a) Comic books that depersonalize historical narratives about the Brazilian Military Dictatorship (didactic transposition)

This type of comic books that depersonalize historical narratives from didactic transposition is characterized by the devaluation of subjects who act historically, since they are framed or didatized by means of an anonymous and generalizing narrative¹³. In general, these narratives appear in the form of didactic materials or as works of historical dissemination of didactic character.

Among the didactic comic books produced in the context of the Brazilian military dictatorship is the didactic textbook of Julierme, Colonnese and Zalla (1970), organized as a historical graphic narrative. This didactic manual had a conception of history teaching linked to the practice of memorizing and retaining specific historical information from a traditional and generic narrative. This conception of objective teaching was related to the understanding of history as a traditional objective knowledge (^{WALSH, 1978}).

SOURCE: ^{CASTRO, COLONNESE & ZALLA, 1970}, p. 167.

FIGURE 14 THE URBAN GUERRILLA AND THE KIDNAPPING OF THE US AMBASSADOR 

The didactic depersonalization is visible in Figure 14 on the chapter titled Governos Kubitschek a Garrastazu [Médici Governments Kubitschek to Garrastazu Médici] in the textbook História do Brasil: História para a Escola Moderna [History of Brazil: History for the Modern School]. In spite of the daring to present the theme of dictatorship and resistance actions in a textbook published during the Military Dictatorship, the described action of the urban guerrilla movements of Brazil (called by the author in the last legend of “terrorists”), the kidnapping of the American ambassador, is didactised in a poorly contextualized way, as it does not explain historically why these subjects kidnapped foreign ambassadors in exchange for the release of political prisoners.

It is noticeable how the aesthetic elements of a historical graphic narrative can, through the image, potentialize the potential development of historical learning, but at the same time, the limitation of the aesthetic characteristics of the text can oppose and mitigate the imaginative power of the images. The narrative forms in which the burden of history presents itself in these historical comic books are between the history of the victors and the loss and forgetfulness of the defeated tied to the cynicism of power, for it incorporates the official narrative of the regime that called the military coup of 1964 the “movement of 1964”, and a hidden and subaltern history of defeated turned to the hope of a historical remembrance in addressing the kidnapping of the American ambassador (^{BORRIES, 2016}).

There is, in this comic book, a contradiction in the structures of feeling of Brazil of the 1970s between the dominant social character of society at the time, a largely official and authoritarian perspective linked to the indication of Institutional Act No. 5 and the larger image of Emílio Garratazu Médici, and the social character of an alternative structure of feeling mobilized by the information of the American ambassador’s kidnapping. The alternative character lies in the aesthetic dimension presented by the confrontation of the prominent image of the ambassador and the information that the “terrorist” guerrillas achieved what they wanted: the liberation of political prisoners. An implicit embryonic structure of feeling concerning “radical human dissent” (^{WILLIAMS, 2003}, p.74) is even implicit here, even though the prevailing narrative of this artifact of historical culture is traditional, and therefore not reconciliatory.

There are comic books about the Brazilian Military Dictatorship that are characterized by historical dissemination with didactic pretentions. I put it in the category linked to didactic transposition because in the chapter Começa a Ditadura [Beginning the Dictatorship] of the historical graphic narrative O golpe de 64 [The coup of 64], ^{Oscar Pilagallo and Rafael Rocha (2014}) depersonalize the historical subjects in favor of a great fragmented and desincretized narrative.

SOURCE: ^{PIGAGALLO & ROCHA, 2014}, p.108.

FIGURE 15 MILITARY REPRESSION AND URBAN GUERRILLA 

The images of the pictures in Figure 15 do not present a history of the subjects in action, but the subjects’ actions are represented in a determinist history based on inexorable causes and consequences, but, as presented in the squares, disconnected.

SOURCE: ^{PILAGALLO & ROCHA, 2014}, p.109.

FIGURE 16 THE MURDER OF CARLOS LAMARCA 

The aesthetics used to narrate these two pages (Figures 15 and 16) either through torture, the action of urban guerrilla groups, or by the canonical presentation of the image of the murdered Carlos Lamarca is accompanied by historical relativization by presenting the victory of the Brazilian Selection team at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico. A spectacularisation of the historical narrative is made evident by the explicitness of the culture of the spectacle’s violence, which is expressed by a narrative form based on hostile histories in a model of revenge (^{BORRIES, 2016}). This narrative form of hostile history directed toward revenge expresses a structure of feeling linked to a memory of suffering based on the brutality of the repression of the Brazilian authoritarian state. It is also reinforced by the use of the aesthetic strategies peculiar to the horror comic books of the 1970s. This aesthetic spectacle of state violence represented in disjointed and terrifying images of the suffering of its victims weakens the denunciatory content that this graphic narrative was intended to convey.

