Prove tecniche di risignificazione. La semantica dell’antirazzismo nei fumetti di Sergio Bonelli Editore (2007-2016)

This paper investigates the codes of anti-racist mobilisation in the context of Italian popular culture in the early 21st century. In doing so, it analyses several adventure comics book series published by Sergio Bonelli Editore between 2007 and 2016. After an overview of the scholarship on the pre-2007 political and social turning points, the author contextualises the shift towards an anti-racist narrative in Bonelli comics in the period 2007-2016 within the decades-long experience of the publishing house. Once the nature and extent of this change has been determined, the analysis focuses on two relevant case studies: Gianfranco Manfredi’s “Adam Wild” (2014-2016) and Bruno Enna’s “Saguaro” (2012-2015). Indeed, in both comics book series, the anti-racist discourse is produced through the interaction between old narrative structures and new roles and characters. Thus, the analysis will reveal ambiguous relationship that links contemporary anti-racist discourses to older and more conservative narrative structures.