Palavras e imagens: uma análise da obra de Neil Gaiman e Dave Mckean

Abstract

This research aims at an analysis of the picture book and comic books created by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, in addition to observing these works while intermedial texts and their reading as simultaneous processes and at times dynamic. The reader is required to be familiar with the visual codes of comics and the domain of visual language. It is this domain, or knowledge, that allows the individual to perceive and interpret verbal and nonverbal texts. The works studied deal with children's books and comic books, more precisely graphic novels. It is studied the work "The tragic comedy or the comical tragedy of Mr. Punch" (1995), and the book "The Wolves in the Walls" (2003), using as reference the intermediation studies presented by Irina Rajewsky. Intermidiality encompasses analyzes that include the combination of media, media references, and media transpositions that can be observed in some comic books. The chosen work is a graphic novel, a comic book for mature readers, which is beyond the traditional format of comics and combining the elements of comics and its meaning, with images created from mixed media and collages . The sequential art, a term established by Will Eisner for graphic novels and comics in general, cites a visual narrative to tell a story combining various narrative techniques. In "The tragic comedy or a comical tragedy of Mr. Punch," and "Wolves in the walls" in addition to the sequential art created, there are a myriad of images and combinations that make references to other media and using the techniques cited by Eisner, in addition to appropriating characteristic elements of the puppet theater. The work crosses narratives of theatrical presentations with the history lived by the protagonist and its conflicts. A look at the perspective of comic book studies as a multi-media text begins a discussion of sequential art and illustrations as a fundamental part of this text, which can only be read and understood simultaneously. An artistic project has been initiated and is in development process, the book "Drawings that write", in which the illustrations mix the words and images of the written text, transforming the verbal and visual text into a intermedia text. It was observed the whole process of creation for the development of this work, dividing in stages, from the verbal text to the intermedia text.