The Portrayal of the Neighbour and the Neighbourhood in Macedonian Graphic Literature and Comic Book Culture
The Portrayal of the Neighbour and the Neighbourhood in Macedonian Graphic Literature and Comic Book Culture

Summary/Abstract: In this article we analyze the portrayal of the neighbour and the neighbourhood in the Macedonian graphic stories of the Nikad robom (Never a Slave) comic book edition. It was not only one of the most influential mass and pop culture phenomena in ex-Yugoslavia, but it also participated in the ideological shaping of images and depictions of the neighbour and the neighbourhood as special types of sociopolitical and identity cogitations. The comic book, as a graphic story and a dominant pop culture phenomenon in the 1950s and 1960s, had strong ideological and political power in the processes of legitimizing the dominant social values. Within said processes, we have located several key representations and images of the neighbour in this edition which not only reveal the influence of the political and ideological factors in the shaping of national identities but also participate in the process of (re)creation and consolidation of Macedonian self-awareness as distinct from that of its neighbours. The building of the Macedonian identity, as an articulated story of itself, is largely based on perceptions and representations of and feelings for the neighbour. Hence, we come to the assumption that the portrayal of the neighbour is a type of self-portrait.

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