Parody and Mis-unda-stendings in Comics Art World: Bridging the Gap with New Criteria

The word parody and its many cognates such as appropriation, adaptation, pastiche, travesty, forgery, homage, tribute, swipe, etc., have often been at the centre of fierce debates within the traditional Artworld and various criteria have been proposed for the critical evaluation of visual and literary works. In particular, parody as a dominant practice in postmodern art is a concept that is subject to misunderstandings as to its content and meaning. In Comics Artworld, however, within which recontextualizing practices are very common, often with humorous content, the attempt to describe artists' works and intentions by the criteria applied to other arts, instead of offering analytical and interpretive tools, exacerbates the problem of difficulty of understanding. It is clear that the interpictorial and intertextual or transtextual associations that conclude comics with other arts cannot be judged by the traditional terminology and methodology applied to arts with completely different characteristics. This paper attempts, based on the practices applied to comics, to clarify some of the terms that are often misused and to urge comics scholars to adopt new ones in the direction of securing the autonomy of the genre and a more effective understanding of artists' methods and intentions.