Forms and contents. The evolution of both the language and the plots in the Spanish cartoons

Abstract

The following article attempts to put forward the premise for an organized study of the development of the medium of comics in Spain, attending both its formal aspects and its contents. To start with, it establishes the need to impose some kind of logical structuring principle(s) over the intrinsic diachronicity of history, so that a web of genealogical connections can emerge from the otherwise purely empirical enumeration of historical events. Next, the classic distinction between form and content is further articulated into a model which distinguishes substance vs. form in three different planes: content, abstract expression and physical expression. Additionally, the superposition of an increasing multiplicity of visual codes is proposed as the transhistorically essential goal of the formal language (form of the abstract expression) of comics. At last, these theoretical reflections are applied to the conformation of the medium in Spain, with special focus on the first seven decades of its history, insofar as they are considered the fundamental period of its gestation, either formally or thematically.