For a rhythmic model of comics

Abstract

This hermeneutic-semiotic article aims at formulating a model of analysis and interpretation of comics based on C. Zilberberg’s concept of rhythm. Our corpus has been designed and developed from Quino’s (Joaquim Salvador Lavado) graphic work and the semiophilosophical interpretations of the author in Mundo Mezquino. The hypothesis we have formulated is that the ritualised repetitions and the abrupt events are privileged fields for the appearance of contacts and dynamic relations between inert and active terms. For that reason modulations come up, on the one hand, among distension and tension, and, on the other hand, strokes emerge, understood as accentuations leading to a reading experience in which, while distension loosens, relaxes, compact tension contracts, and the stroke bursts, severs.