Quadrinhos sensacionalistas: as reconstituições de crimes em HQ produzidas por Claudio Seto para as capas do jornal Tribuna do Paraná

Abstract

This research examines crime reconstructions in comic format illustrated by Claudio Seto and published on the front pages of the newspaper Tribuna do Paraná between 1995 and 2006. It provides a critical analysis of how these hybrid narratives blend characteristic elements of comic language with visual strategies typical of sensationalist journalism. The study aims to re-evaluate this specific phase of Seto’s artistic production, recognizing its significance within the historical and editorial context of popular journalism, and retrieving it from relative academic neglect. To achieve this, an extensive documentary investigation was conducted on newspaper front pages containing comic crime reconstructions, resulting in the identification and cataloging of 357 occurrences. These were qualitatively analyzed based on criteria divided into two dimensions: criteria related to the newspaper’s editorial decisions (news values, frontpage prominence, frequency of publication, and color usage in headlines), and criteria related to the artist’s compositional and narrative choices (panel structure, gutters, speech balloons, onomatopoeia, captions, framing, angles, colors, linework, expressive anatomy, and visual references). Grounded in theoretical frameworks from comics and journalism studies — including Eisner (1999), McCloud (1995; 2000), Ramos (2009), Barbieri (2017), Postema (2018), Angrimani (1995), Traquina (2005; 2008), and Abramo (2016) — the analysis shows that Claudio Seto employed narrative resources characteristic of sequential art to portray real crimes dramatically, intensively, and expressively. It was observed that the artist deeply explored the tension between factuality and visual fiction, redefining readers’ sensory and emotional engagement with the news. Therefore, this research not only rescues and expands our understanding of Claudio Seto’s contribution to popular journalism and comic language but also underscores the importance of interdisciplinary studies capable of highlighting the expressive and communicative potential of visual narratives.