Affects and effects through comics representations of history: a comparative perspective e (Brazil/Chile)

Abstract

Specialists from diverse social areas have questioned the affects comics have aroused in readers from the very beginning of its publishing history in Latin America: children could be alienated from Latin American Culture and attracted to U.S. culture and tempted to consumerism, seduced to feel powerful and, at the same time, ashamed of their bodies. Many left-wing/reformist publishing houses in South America questioned the effects of these comics on children and have criticized the foreign production of comics – mostly superhero comics – and pushed for the publishing of new, locally produced stories. The choice (and veto) of certain episodes of the national past played a central role within the import substitution of U.S. comics. By representing historical heroes as present time superheroes worried about the future of their societies, the paper suggests that the practical past of comics was central to forge utopian Latin American children as new men of tomorrow. In this article, I shall focus on two case studies: the Brazilian comics publishing house CETPA (1961–1964) and the Chilean publishing house Quimantú (1971–1973).