The Power of the Image in the Comics Culture. Two Examples Applied to Architectural Themes

Three references for research: McCay (1905), the first draftsman to introduce real-world architecture into the “bande dessinée” McLuhan (1977), in “Understanding media” defines the centrality of art in the influence of contemporary aesthetics; McCloud (1993), in “Understanding comics” gives us the definition of what for him is the art of comics: “images and other figures juxtaposed in a deliberate sequence, with the aim of communicating information and / or producing an aesthetic reaction in the reader”. On comics, defined in 1964 by the critic Claude Beylie as the ninth form of art, interpretative scenarios and scientific investigation have opened up related to the fields of semiotics and philosophy of language, leading to a redefinition of the means of mass communication, according to an “intellectual” dimension of the medium. Umberto Eco himself introduced in the 60s the study of this new form of art within university contexts, testifying, if needed, its cultural importance. The essay will therefore deal with two graphic and thematic experiments developed within the courses of Multimedia Representation of Architecture, demonstrating the adaptability of the ninth art to the different disciplinary areas proposed. On the one hand, the comic language is used to understand the constructive, technological and ergonomic aspects of the “tiny houses”, small prefabricated houses on wheels (Agostino Urso). On the other hand, comics are used for a historiographical and stratigraphic reading of both the city and the architecture of Reggio Calabria at the turn of the 1908 earthquake (Francesco De Lorenzo).