NO MORE DEBATES ABOUT PARODY. HERE IS THE TRANSPARODY! CHANGING THE TRADITIONAL TERMINOLOGY THROUGH HORROR COMICS

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Published: Mar 17, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/dac.38732
Keywords:
appropriation interpictoriality intertextuality parody pastiche recontextualization transparody transtextuality
Yannis Koukoulas
Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Preschool Education Sciences and Educational Design, University of the Aegean
Marianna Missiou
Assistant Professor, Department of Preschool Education Sciences and Educational Design, University of the Aegean
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9021-2530
Abstract

The concept and content of parody have been studied extensively in literature and to a large extent in the visual arts. A common practice of art theorists and historians, critics, cultural analysts, etc., is to identify intertextual and interpictorial correlations between works and to attempt to classify artistic intentions and methods into taxonomic categories based on older terminologies. The complex parodies of comics, however, in which texts and images are combined and iconic works of art become the subject of a new critique of the “old”, may require a new terminology to describe them. Taking the covers of horror comics series Crossed: Family Values and Raise the Dead as examples and tracing in them the interpictorial relationship they develop with well-known visual works of the past, the need to adopt a new terminology is highlighted and the term “transparody” is proposed as being able to encompass this new kind of textual and visual parody that comics achieve.

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Author Biographies
Yannis Koukoulas, Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Preschool Education Sciences and Educational Design, University of the Aegean

Yannis Koukoulas holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Art Theory and History of Athens School of Fine Arts (thesis title: Comics as Palimpsests: imitation, intervention, variation and parody in ninth art, 2019), a MSc from the Polytechnic School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1993), a MSc from National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (1997) and a BA from Athens School of Fine Arts (2013). His main research interests are appropriation and recontextualization practices (transtextuality, interpictoriality, parody, pastiche, etc.) in contemporary art. He is a postdoctoral researcher in InterpictorialApproaches to Art and Pedagogical Use: Appropriation, Parody, Reinterpretation at the Department of Preschool Education Sciences and Educational Design (University of the Aegean). He is a team member in TETHICS project (Erasmus+, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, NKUA, 2023-2024) and he was the Project Coordinator in TECHNO-LOGIA Hub: Dissemination of the Research on Art and its Relation with Technology, (ASFA-HFRI, 2021-2023). He currently teaches Art and Pedagogic Material in the postgraduate programmePedagogic Material at the University of the Aegean and Art and Inclusion in the interdepartmental postgraduate programmePedagogy through Innovative Technologies and Biomedical Approaches at the University of West Attica. In the past (2014-2023) he has taught a series of courses at ASFA. He is the author of four books in Greek(Women in Comics, Heroines for Every Use, Futura, 2005, Ninth Art –from the past to the future, Kapsimi, 2006, The Recontextualization of Artwork: interpictorial metafictions in illustrated narratives, Kallipos, 2023, One Picture, A Few Words, Jemma Press, 2024 – under publication). His articles have been published in international and Greek scientific journals, edited volumes and conference proceedings, he has curated many art exhibitions and has edited many books. Since 2014 he has been co-editor and columnist of the supplement Kare Kare in Efimerida ton Syntakton.

Marianna Missiou, Assistant Professor, Department of Preschool Education Sciences and Educational Design, University of the Aegean

Marianna Missiou graduated from the Department of French Language and Literature of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. In 2009 she earned a Ph.D. degree on comics’ studies from the Department ofPreschool Education Sciences and Educational Design of the University of the Aegean. She subsequently completed her postdoctoral research on wordless comics and picturebooks at the same institution, in 2019. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Literatures and serves as the Director of the Postgraduate Programme in Children’s Books and Pedagogical Material at the University of the Aegean. Her research interests focus on children's literature, graphic narratives, and multiliteracies. She is the author of two books in Greek: Silent Comics and Picture Books: Narrative Techniques in Wordless Books(Kaleidoscope, 2020) and Comics: From the Kiosk to the Classroom (Kapsimi, 2010). Her scholarly work has been featured in contributions to Greek and international collective volumes, scientific journals, and conference proceedings.

 

References
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NOTES
Franklin D. Roosevelt Annual Message to Congress, January 6, 1941; Records of the United States Senate; SEN 77A-H1; Record Group 46; National Archives. Available from https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-franklin-roosevelts-annual-message-to-congress (Accessed: 22/08/2024).