered by crime, deviance and acts of terrorism. Contemporary society faces threats relating to rising crime, societal alienation and the globalized nature of terrorism that have been extensively considered, examined and dissected by the comics medium. But beyond the superhero and gritty crime narratives of mainstream comics publishers, the public information comic provides a means to address these more problematic issues in a discussion-based format. Public information comics combine the entertainment-based accessible format of the comic with an effective information delivery mechanism. This article examines Laura Findlay and Zu Dominiak’s Closure which examines the nature of trauma in comics. In their discussion of this topic, Findlay and Dominiak identify the immersive nature of comics and their ability to bend time and space so that the medium can serve as a means of dealing with events that occur unexpectedly and may require time to absorb and understand.

On time and space: An excerpt from ‘Drawing unbelonging’

This short comic is an excerpt from my doctoral dissertation ‘Drawing unbelonging’, where I draw comics with an experimental approach to explore the potential of the medium and its uses in scholarly communication and graphic medicine. Throughout the dissertation I make use of several innovations enabled by the medium, such as the De Luca effect (where the artist draws multiple images of a single character in different stages of action against the backdrop of one static scene), to demonstrate how the medium allows for multiple temporalities to co-exist simultaneously on the page. My goal is to use comics not as an illustrative tool to supplement the text, but as a method to think, strategize, find patterns, give form to an inchoate idea through investigative drawing and develop a deeper understanding of how the visual grammar of comics can be utilized to map the connection between the public health challenges of our time, and socioeconomic, racial and environmental inequality. In this excerpt, I use the ‘sequential and simultaneous’ nature of comics to show the various and intersecting uses of the medium through visual metaphors.

Yuri Shevchenko's ballet "For two hares": musical and literary sections

The purpose of the article is to analyze the ballet "For Two Hares" based on a comparison of literature, film, and original music. Methodology. The article is based on a comparative analysis, analysis of the literary source, the musical component of ballet and film. Based on the comparison, the analysis of the main characters and related comic elements of the work of M. Starytsky and the ballet Shevchenko - Litvinov, based on this plot. These are Svirid Petrovich Holokhvasty, Pronya, Galya, Sekleta Pylypivna Limarykha and the Sirkiv couple. The scientific novelty lies in determining the peculiarities of Yuri Shevchenko's original music in the ballet "For Two Hares". The analysis of ballet music was performed for the first time. Conclusions. The comparative analysis of Yu. Shevchenko's ballet and M. Starytsky's comedy allowed us to single out common comic elements: "meeting" with the main character Golokhvasty; the choice of leittembs (clarinet, violin and piano) is associated with the comic nature of Golokhvasty and the emphasis on his external features: thinness and "mannerism", claims to chic and education; the portrait of Golohvasty in the ballet and his appearance (clothes and accessories) corresponds to the image of Golohvasty from the original source; Golohvastoy's weakness for girls; Golohvasty's love for songs and dances; hopak, which appears in both comedy and ballet. Common to comedy and ballet are also the leitmotif of the bells, the romanticization of the scene of the testimony of Golohvasty in the house of Proni. The multifaceted, contrasting image of Sekleta is also vividly represented in both works. The common comic element is defined by the red cap of Sulfur; Sekleta's "fig" gesture, we consider the motif of rumors to be a comic motif, which is conveyed in ballet by all means of expression (musical, choreographic and visual). Keywords: author's ballet music, literary source "For two hares", comedy by M. Starytsky, comic images.

THE USE OF HUMOR IN THE CONDITIONS OF DISTANCE EDUCATION OF PUPIL OF PRIMARY SCHOOL

The article describes humor as an inseparable component of the educational process, which promotes effective learning of primary school students and implements a set of functions (informational, emotional, motivational, regulatory, stimulating, coordinating and communicative, educational, cognitive, health preserving). The didactic and educational possibilities of humor in the conditions of distance learning of primary school students are determined. In the article are using theoretical and qualitative research methods to solve the tasks and achieve the research goal: analysis of pedagogical and psychological dissertations, systematization, observation, analysis of empirical experience, questionnaires. Special attention is paying the implementation of the educational function of humor and its influence on the emotional sphere of students in the conditions of distance learning. Effective forms are analyzing of using humor in distance education (comics, multimedia presentation, memes, and cartoons). The main advantages are determined of using humor as means of media education in the conditions of distance learning. The positive and negative aspects are specified of distance education. The algorithm was developed for working with media of a comic nature in elementary school. Characterize the media means of presenting humor in distance education (computer didactic games for primary school students, electronic educational game resources (EER), online environments for test tasks, programs for providing video communication for online classes, electronic textbooks).

