Abstract

The present paper is a part of our current thesis devoted to analysis of comic books, known in Italy as fumetti, of 1960s and 1980s era and depiction of female characters at the time of sexual liberation. It addresses the issue of women representation in the art of Italian cartoonist Milo Manara with special attention to diferent aspects of their visual and narrative presence.

The main focus of this paper, is to study the concept of women representation in comics with attention to different aspects of their visual and narrative presence and with the support of feminist and psychoanalytic issues to offer a new insight into the portrayal of women. The aim is to narrow the analysis to the artist´s approach to female representation and empowerment issue in contemporary world and to explore whether women of Milo Manara were nothing more than fantasy from the artists mind, thought up by a man as sexual objects for other men or they were women empowered by their author, in strong female roles to make a statement about women in society.

The paper will look at Claudia Cristiani, from the series “Il Gioco” (“The Click”) that represent a revolutionary image of feminine beauty born in a conservative Italian society, and examine the ways in which this is accomplished through images and narrative.

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