Configurações do grotesco nas histórias em quadrinhos de Lourenço Mutarelli

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to discuss the theme of grotesque in the comic books of the author Lourenço Mutarelli. To this end, Mutarelli’s comics were situated as graphic novels, authored productions aimed at the adult public. After characterization, we sought the origins of adult comic in counterculture and underground. To reach the result, the main theories about the grotesque were investigated: the grotesque as opposed to the sublime of Victor Hugo, the strange grotesque of Wolfgang Kayser, and the grotesque realism of Mikhail Bakhtin. In addition, some examples of this aesthetic category have been described in literature, visual arts and comics. In order to outline a theoretical basis for the language of comics, language, the concept of cognitive technology and the spatiotopic system proposed by Thierry Groensteen were discussed. From these elements, Kayser’s grotesque stranger, Bakhtin’s grotesque body, and the semiotic manifestations proper to the comics that operate or contribute to the grotesque production in this media, we analyzed Mutarelli’s comics from the standpoint of grotesque aesthetics. Mutarelli’s comics were found to encompass multiple nuances of the grotesque, tanging Kayser’s romantic and strange worldview and the material aspect attached to the body. The latter, however, departs from the mental structures based on popular culture and the cosmic body described by Bakhtin. There was also a dialogue between the motives of the grotesque and the comic system, in some works of the author.