Ocnos - Revista de estudios sobre lectura - Diversidad en los cómics: dibujos, personajes, historias y recorridos

Aug 28, 2026

The article analyzes the relationship between comics and diversity, arguing that the medium has an almost direct link of concordance, overlap, and sometimes inseparable intertwining with diversity as a broader cultural condition. It identifies historical grounds since the late nineteenth century while also highlighting structural factors that reveal perceptual, anthropological, and cultural diversity in modern capitalist bourgeois society. The study offers a reflexive analysis using multiple research variables.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages21

Reading Time53 min

AccessFree to download

Articles

Diversity in comics: drawings, characters, stories and paths

Drawings and diversity

Ocnos. Revista de estudios sobre lectura, 22(1) (2023) . ISSN-e: 2254-9099 [https://doi.org/10.18239/ocnos_2023.22.1.331](https://doi.org/10.18239/ocnos_2023.22.1.331) Articles Diversity in comics: drawings, characters, stories and paths Diversidad en los cómics: dibujos, personajes, historias y recorridos Gino Frezza 1,a 1 Università di Salerno, Italia a Correspondent author: [frezza@unisa.it](frezza@unisa.it) Received: 06/07/2022; Accepted: 16/09/2022 Abstract Between comics and diversity - as between diversity, cartoons and comic films - there is an almost direct link of concordance and overlapping or, also, of inextricable intertwining. There are bases of historical affirmation of the medium, since the end of the 19th century, which testify to the existence of this trend, but there are also others of a structural nature through which comics reveal the perimeter of perceptual as well as anthropological and cultural diversity that designates the everyday and peculiar life of modern, technological, bourgeois, capitalist society (in the discards orin the links of continuity and rupture - sometimes small or great revolutions - that frame its advances and internal changes) . It presents a reflexive analysis of the diversity of comics from different study variables. Keywords: Comics; diversity; content analysis; reflection. Resumen Entre los cómics y la diversidad -al igual que entre diversidad, dibujos animados y películascómicas- existe una corriente casi directa de concordancia y superposición o, también, de entrelazado inextricable. Existen bases de afirmación histórica del medio, desde finales del siglo XIX, que atestiguan la existencia de dicha corriente, pero también hay otras de carácter estructural a través de las cuales los cómics revelan el perímetro de diversidad tanto perceptiva como antropológica y cultural que designa la vida cotidiana y peculiar de la sociedad moderna, tecnológica, burguesa, capitalista (en los descartes o en los lazos de continuidad y ruptura -aveces pequeñas o grandes revoluciones- que enmarcan sus avances y cambios internos) . Se presenta un análisis reflexivo de la diversidad del cómic desde diferentes variables de estudio. Palabras clave: Cómic; diversidad; análisis de contenido; reflexión. DRAWINGS AND DIVERSITY It is above all the drawings - arranged in comics in an articulated continuitydiscontinuity, including within (or near) them the text, with which they interact - that give Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0. (BY-NC-ND 4 .0) Gino Frezza this link between comics and diversity its primary raison d'être. Pictures in comics are almost always drawn, except a very few cases in which a photograph is used or manipulated, in a symbiosis that risks extending to that specific medium that the Italians call fotoromanzo (“photonovel”), already dealt with by Abruzzese (1989) , Bravo (2003) and Turzio (2019) . Pictures are the product of a (potentially artistic) competence where mind, vision and hand skill converge, giving the latter the fully individual ability to trace the mark on the blank page, thus creating figures, environments, objects, characters, actions, settings... in other words, worlds. Any comic author can be recognised by this particular diversity of the mark, which allows the immediate and completely individual delimitation of the stroke, the line, the corporeality of the figures, the arrangement of the poses, the contrast between light and shade, or between backgrounds (woven or otherwise) and lines in the foreground. In short, linking the visual mark to that particular and distinct quality of the drawing itself which almost immediately - (an almost not direct, but subject to the mental-cultural decoding operations of the reader), makes it possible to recognise who the author is. Recognition between drawing and author’s signature also occurs where the visual figures are marked by technical-expressive “school” matrices that unite them in the sam

FAQs

How does the article explain the link between comics and diversity?

It argues there is an almost direct concordance between comics and diversity, ranging from overlap to forms of inseparable intertwining.

Which kinds of diversity does the medium help reveal?

Comics are presented as revealing perceptual, anthropological, and cultural diversity that characterizes everyday life in modern capitalist society.

What methodological approach does the paper use to study comics’ diversity?

It provides a reflexive analysis of comics’ diversity based on different study variables.

Aug 28, 2026

Uploaded by Valentina