I now seek to invent ways of telling difficult histories that find strategies of historical reconciliation in comic books that dialogue with the possibility of revealing structures of feeling that are based on a radical human dissidence based on the new humanism defended by Jörn Rüsen.

b) Comic books that personalize the historical narratives about the Brazilian Military Dictatorship (historical sense-generation)

This type of comic book that personalizes historical narratives is characterized by the humanization of the subjects who act historically for a narrative that gives sense of temporal orientation to history. This sense of temporal orientation is based on historical formation related to representations of meaningful continuity (historical interpretations), to criate perspectives of action for the future from the historical narrative (^{RÜSEN, 2014}).

In this sense, historical formation, as a praxis, is organized in the objective of realization of existence in the social struggle, in the defense of the very convictions that determine subjectivity and the relationship with other subjects and with nature. These convictions must be weighed by structured argumentation for the validity of historical narratives, thus allowing the expression of an emancipatory formative sense (^{RÜSEN, 2007}). The historical sense-generation present in certain comic books expresses a structure of feeling linked to a radical human dissidence (^{WILLIAMS, 2003}). In this inventory I found that this type of historical graphic narrative is artifacts of historical culture that dialogue with (self) biographies.

A biographycal comic book that approaches the context of the Brazilian Military Dictatorship in the light of the history of the musical movement called Clube da Esquina is evidence of the existence of alternative structures of feeling aimed at a historical sense-generation. In the work Histórias do Clube da Esquina [Histories of the Clube da Esquina], the artists Laudo ^{Ferreira and Osmar Viñole (2011}) present how the relation with the musicians in the confrontation of the censorship was given.

SOURCE: ^{FERREIRA & VIÑOLE, 2011}, p. 39.

FIGURE 17 THE CENSORSHIP OF THE ALBUM “MILAGRE DOS PEIXES” 

Figure 17 presents Márcio Borges narrating the censorship on the song “Hoje é dia de El Rey” [“Today is the day of El Rey”] of the album “Milagre dos Peixes” [“Miracle of the Fishes”] produced in 1973 whose censured lyrics was composed by Milton Nascimento and Márcio Borges. The composer recounts that Milton Nascimento was summoned to attend the DOPS (Department of Political and Social Order) to provide “clarifications”. As a result, instead of abandoning the song, Milton Nascimento writes it without lyrics as an act of resistance.

SOURCE: ^{FERREIRA & VIÑOLE, 2011}, p. 40.

FIGURE 18 THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE MUSICAL WORK INTO RESISTANCE 

Márcio Borges narrates that, from the resistance to censorship, the process of the album construction was transformed, since great artists began to participate in the recording of the same one, causing “Milagres dos Peixes” to become one of the musical masterpieces of the Brazilian culture. This brief narrative has a genetic character because it presents a conception of historical sense-generation based on the transformation (^{RÜSEN, 2007}): from the fear produced by censorship to dissident freedom to create a work that expresses a structure of feeling linked to the universal historical meaning of the union of the human being with nature and its history. It is part of a way of narrating a difficult history where historical subjects narrate a hidden history that looks for a historical remembrance about the memory of the censorship for a strategy of historical reconciliation (^{BORRIES, 2016}) with the Brazilian society and its past. This is presented in the pictures of the Figure 18 that mobilizes the images of the Afro-Brazilian singer Clementina de Jesus singing “Escravos de Jó” or the Afro-Brazilian musician Naná Vasconcelos who introduced the African rhythms and sonorities in the compositions of Milton Nascimento. Here, the aesthetic dimension of Brazilian historical culture expresses an alternative and humanistic structure of feeling (^{WILLIAMS, 2003}).

Another example of comic books with historical characters about the Brazilian military dictatorship through (self)biographies is present in the comic book with historiographical narrative Herói de Guerra [War Hero] in the graphic novel Notas de um tempo silenciado [Notes of a Silenced Time], by Robson ^{Vilalba (2015}). In it is narrated the biography of an Afro-Brazilian guerrilla leader, Osvaldo Orlando da Costa, nicknamed Osvaldão, who fought in the Araguaia Guerrilla, the most violent of battles against the Armed Forces during the military dictatorship. He was a well-integrated guerrilla with the peasant communities of the region of Araguaia as depicted in Figure 19 through the images of the comic book.

SOURCE: ^{VILALBA, 2015}, p. 45.

FIGURE 19 OSVALDÃO, THE UNBREAKABLE: A BLACK GUERRILLA OF ARAGUAIA 

Due to the integration with the working peasant community, many legends revolved around the struggles of Osvaldão against the Brazilian army expeditions. Surviving two highly-equipped military expeditions, the local population claimed that this character was unbreakable (bullets did not hit him). According to existing documentation, the military only murdered him on a third expedition. However, even so, many local peasants report to this day that he has become a bird and flew (Figure 20).

SOURCE: ^{VILALBA, 2015}, p. 49.

