Comics and Graphic Novels

Catalog description

This course will examine the evolution of comics (usually referred to as "tebeos") in Spain from the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) to the present. During Francisco Franco's dictatorship, this genre was heavily influenced by the Fascist ideology of the government. On the one hand, some editorials sympathized with the government and used their publications to spread an ultra-conservative ideology. On the other hand, some artists circumvented censorship by drawing harmless comical stories that, in fact, were a critical portrayal of the miseries of the post-war era. After Franco's death in 1975, comics were free of censorship and became a space of transgression to express the political, religious, and sexual liberation of the late 1970s and early 1980s. In the early 2000s, graphic novels became more accepted by the public and received deserved recognition by critics. In the second part of the semester, we will analyze graphic novels that deal with social and political issues within an ethical framework.