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JANOSIK BY TADEUSZ KWIATKOWSKI AND JERZY SKARŻYŃSKI AS A STUDY OF VIOLENCE
Marcin KOWALCZYK1
Publication language: English
Journal article
Transformations No. 4 (119) 2023, Publication date: 29 December 2023
Keywords: Janosik, Polish comic books, Jerzy Skarżyński, Tadeusz Kwiatkowski, violence
Abstract The subject of interest in this article is the comic series Janosik by Tadeusz Kwiatkowski and Jerzy Skarżyński. Thanks to Skarżyński’s drawings, this work occupies a unique place in the Polish comic tradition. Although the plot exploits a popular legend about the eponymous captain of the social bandits, the visual layer transforms it into an original story about the clash of nature and civilization. The crucial element analyzed in the paper is the way of depicting violence. Referring to the research proposals of René Girard and Walter Scheidel, the author shows how the spectacle of suffering draws attention to the problem of over-coming social inequalities. Moreover, by placing the work in the broader context of Polish comic art and using analytical tools typical of comics studies, the analysis exposes the uniqueness of Skarżyński’s drawings.
Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland
ORCID: 0000-0002-2033-445X
E-mail: marcin.kowalczyk@ukw.edu.pl