Small Panels for Lower Ranges. an Interdisciplinary Approach to Contemporary Portuguese Comics and Trauma
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UNIVERSIDADE DE LISBOA KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN & FACULDADE DE LETRAS FACULTEIT LETTEREN Small panels for lower ranges. An Interdisciplinary approach to Contemporary Portuguese Comics and Trauma. Pedro David Vieira de Moura Advisors: Doctor Fernanda Gil Costa (Faculdade de Letras, UL) Doctor Jan Baetens (Faculteit Letteren, KUL) Tese especialmente elaborada para obtenção do grau de Doutor no ramo de Estudos de Literatura e Cultura, na especialidade de Estudos Comparatistas 2017 UNIVERSIDADE DE LISBOA KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN & FACULDADE DE LETRAS FACULTEIT LETTEREN Small panels for lower ranges. An Interdisciplinary Approach to Contemporary Portuguese Comics and Trauma. Pedro David Vieira de Moura Advisors: Doctor Fernanda Gil Costa (Faculdade de Letras, UL) Doctor Jan Baetens (Faculteit Letteren, KUL) Tese especialmente elaborada para obtenção do grau de Doutor no ramo de Estudos de Literatura e Cultura, na especialidade de Estudos Comparatistas Júri: Presidente: Doutora Maria Cristina de Castro Maia de Sousa Pimentel, Professora Catedrática e Membro do Conselho Científico da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa, Vogais: Doctor Jan Baetens, Full Professor from Faculty of Arts of the Catholic University of Leuven; Doutora Maria Manuela Costa da Silva, Professora Auxiliar Convidada do Instituto de Letras e Ciências Humanas da Universidade do Minho; Doutora Susana Maria Simões Martins, Professora Auxiliar Convidada da Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa; Doutora Helena Etelvina de Lemos Carvalhão Buescu, Professor Catedrática da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa; Doutora Luísa Susete Afonso Soares, Professora Auxiliar da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa. 2017 This dissertation was carried out while I was a recipient of a PhD scholarship from the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. Ref.: SFRH/BD/77824/2011 1 Image of the cover: Nuno Sousa, “A vida acima das suas possibilidades,” originally published in black and white, Buraco no. 1 (2012) 2 Acknowledgments. A 4-year plus project could not be completed without the support and sometimes sacrifice of others. This project was no exception in demanding from people around me patience, abnegation and a disinterested helping hand. My first thanks go, with unending admiration, to my two co-advisors, Professora Fernanda Gil Costa and Professor Jan Baetens, who have gone way beyond the call of duty and human levels of patience to put up with my project. Their guidance and careful readings and lessons have been invaluable, and go beyond the dissertation project. Undoubtedly, faults remain. They are but my own. I would like to thank the artists that I have mentioned and studied, many of which have helped in providing with some information, high resolution images or sending me additional material. People whom I've come across during this path have been paramount in stimulating me to try aiming for the best I can do. The Comic Studies community is incredibly altruistic with their time and knowledge. Some of the information I have used on the contemporary state of comics in Portugal was provisioned liberally by Nuno Pereira de Sousa, Marcos Farrajota, and Mário Freitas. Just talking in person to Pascal Lefèvre, Gert Meesters, Maaheen Ahmed, Simon Grennan and Conceição Pereira has always been an eye-opener and a lesson in itself. Throughout my little career within the world of comics, I have met many of the people that I've admired for years, and I am continually baffled for their incredible kindness and humbleness when sharing their thoughts with an overtly anxious person such as myself. I will always be in debt to Geraldes Lino, Domingos Isabelinho, Professor David Kunzle and Professor Ann Miller. The time I've spent in Leuven was not only fruitful in terms of academic work, but also in other dimensions. Sharing an office with Júlio Landim was engaging and resulted in great talks, as well as outstanding food experiences. There are not enough words to express the gratitude I have for the Peeters family. While I was in Leuven and Kessel-Lo, they opened their doors to a complete stranger who happened to study comics. This was not only an incredible act of kindness, but also the providing of an marvellous soothing and fun environment for the awkwardness of staying, for a while, away from home. To discover, in fact, a second home. For the ceiling, great talks and wine, and for helping me cross and say “Bondgenotenlaan,” a big dankjewel to Patrick, Chris, Charlotte and Beetle. 