The semiotics of comics

Presentation of the Book "The semiotics of comics"

with Daniele Barbieri, Giannis Koukoulas, Giannis Mihailidis, Lefteris Stavrianos

The semiotics of comics is an understudied field. This book lays the groundwork for inquiry, starting with the classic notions of utterance and narrative, to include the particular meaning of storytelling through comics. It does so through the analogies and juxtapositions that arise from the comparison with cinema and the novel. It then investigates the graphic characteristics of comics in the peculiar interplay that develops between image and writing. It concludes with the creation of rhythm, the management of the reader’s attention, and the techniques of directing narrative tensions, which may be familiar to all narrative genres but nevertheless prove to be different in each case. Specialists―attempts to deal in a simple way with particularly complex problems by contrasting a theory of the comic text with existing theories of cinema, the novel, and the poetic text.

Daniele Barbieri is one of the most influential comics scholars in Italy. He studied philosophy and semiotics with Professor Umberto Eco. As a semiotician, his subject is visual communication, but he also deals with poetry and music. Around these topics, he has so far published 22 books and written more than 400 articles. He teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna, the ISIA University of Urbino and the University of San Marino. His works have been translated into English, French, Spanish and Portuguese.