Research of Comics in Modern Humanities

The growing popularity of comics in Ukraine and worldwide increases scientific attention to this type of information product. The article is devoted to generalising the leading tendencies in the Comics Study and researching comics in modern humanities. Based on the study devoted to comics professional publications, profile resources of world comics research centres and the current state of understanding the phenomenon of comics magazines and Internet resources, application of review-analytical, historical-chronological, dialectical, socio-communication, and content analysis methods has been detected that the syncretic nature of comics made them a research subject in various sciences and programme subject areas: literary studies, linguistics, cultural study, art history, history, political science, and others. Leading research centres of Comics Study are the International Comic Art Forum, the British Consortium of Comic Researchers, the Comics Research Hub of the University of the Arts, the Canadian Society for the Study of Comics, the Society for Comics Researchers (USA). The educational direction of Comics Studies has been represented by bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral (doctor of philosophy) educational programs in higher education institutions of different countries: the University of Florida, University of Toronto, University of California Santa Cruz, University of Portland, West University, University Dundee, Teesside University, Lancaster University (UK), Kyoto Seika University (Japan). The growth of scientific knowledge in Comics Study, on the one hand, and on the other hand - the predominance of interdisciplinary approach in the studies necessitated the establishment of special scientific journals dedicated to comics, such as the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, Studies in Comics, European Comic Art. In Ukraine, the study of comics at the dissertation level took place in the dimension of pedagogy and philology. However, some scientific research on comics is available in journalism, press studies, publishing, political science, literature, journalism, and social communications. It has been found that as a multifunctional and unique information product and object of library activity, comics have not yet become the subject of study for bibliologists and librarians. The prospects of separating the corresponding research direction in bibliology and library science are substantiated.

“The Wanderings of San Mao” by Sanbao: the genre specificity of the Chinese original children's musical

The purpose of the article is to determine the genre specificity of the Chinese original children's musical Sanbao “The Wanderings of San Mao” (2011), created on the basis of Zhang Liping's (1940) comics of the same name. Methodology - historical, comparative, genre. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the establishment of genre specificity of the Chinese children's musical. Genre specificity of the Chinese children's musical is distinguished both by its audience purpose and by the reinterpreted implementation of the features of comics of the same name, the reliance on which determined the storyline, the image of the main character, the dramaturgical features of the stage work. The general genre features of comics and musicals are systematized, the influence of graphic and literary prototypes on the musical “The Wanderings of San Mao”, observed in the system of genetic, historical, genre, and content prerequisites are revealed. The content commonality of comics and musicals is embodied, in particular, in their genre names, which reflect their inherent comedic origins. The historical unity of comics and musicals is due to their gaining popularity since the middle of the 19th century. From a genre point of view, comics (based on the union of graphics and literary text) and the musical (based on the interaction of comic opera and operetta, vaudeville and burlesque, show and variety, ballet and dramatic interlude) have a mixed nature. The Sanbao musical seems to absorb the constituent elements of comic opera, adding them to the context of other genre components of the theatrical whole. Since comics are a kind of literary genre, it becomes possible to interpret them as the libretto of a children's musical. The scene of the musical as a self-sufficient variety number is likened to a drawing from a comic strip, correlated with coherent plot development, the story of the hero's life set out in the short stories. Inheriting the nature of comics as a sequence of drawings, the Chinese children's musical appears as a kind of suite cycle of musical and dramatic scenes-novellas from the life of the protagonist. The discontinuity of the musical's scene-narratives is overcome, as in comic books, by the story of the main character's adventures and dreams unfolding through the story. The author contrasting pictures of the short story musical are united by a thorough plotline, the role of the principle of “three unities” (events take place during one day in the slums of old Shanghai, where a simple child's dream becomes unattainable). Conclusions. The genre peculiarity of the Chinese children's musical “The Wanderings of San Mao” is conditioned, firstly, by the specificity of the audience; secondly, by the embodiment of Zhang Liping's comic book features as a graphic-literary prototype of Sanbao's musical and stage work.

