JACKS’ RULES: Uma releitura estética de narrativas de terror do século XIX

Abstract

The present work aims to present an aesthetic rereading of works of terror produced in nineteenth - century Europe, notably three: Bram Stocker’s Dracula; The portrait of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde and Frankstein, by Mary Shelley. To this intriguing literature, its plot, ambience and characters we also add a terrifying real-life serial murder case that would populate both the imagination of its contemporaries and the future: Jack the Ripper, the first and most famous serial killer of the West. To aesthetically reinterpret this literature, we constructed a narrative of HQ - comic strip, entitled Jack's Rules, centered on the adventures of the character Alexandra Van Helsing. The plot unfolds in a Steampunk-inspired London in which the uneven coexistence between humans and mythical creatures results in a tense, conflict-filled environment. The proposal the work transits the Japanese pop culture, choosing as a narrative and aesthetic resource the manga. In the same way, it also touches on issues related to cultural exchanges that gave rise not only to the current structure of the manga, but also to a heterogeneous "cultural fauna", fruit of cultural hybridity. The practical construction of the work took place in digital support, through the use of the Paint Tool Sai program.