Representing and Performing Pilgrimage in a Comic Book: On the Camino

• Main Author: Lucrezia Lopez
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Technological University Dublin 2020-01-01
• Series: International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage
• Subjects: graphic novel; creative narratives; pilgrimage; Camino de Santiago
• Online Access: https://arrow.tudublin.ie/ijrtp/vol8/iss5/4

Over the last few decades, comic books and graphic novels have become valid literary sources within the humanities and social sciences. This paper addresses a new creative and performative artistic expression of the European pilgrimage route the Camino de Santiago in Spain through examining the autobiographical graphic novel On the Camino, written by the Norwegian cartoonist Jason (2017), which introduces a new way of sharing pilgrimage experiences through combining pictorial and literary devices. Here, the focus is on the dynamic paradigm that arises beyond the ‘fixed sequential images’ in the graphic novel and the role of readers in the spatial meaning-making-process. This creative mode of production regarding pilgrimage along the Camino, suggests that comic books and graphic novels can be a valid source of understanding and portraying pilgrimage experiences.