Figurative representation of death in the Italian comic book Dylan Dog

Abstract

The canonical representation of death as the Grim Reaper is a well-known trope in art. The main aim of this paper is to analyze this trope as it appears in selected instalments of the Italian comics series Dylan Dog. Fauconnier and Turner have extensively discussed its complexity by describing it in terms of the Blending Theory/Conceptual Theory model. As a complex integration of several mental spaces, including a space with an individual human being dying, and a harvest space, the Grim Reaper blend involves metaphoric and metonymic interactions of non-counterpart elements (Fauconnier & Turner 1998). This model will be used as a starting point in the analysis of the corpus consisting of four separate Dylan Dog stories. In the selected issues, the Grim Reaper appears in both the traditional version: a skeleton-like creature dressed in a monk’s robe and holding a scythe, as well as variants in which its appearance gains new and unusual characteristics. It will be demonstrated how the artists' use of the comics medium, with its combination of written text and static visuals, enables certain creative varieties on the classic trope.