Open access
VISUALISING ANXIETY. COMICS AS TOOLS FOR DEALING WITH CRISIS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Matylda SĘK–IWANEK1
Publication language: English
Journal article
Transformations No. 4 (119) 2023, Publication date: 29 December 2023
Keywords: COVID-19, criticism of power, everyday life, mental disorders, Polish comics
Abstract Images of horror, visual metaphors, metonyms or literalities – modern comics allow the expressions of fear and depression, as well as the achievement of hope and katharsis. This presentation deals with the anxiety and trauma, the feelings of vulnerability, uncertainty and loneliness, with which the global community has been contending during the COVID-19 pandemic, as seen through the lens of comics studies and visual communications. Comics are considered as therapeutic tools for coping with contemporary anxieties and the taming of an unknown, dangerous and alien phenomenon.The ongoing and still recent global coronavirus pandemic gave rise to a new branch of comics and webcomics, created during the growing crisis and directly dealing with it and its consequences. A media-studies and comic-studies perspective is employed to examine this nascent phenomenon, with the ultimate goal of furthering the analysis of comics functioning as communication tools. The study is based on a body of Polish adult, young-adult and children’s works. Specific items were chosen amongst professional and amateur comics, webcomics and children’s drawings published online and on social media. Strong and recurrent themes emerge in those works, such as depression and loss, aggravation of mental disorders, explanations of current grim realities, laughter therapy and getting out of crisis, in the light of the social and political crisis. The proposed study and presentation examine the outlined psychological mechanisms shown in comics and therefore become part of Graphic Medicine, at the same touching on the modernity narration.
Faculty of Humanities, Institute of Culture Studies, University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland
ORCID: 0000-0003-3576-0838
E-mail: matylda.sek@us.edu.pl, matylda.sek@gmail.com