Abstract

RONCALLO-DOW, Sergio; AGUILAR-RODRIGUEZ, Daniel  and  URIBE-JONGBLOED, Enrique. Dystopian Bogotá: comics about a city in chaos. Co-herencia [online]. 2019, vol.16, n.30, pp.27-56. ISSN 1794-5887.  https://doi.org/10.17230/co-herencia.16.30.2.

This paper explores the narrative and visual resources used in Colombian comics, from 1992 to the present day, in order to describe dystopian representations of Bogotá city. Dystopia is generally understood as a negative view for humanity either of a possible future or an alternative present. These fictions are classified here as dystopias about a technological failure, dystopias about a symbolic/physical coercion, apocalyptic dystopias about zombies/infected individuals and apocalyptic dystopias about supernatural/non-human events. For this research study, printed publications available since 1992 (130 items) were collected. Out of these fictions, those that were set in or made reference to the city of Bogotá were selected. Of the 45 comics that met this criterion, 28 were identified and analyzed that contained a dystopian setting. One of the major findings was that violence and conflict, both symbolic and physical, are constant in the different dystopic settings identified in the study sample, which reflects and projects the historical violence experienced in Colombia.

Keywords : Dystopia; Colombian comics; Bogotá; graphic novel; graphic art; violence.

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