3 Benoît Crucifix was paramount in many moments. I am very fortunate for counting him as an academic confidante and a friend. An attentive reader and critic, an incredibly talented and intelligent compagnon de route, I am indebted to him for many shared readings, second opinions and calls to Earth. Merci à toi. I would also like to thank Professora Ângela Fernandes for her helping guidance in the last leg of the path. Of course, for keeping up with me for life, Yunseon, Juno and Ari. Somehow, this is for you. 4 Abstracts. Small Panels for Lower Ranges aims to integrate a choice of contemporary independent Portuguese comics into the ongoing international dialogue of Comics Studies, an area that has grown exponentially in the last ten to twenty years, but still has many “blind spots” and does not always take into account the production of smaller cultural areas. This dissertation is also part of the particular interdisciplinary field brought forth by Trauma Studies, the culturally-inflected psychoanalytical analysis of narratives (or non- narratives) that express traumatic experiences. Apart from contextualizing the very state of Trauma Studies, this dissertation attempts a cultural history of modern comics in Portugal in order to better understand how the contemporary production differs from earlier, historical examples, authors after 1974 are able to question more thoroughly the present socio-economic conditions in which they emerge. Somewhat typical of the Portuguese works I address is the focus on “small traumas” and my analysis of the latter will broaden our understanding of traumatogenic conditions (following lessons by Laura S. Brown) and, consequently, emphasise a comprehensive notion of empathy. While woks of art imbued within a political struggle, these comics contribute to “different modes of inhabitation,” in Jill Bennett’s expression. Therefore, it may show how the study of comics may also give back to Trauma Studies. Keywords: comics, trauma, working-through, acting-out. Small Panels for Lower Ranges (Pequenos Traumas nos Quadradinhos) tem como fito principal a integração de uma selecção da banda desenhada contemporânea portuguesa independente no diálogo internacional, em curso, na área conhecida como Estudos de Banda Desenhada. Este é um território que tem crescido exponencialmente nas últimas décadas, mas que continua a manter muitos “pontos cegos,” e nem sempre presta a atenção devida à produção de áreas culturais periféricas. Esta dissertação faz parte igualmente do campo particularmente interdisciplinar que foi tornado possível pelos Estudos do Trauma, a análise psicanalítica e inflectida pelos Estudos Culturais de narrativas (ou não-narrativas) que expressam a experiência traumática. Para além de contextualizar o estado da arte dos Estudos do Trauma, esta dissertação tentará delinear uma história cultural da banda desenhada moderna em Portugal, de forma a compreender melhor como é que a produção contemporânea se diferencia de exemplos históricos, uma vez que se tornou possível aos autores contemporâneos (pós-1974) questionarem de formas mais sustentadas as condições sócio-económicas das quais emergem. Até certo ponto comum nos trabalhos portugueses que analisarei encontra-se o foco nos “pequenos traumas” e o meu estudo destes alargará a nossa compreensão das condições traumatogénicas (seguindo lições de Laura S. Brown) e, consequentemente, enfatizará uma noção mais abrangente de empatia. Enquanto obras de arte integradas num esforço político, esta produção de banda desenhada contribui para “modos diferentes de habitação,” na expressão de Jill Bennett. Desta forma, poderá também demonstrar-se como o estudo da banda desenhada pode retribuir o gesto de contribuição para os Estudos do Trauma. Palavras-chave: banda desenhada, trauma, perlaboração, repetição. 5 6 Contents. Acknowledgements.............................................................................................................................3 Abstracts...............................................................................................................................................5 List of images.......................................................................................................................................9 Introduction.......................................................................................................................................11 Chapter One. A Short History of Trauma. ...........................................................................................................25 Chapter Two. A Contextualization of Comics in Portugal..................................................................................49 Chapter Three. Marco Mendes and the Working-Through of the Everyday. .................................................101 Chapter Four. Miguel Rocha and the Working Through through Acting Out of History...........................127 Chapter Five. Minor comics and their response to Small