The Crow: the shadows of expressionism as an atmosphere of fear

Abstract

It intends to analyze the comic book The Crow, published by Diário Macabro, with script and illustrations by Leander Moura. The famous poem by Edgar Allan Poe deals with the mysterious visit of a talking crow to a man who mourns the loss of his beloved and gradually goes mad. The adaptation for comics is depicted in a melancholic, disturbing setting, highlighted in black and white, inspired by the atmosphere of expressionism, resulting in a frightening cadence of images, covered in nuances and shadows. The comic allows the questioning of how Poe's horror and mystery stories, which often explore themes such as death, insanity, and guilt, can be analyzed as a metaphor for the language of expressionist cinema. How the adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's work and the contrast in chiaroscuro make the atmosphere conducive to feelings of fear on the part of the reader is addressed. In order to achieve the desired critical analysis, the theoretical framework of Sigmund Freud, Linda Hutcheon and Marcel Martin are used.