Notes for an analysis of the relationship between corpority and authority in the field of comics

Abstract

The phenomenon of authorship in the most diverse fields of intellectual, artistic or cultural production is a recurrent subject in theorizations of discourse studies. Although there is a vast bibliography on authorship in the literary field, this reflection in the field of comics is still scarce. Recent studies on authorship in comics suggest that authorship is a discursive phenomenon collectively constructed by agents in the field of comics, through practices and materialities characteristic of this field, in order to promote the notoriety of an author’s name. In recent years, the comic artist Laerte Coutinho, by making her change of gender, without changing her authorial name, has proven to be a challenge for reflections on authorship centered only on the author’s name, without considering the role that corporeality has in the construction of the authorship phenomenon. Thus, returning to this Foucauldian problem, the objective of this work is to make notes on the relationship between corporeality and authoriality in Laerte’s career in the field of comics. This work seeks to formulate the hypothesis that, nowadays, with the prominence of digital media, the participation of the author and peripheral agents in the field of comics is fundamental for the construction of the importance of an authorial name in this field. And, therefore, the physical, corporal and performative presence of the author is imposed, being able to change the form of reception of his work. In the wake of Foucault (2009), this work seeks to inquire what role the body plays in authoriality. This issue brings Foucauldian studies of authorship, gender and transgender issues, corporeity, digital media and mediatization, theory of fields, in particular, the discursive field of comics.Keywords: coauthorship; displacements; fragmentation; female authorship.