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Neoliberal expulsions, crisis and graphic reportage in Spanish comics

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Jorge Catala-CarrascoORCiD

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Abstract

In this article, after analyzing the comics industry in Spain in the context of the 2008 crisis, which reveals how small and medium publishers have adapted to new trends in consumption, I focus on the graphic novel Barcelona. Los vagabundos de la chatarra (2015) by Jorge Carrión and Sagar. This comic depicts the underworld of scrap metal collection in Barcelona, where mainly immigrant workers wander the streets, barely eking a living out of the detritus of consumerist society. It is an example of graphic journalism in comics, one of the most interesting developments in the genre in the past few years. It is also a novelty in Spanish comics because certain topics were far from common in the existing repertoire, which had been dominated by adventures, fantasy and science fiction. Drawing on Verónica Gago’s La razón neoliberal (2014) and Saskia Sassen’s Expulsions (2015), I challenge conventional approaches to neoliberalism by focusing on neoliberalism from below, which is seen by Gago to point towards the emergence of a new historical consciousness of living in perpetual crisis.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Catala-Carrasco JL

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Romance Quarterly

Year: 2017

Volume: 64

Issue: 4

Pages: 172-184

Online publication date: 31/08/2017

Acceptance date: 12/01/2017

Date deposited: 13/01/2017

ISSN (print): 0883-1157

ISSN (electronic): 1940-3216

Publisher: Routledge

URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/08831157.2017.1356139

DOI: 10.1080/08831157.2017.1356139

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