Il segno dei tempi. Fumetto come fonte di storia, fumetto come narrazione della storia

Comics is an audiovisual medium as much as cinema. Between them there is – or there was, until a while ago – a substantial difference: comic books are drawn, films are based on photography. For a long time, this has been the reason why cinema had been wrongly invested of a bigger role as an instrument of historical record. But nowadays things have changed, because the technological divide between the two media is reduced by the convergence dynamics of the digital platforms. In this kind of context, comics reveal all their historical importance, since – restating Marc Ferro – every audiovisual text is History; but also comics narrative function, thus their capability of re-elaborating the social perception of historiographic knowledge, has become more and more pivotal, tying itself to the arrival of new media cultures and innovative linguistic dimensions like the graphic novel.