How the Historical Context is absorbed into the “Language” of Comic Books for Children: The Case of Greek Tragedies’ Adaptations Dr. Moula Evangelia Executive in Innovative Activities in Secondary Education, Rhodes, Greece [email protected] Abstract Youth’s preference and interest in comic strip art suggests that it can be a viable medium for promoting and developing literacy. Comics realize semiotic realities. The visual elements, the combination of images with words in an inextricable relationship and the cultural context of their production and reception as well, are the basic components of comic books’ language. Comic book adaptations of classical works popularize and make classical texts accessible to the mass, promoting this way cultural literacy. Such adaptations give the original scripts the opportunity to shed their reputation for merely illustrating written narrative, and for serving the function of simplifying. Moreover, it is asserted that by incorporating comics in curriculums, the gap between real life and school could be bridged, provided that instead of reading comics just for fun, students are guided to understand and interpret their meaning generating mechanisms and to recognize how the historical and social realm is being inscribed in them. In other words provided students manage to read critically “between the lines”. We are going to examine two characteristic moments of Greek tragedies’ comic book adaptations for children, published in two different historical periods. Tragedy in modern Greece has mainly been used as the matrix for Greek national virtues, constructing and consolidating a continuous and non- negotiable national identity. Classics Illustrated adaptations that first appeared and were prominent during the 60s follow the norm of the literary tradition of Tragedies’ adaptations. The recently published (2006) comic book series of T. Apostolides subvert the cultural stereotypes. Through the comparison, we will try to show how the present tense of the comic books’ production affects their form and consequently their content. The texts in issue represent two different approaches and receptions of the Greek cultural identity and national destination, by utilizing commensurate comic-book languages. In fact they transubstantiate the original scripts into graphic versions imbued by their historical milieu, a fact that reflects on their stylistic and lingual profile as well. Keywords: comic books’ language, adaptations, classics, cultural context. Introduction: Greek identity and its affinity with the institution of literature and with ancient Tragedy Literature as an institution is inextricably interwoven with Nation (Apostolidou, 1995, p.22), reflects the hegemonic culture and ideology (Althousser, 1971, p.204)x and serves the high- minded aims of the national community. In every period of the literary production, one can trace down the intellectual images of the Nation that are converted into national stereotypes (Ikonomou Agorastou, 1992, p. 18-19). Trying to balance between their inglorious present and their glorified past, Greeks tried to reverse the fixed negative features of the Helladic reality, through literature. G. Theotokas (Theotokas, 1938, p. 2) used to say that the spiritual heritage of the ancient Greek tragedians was the missing backbone of the modern Greek literary production. 140 As far as ancient tragedy is an organic part of Greece’s national literary heritage, tragedies’ adaptations have always been permeated by the political and aesthetic principles of each period, since the constitution of the modern Greek State. The history of the adaptations of ancient tragedy for the modern Greek stage is the history of an entire society that experiences the agony of its identity, which is perpetually re - invented and revisited (Andreadis, 1989, p.18). We are going to examine two characteristic moments of Greek tragedies’ comic book adaptations for children, emanating from two different historical periods and we will try to show how the present tense of their production affected the content and the form of them. These are the Classics Illustrated adaptations of Greek tragedies, and the recently published comic book series of T. Apostolidis, which represent different approaches and receptions of the Greek cultural identity and national destination. Our rationale is that adaptation studies should definitely move away from formalistic concerns and be examined in the light of contextual (economic, cultural, political, commercial, industrial, educational) and intertextual factors (Naremore, 2000: 10 and 12)xi. The objectives of this study are: . The establishment of comic books as an autonomous art . The understanding of comics as semiotic realities . The reception of adaptations as interpretative strategy, imbued by ideological messages . The use of comics as a tool for approaching the cultural context . The use of comics as a means for promoting critical thinking . The familiarization with the comic book language and the word- image interface in it. Literature Review The background of this study is miscellaneous. First of all, Cultural Studies legitimize the use of comic books in the classroom, be having established the equation of the value of literature to other meaning making resources and mainly to visual ones. So the literary reading has been extended to non literary texts (Easthope Antony, 1991, pp. 3-62)xii, among which comics are to be found. So comics’ theoretical setting is going to be the base of our researchxiii. Another major theoretical tool that is going to be used is the theory of adaptation. Adaptation has been approached from quite different standpoints, mainly concerning the narrativexiv and the filmic studiesxv. We will use selectively the terminology from these fields and adjust it to our needs. Children’s literature theory is also going to be taken into account, as long as comics, although they do not address only young audience, they mostly appeal to young people. So we will use as a yardstick, methods of content analysis applied in studies about classics’ adaptations for childrenxvi. As far as it concerns the reading of images we will turn mostly to Kress and Van Leewuen’s vocabulary of visual designxvii and we will also use taxonomies from studies about picture books’ functionalityxviii. Although there is a vast amount of theoretical discourse about peripheral subjects, the field of comic book adaptations of classics is still untrodden. We believe that this study steps on a new territory and may fire a spark of critical thinking about the way that popular cultural forms, like comic books, on the one hand submit ideological messages and on the other hand appropriate the classics and adjust them to the historical milieu. 141 Methodology By choosing and amalgamating the findings of the above mentioned theoretical fields, we establish our own parameters that circumscribe the concept of the language of comics, we are going to use as a benchmark of our study. The comic books’ language is manifold and constituted of: . The visual elements that compose the images. The lingual register . The meaning generating mechanisms- conventions of the comic book art . The cultural context that frames the comic book, which brings a critical understanding and orientates the individual reception. By studying comics, students come to understand that messages are social constructions, that individuals negotiate meaning by interacting with them and that each form of communication has unique characteristics (Frey, N. and Fidher, D., 2008). Research The historical context of Classics Illustrated Children’s literature after WWII (Tsaousis, 1983, p.22), was used as a vehicle to canalize the ideology of Greekness. Nevertheless, Greekness is an elusive concept, which used to adapt itself to the political aims and the respective rhetoric of every period. Greek State, after the - physically and psychologically- traumatic civil war with the Right wing governing the country, constructed a fictitious transcendental nation and obliterated the world “people” from its current vocabulary (Elefantis, 1991, p. 63). Nation, represented by the hegemonic party, doing away with the notions of class discrimination and social opposition, proclaimed itself as sworn and implacable enemy of Communism. The Christian version of the Greek-centrism became the ideological weapon against any progressive and therefore subversive political idea. Essentialism, which is innate to every bourgeois ideology (Βarthes, 1979, p.239), became a vital part of the political rhetoric of the time and banished any logical or scientific political thinking. The rulers, in order to protect their privileges and the status quo, enforced arbitrary laws and inculcated fear and self-control to people (Foucault,1975). They even tried to justify morally the suppression they exercised as well as the social inequalities or the persecution of their political opponents. Main goal of the rulers was the achievement of national consent and social balance, which had been shaken, because of the civil war backwash. For this reason, nationalism searched for underpinnings in the repository of the cultural heritage and adjusted mythical exemplars into its political molds. Greek Identity as an essential – transhistorical entity in Classics Illustrated Graphic adaptations give the original scripts the opportunity to shed their reputation for merely illustrating written narrative, and for serving the function of simplifying (Chute and De Koven, 2006, p. 768).