Contos, sonhos e quadrinhos: analisando as questões de mercado e literatura no romance gráfico Sandman, de Neil Gaiman

Abstract

This research intends to analyze the state of art in which comics are found nowadays, especially the subgenre known as graphic novel, being Sandman by Neil Gaiman our corpus. We shall investigate the role played by Gaiman‟s graphic novel in the changing of roles experienced by comics in general in the last few decades. We will highlight characteristics of the genre, such as the use of images and text together for the development of narratives, and also discuss which aspects make graphic novels different from other comics. It is also important to identify the aspects that helped to legitimate this subgenre as a literary form. In this study, comics are understood as a fruitful space for dialogue with the hypertext theories, as stated by Landow (1997).We believe that graphic novels can be seen as a non-electronic hypertext, using as an example an analysis of a chapter. Sandman is also seen in relation to its position in the literary canon and the parodies of other well established works, according to Linda Hutcheon‟s parody theory (1991).