Comic Representation of the Socio-Political Issues in Pakistan: A cartoon critical study

Author(s) : Tazanfal Tehseem & Zahra Bokhari

Abstract:

This paper aims at exploring the perspective which conveys a specific political point of view concerning the socio-political issues in Pakistan. The paper primarily focuses on the transcription of the comic-cartoons by Kachee Goliyan. The research builds firstly on, to find out how ideologies are encoded overtly in comics and secondly, to analyse the way the comic-cartoons resonate with the opinion and sentiments of both artists and the readership. In this era of virtual communication, the importance of social-media cannot be denied which encodes both explicitly or implicitly rich semantic, pragmatic and most importantly, ideological flow to nullify the public opinion. The findings show that comic imagery found either online or in the print media such as images, highlight and engage socio-political issues to arouse satirical consciousness of the readers. In addition, portrayal of the intriguing glimpses of culture concerned helps the readers or viewers contribute to increased understanding in the world of manipulation and in cultures at large.

Keywords: Comics, satire, humour, ideology, and social media