The Semiotics of Sequential Visual Art in Asterix and Cleopatra

Abstract

The structure of sequential visual art allows written text and visual images to converge at a common space devoid of polarizations. The distribution of symbols and patterns in the practice of comic art systematically results in a novel language that is flexible enough to hold diverse themes relatable across age groups. The marginalization of comics in both branches of literature and art allows diverse thematic expressions otherwise difficult to represent through traditional tools of expressions. Arthur Danto in his book The Transfiguration of Common Place (1981) expresses how paintings have the potential to go beyond the contemplation of merely the aesthetic qualities to an externalization of an artist's consciousness. The following research presents comic art as a spatial deviation from the traditional mediums of storytelling to a more easily accessible yet sophisticated body of work by decoding and analyzing the structure of the unique language of sequential visual art portrayed in Albert Uderzo and René Goscinny's Asterix and Cleopatra (1982).