Homeric Epithets that Seem to Be Humorously Ironic

Homeric Epithets that Seem to Be Humorously Ironic RICHARD D. BENSON Although there is a tendency to see Homeric epithets as merely ornamental, if not meaningless, a form of humor seems to be occasionally provided by epithets used ironically. To my knowledge, Arieti (2016) was the first scholar to suggest that humorously ironic epithets are probably pervasive in Homer. The present paper is the first effort to collect all such epithets in Homer. I find 33 instances of humorously ironic usage of epithets in the Iliad and the Odyssey . One unexpected result is the discovery of the comic nature of some of Agamemnon’s speeches; these comic speeches augment the already-recognized complexity of Agamemnon’s character. 1. introduction one of the means of elevating the language of epic poetry , and of other forms of discourse, is by the repeated use of stock epithets. Just as a Christian may not be content to just say “Jesus” but might prefer to say “Jesus Christ our lord and savior,” or a Moslem not “Mohammed” but “the Prophet Mohammed, the Just, the Merciful,” Homeric epic sometimes says “Zeus” but more frequently elevates that personage by such expressions as “father Zeus” (πατὴρ Ζεὺς), or “Zeus who bears the goatskin shield” (Διὸς αἰγιόχοιο); Hera is “queenly ox-eyed Hera” (βοῶπις πότνια Ἥρη), or “whitearmed Hera” (λευκώλενος Ἥρη); Aphrodite is best known as “golden Aphrodite” (χρυσέη Ἀφροδίτη), or “laughter-loving Aphrodite” (φιλομμειδὴς Ἀφροδίτη). Achilles is well-known arion 29.1 spring/summer 2021 36 homeric epithets that seem to be humorously ironic as “swift-footed Achilles” (πόδας ὠκὺς Ἀχιλλεύς) and “the handsome son of Peleus” (ἀμύμονα Πηλείωνα). Odysseus is often called “Odysseus of many wiles” (πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς) and “Zeus-born Odysseus” (διογενὴς Ὀδυσσεὺς). Homeric epithets avoid becoming tedious in at least two ways. One way is to multiply the number of epithets per personage . One subset of this method is to use epithets which to all appearances seem to be stock epithets and yet are used only once. The expression, for example, “Zeus the lightning -gatherer” (στεροπηγερέτα Ζεύς) occurs only once (Il. 16.298). We hear of “Achilles the peer of Enyalius” (Ἀχιλλεὺς / ἶσος Ἐνυαλίῳ) only once (Il. 22.130–31). We find “golden -sandaled Hera” (Ἣρης χρυσοπεδίλου) only once (Od. 11.604). There are numerous examples of these once-used name-epithet combinations in Homer, as if the master poet Homer were often parodying (I would venture to say), rather than following, the practice of using stock epithets. Another way of avoiding epithet-fatigue, and which is the subject of this paper, is occasionally to use an epithet ironically for the sake of humor. But here there may be a difficulty . Current orthodoxy would deny that Homeric epithets can ever be ironic, supposedly because the epithets are so single-purposed that they can have no added meaning (e.g., Lord 2000). Even if this were true, however, it should at least be useful, for the record, to have a list of all the possibly humorously ironic epithets in Homer, so that we would have an idea of what and how many there may be. As such a list has not heretofore existed, this paper attempts to fill that gap. 2. methods arieti (2016) described a humorously ironic epithet θεοειδής (Il. 3.16–37) repeatedly applied to Paris (discussed below). Arieti (2016:9) concluded: “Though I have focused on . . . this one example, I should like to suggest that a broader investigation will show its pervasiveness [of humorous epithets] throughout Richard D. Benson 37 Homer.” Later I came upon another humorous epithet while rereading Finley’s World of Odysseus (1965:108) where a speech by Agamemnon (Od. 24.115–19) is quoted. I saw that Finley gave no sign of recognizing Agamemnon’s hilarious use of an epithet (πτολίπορθον, of Odysseus, ironic in this one instance; see below). To perform the “broader investigation” called for by Arieti, I reread the Iliad and the Odyssey to collect all epithets which were used in a humorously ironic manner. By a humorously ironic epithet I understood one by which a competent comedian could get a laugh. Examples of the four types of humorous irony considered in this paper can be classified as follows. (1) Most typically, there is classical irony, that is, the irony of stating the opposite —for example calling a coward “valiant” for the sake of ridicule. Such humorous...

