Revista Animal: quadrinhos, legitimação e subversão (1988-1991)

Abstract

This thesis deals with the elaboration and production process of one of the most important comic magazines that was published in Brazil at the end of the twentieth century, Animal (1988-1991), considering other comic publications of the adult and authorial segment between the mid 1980s and the beginning of the following decade, as well as its cultural and historical contexts. This research was based on cultural studies and, especially, on the concept of structure of feelings, proposed by Raymond Williams, a theoretical basis of analysis that allowed to relate the legitimation movements of comics, which acquired strength in the early 1960s, with the structuring of a cultural system resulting from the rise and definition of an urban youth, literate and with cosmopolitan aspirations as a cultural identity and relevant social group between 1960 and 1985. These movements for the legitimacy of comics were largely the result of the work of groups of intellectuals and academics who began to think of comics as cultural manifestations, as objects of serious and committed studies. Their work was influenced by an European comic book production with artistic pretensions and aspirations and an American underground comic book production, which led to the emergence of publications that would serve as a model for Animal. The latter was analyzed taking into account the Brazilian context of the 1980s, the materiality and the technological issues linked to its production, content, guidelines and editorial line. This thesis also deals with Animal as a magazine in which comics were the element of articulation between various cultural manifestations, thus being an important element of expression and formulation of meaning in the time frame of this research.