Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.21066/carcl.libri.11.1.3
To Laugh or to Cry? Ambiguity and Humour in Jason’s Graphic Novels
Nikola Novaković
orcid.org/0000-0002-7214-7832
; University of Applied Health Sciences, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The paper offers a reading of Jason’s use of sparsity, seriousness, and reduction as a concealment of a technique that is based on multifaceted ambiguity involving the blending of genres, a playfully intertextual attitude, and surprising emotional depth of character and story. It discusses the connection between humour and visual, textual, and structural ambiguity in Jason’s works, as well as ambivalence in the reader’s response, illustrates Jason’s combination of incongruous genres and simultaneous employment of motifs from children’s literature and various genre movies (such as science
fiction, crime thrillers, heist movies, and horrors), and explores Jason’s technique of subverting expectations of comic relief by withholding certain structural parts of a joke (typically a punchline) or inserting an unexpected element (such as psychological depth).
Keywords
ambiguity; children’s literature; humour; intertextuality; Jason;
Hrčak ID:
283860
URI
Publication date:
23.9.2022.
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