THE COMIC IN KINETIC ART AND THE HOOLIGAN METAMACHINES OF JEAN TANGLEY

In contrast to the lyrics of abstract painting, kinetic art through the comic reveals the problems of modern times. Sarcasm, grotesque, irony - these are the most common artistic techniques of representatives of kinetism. Jean Tengley’s hooligan metamachines through paradoxical images that cause surprise and laughter, are an emotional aesthetic form of reaction to social, technical and political problems. The comic provides the artist with endless possibilities for seriously - jokingly playing with the prejudices of his time. The article explores the comic as the basis of kinetic art, and in particular the metamachine of the founder of kinetic art, Jean Tengley. His dynamic sculptures embody the organic elements of laughter culture and comic means. Aggression and the danger of a mechanized world and at the same time the dynamism of the modern era is expressed through comic means. The proximity of man and machine in the possibility of being funny, contradictory, fragile and mortal is noted. Tagley’s bullying metamachines simultaneously revitalize and destroy the visual art, change everyday life and perception. The materials that Tengley uses — scrap metal, typewriters, refrigerators, pens, rubbish — produce sounds and give the impression of an animated garbage dump, information rubbish and an overabundance, look comic, provoke laughter and rethinking reality. The random and unpredictable and therefore often comic nature of the functioning of the Tengley mechanisms determined their closeness to the spectacularity and theatricality of the new genre developing in the 1950s - happening. Tengli’s innovation lies not only in the fact that he made his works to move, but also in the fact that through the comic in his own metamachines, he was able to successfully combine kinetism, made mass market products, sound, self-destruction and entertainment of the happening. It could be confidently said that the comic, having found embodiment in the Tengley metamachines, has even become the most relevant and demanded today, representing a constructive and effective element of the dissipative system of the contemporary art.

Seeing Blocks and Crypto Bros

How do cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin work? What is a blockchain? And, what does a typical Bitcoin holder look like? The artist collective Anxious to Make commissioned sixty cloudworkers to draw their answers to these questions. Drawings range from the mundane and stereotypical—a Bitcoin owner depicted as a bearded hipster shouting, HODL!—to the complex and eccentric—the blockchain drawn as connected nodes of random numbers, presumably meant to represent cryptographic hashes. 
 Like much technology, the inner workings of cryptocurrency remain “black boxes” of understanding to most users. As a collective, Anxious to Make remains cautious of any technological apparatus that is believed in without understanding. These series of drawings point to the absurdity and comic nature of technological beliefs and utopic, seamless crypto-fantasies. We offer a subset of the drawings here, together with an analysis of the ways artistic labor is changed by—or mirrors—the practice of outsourcing.

«Человек, который хотел...» (о принципах комического несоответствия в чеховской «Чайке»)

The article examines implementation of principles of the comical in A. P. Chekhov’s play “The Seagull”. Traditional philological and scenic interpretations of the play emphasize its dramatic, even tragic element, and, consequently, the tragic side of conflict. The study aims to identify the basic motivation of conflict and to justify its comic nature. For this purpose, the researcher examines the author’s genre attribution through the lenses of the classical definition of comedy based on the inadequacy principle. The conclusion is made that the personages’ all-encompassing envy is the basic genre-formative feature of the play.

КЛОУН VS РЭПЕР: (ИНВЕКТИВЫ В ОНЛАЙН И ОФЛАЙН РЭП-ПОЕДИНКАХ)

The article is devoted to identifying the reasons for the more frequent laughter among listeners, caused by invectives addressed to the opponents’ pseudonyms rather than to their real names. In this regard, much attention in the work is paid to the concept of invective associated with the art of clownery. Since the times of Ancient Greece and Rome, it was one of the most important strategies of rhetorical art; now it is a key definition of a rap battle, in which the audience witnesses not humor, but something between humor and seriousness. (The written comments of the audience can be compared with the satirical texts of folk poetry: its anonymous authors treat the depicted characters as representatives of the laugh world that do not exist in reality.) Therefore, it is no coincidence that rap duels, which are discussed in this article, are considered the heirs of the ancient НАУКА ТЕЛЕВИДЕНИЯ № 16.3, 2020 91 THE ART AND SCIENCE OF TELEVISION poetic competitions, where participants exalted themselves by humiliating their partners. The article analyzes oral and written texts of rap battles and viewers’ comments with reference to a deep, humorous interpretation. The basis here is the Kozintsev’s metasemantic approach to the phenomenon of humor, which was not previously applied to their analysis. According to this approach, humor is explained by the ability to make fun of one’s own stupidity and auto–parody of oneself as a representative of Homo sapiens. The comic nature is especially pronounced in clowns and is extremely uncommon for participants in rap battles. In the beginning of the research, it was suggested that the rules of rap duels probably prevent comic situations from occurring during rap battles. Later, however, the author came to the conclusion that in reality, these rules provoke humorous moments, since the audience begins to transform the participants’ pseudonyms into carnival nicknames, perceiving them at an unconscious level as a game signal.

Problem Plays

William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is typically identified in scholarship as a comedy. However, the play’s fourth act is troubling, as Shylock loses his wealth and is forced to convert from his ancestral Judaism to Christianity, undermining the play’s comic nature. In this essay, I examine what are called surface and fundamental conventions of comedy to discuss whether The Merchant of Venice can be classified as a Shakespearean comedy. Surface conventions appear regularly in comedies, but are not necessary to classify a play as a comedy; fundamental conventions are less immediately obvious. Although the play subscribes to surface conventions of comedy, it fails to present the fundamental conventions of a just universe or comically satisfying ending, particularly in the legal proceedings of both the trial scene and the protagonists’ marriages. Noting comic tropes in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in contrast to The Merchant of Venice, I argue that Merchant is, in fact, a “problem play” that does not fit neatly into any generic classification. While typical comedies offer justice in the sense that characters achieve deserved outcomes, justice in The Merchant of Venice is undermined through Portia’s intervention in the trial. Ultimately, I aim to understand with more nuance the complex role that the legal system plays in constructing genre in The Merchant of Venice, and to question the play’s traditional, though not universal, classification in Shakespeare scholarship as a “comedy.”

Drawing the mind: Aesthetics of representing mental illness in select graphic memoirs

Representation of psychological experiences necessitates a creative use of means of expression. In the field of graphic medicine, autobiographical narratives on mental illness find expression through the unique semiotic nature of comics, which facilitates the encapsulation of complex psychic-scapes and embodiment of the artist's experiences. In so doing, these verbal-visual techniques provide vividness and easily digested expression, translating the sufferer's altered mental perspective effectively for the reader. The deployment of such elements inherent in the medium facilitates multilayered connections to the patient narrative, which provide a depth beyond the raw medical discourse. The present essay, with reference to Ellen Forney's Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, & Me: A Graphic Memoir and Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and other Things That Happened, investigates the mediative value of rhetorical devices unique to the medium of comics in actualizing the subjective experience of mental illness. The essay also seeks to delineate the cultural power of graphic memoirs by positioning them at the crossroads of sufferer's experiences and clinical description, drawing on theoretical insights from George Lakoff and Mark Johnson and other graphic pathographers/theorists, such as Ian Williams and Elisabeth El Refaie.