FIGURE 20 OSVALDÃO, THE UNBREAKABLE: A BLACK GUERRILLA OF ARAGUAIA 

This historiographical narrative of a black guerrilla, even based on abundant written and oral documentation, is also a hidden history that seeks a hope of remembrance and is based on a memory of heroism, which guarantees the diversity of counter-hegemonic traditions, but does not reach a historical reconciliation with the past (^{BORRIES, 2016}, pp. 32-38). This is because even today the rural guerrilla of Araguaia, as well as the guerrilla of the Ribeira Valley, is a taboo for Brazilian historiography and even more for military historiography. However, the comic book is imbued with an alternative structure of feeling, because it tells a communion of values of mutual solidarity and cooperation that this guerrilla had with the peasant working class of Brazil.

In this inventory, a relevant self biographical comic book about the Brazilian Military Dictatorship is “1968: Ditadura Abaixo” [“1968: Dictatorship Below”], by Teresa ^{Urban and Guilherme Caldas (2008}). In this historical graphic narrative is perceptible the presence of an alternative and dissident structure of feelings in relation to the authoritarian social character of the dictatorial regime in the state of Paraná. This comic book tells the history of resistance of the students of the Federal University of Paraná against state violence. The authors use fictitious names to preserve the identity of historical subjects, since the issue of the violence of the dictatorship also showed contradictory repercussions in the Paraná and Brazilian society in 2008.

SOURCE: ^{URBAN & CALDAS, 2008}, p. 128.

FIGURE 21 STUDENT RESISTANCE IN PARANÁ 

Figure 21 depicts a moment of historical remembrance of student resistance in 1968 through a historical source, a report in the newspaper Tribuna do Paraná, and the images of comic books of the moment students threw marbles on the horses of the repressive police dictatorship. The aesthetic dimension presented in this artifact of historical culture mobilizes the political dimension of dissent present in the memory of subjects who were students in the dictatorial period. Here there also is a way of narrating based on a hidden history of the vanquished who seek a historical remembrance through the heroic construction of resistance (^{BORRIES, 2016}). This narrative expresses a structure of feeling based in a radical human dissidence (^{WILLIAMS, 2003}) of solidarity and resistance against the authoritarian policies of the state that prevailed in great part of the Paraná student movement even after the regime of exception.

SOURCE: ^{URBAN & CALDAS, 2008}, p. 129.

FIGURE 22 STUDENT RESISTANCE IN PARANÁ 

However, Figure 22 also reveals the authoritarian and dehumanizing social character of military repression by recounting the violence that police officers used to arrest and demobilize students. Here it is shown a way of narrating that does not hide a hostile history marked by the revenge model (^{BORRIES, 2016}), typical of the dictatorial state in Brazil in 1968.

In the course of this inventory I found a historical graphic narrative that presents a perspective of historical reconciliation with the past. By presenting historical characters who faced and suffered the Brazilian Military Dictatorship, the narrative is a didactic dissemination of the struggle for reparations of the injustices committed in the period. Composed by the students of the Federal Fluminense University, Joana D'Arc Fernandes ^{Ferraz, Elaine de Almeida Bortone and Diana Helene (2012}), the self biographical comic book history named Brasil: ditadura militar: um livro para os que nasceram bem depois... [Brazil: military dictatorship: a book for those born beyond...] is a remembrance which expresses a structure of feelings that seeks to reconcile the suffering of loss during the state of exception.

One of the authors, in narrating the moment of childhood when she asked her mother where her father was (Figure 23), presents in the pictures her mother telling the history of struggles against the dictatorship. It recalls the various moments in which she and her husband fought against the constituted powers.

SOURCE: ^{FERRAZ, BORTONE & HELENE, 2012}, p. 4.

FIGURE 23 THE GIRL ASKS THE MOTHER WHERE HER FATHER IS 

One of the most striking moments was when his father and his mother were linked to the guerrilla movements of resistance to the dictatorship (Figura 24), because they opted for armed struggle instead of peaceful forms of resistance. It was at this point in the struggle that his father disappeared during a violent process of military repression.

SOURCE: ^{FERRAZ, BORTONE & HELENE, 2012}, p. 19.

FIGURE 24 THE ARMED STRUGGLE BY THE GUERRILLA MOVEMENTS 

As a form of resistance, as shown in Figure 25, the daughter who tells the history of her mother represents herself struggling in favor of the law of the disappeared politicians whose objective is to recover information about the people murdered by the Brazilian military dictatorship.

SOURCE: ^{FERRAZ, BORTONE & HELENE, 2012}, p. 22.

FIGURE 25 DRAFT LAW ON POLITIC DISAPPEARED (LAW 111/1991) 

This is, therefore, a historical narrative that pursues the first steps and the intermediate steps of a historical reconciliation with the past of violence and suffering (^{BORRIES, 2016}). This is because it seeks to abolish historical falsifications and tendentious myths constructed by both the left and the right-wing bias when it remembers the period of exception. The narrative seeks a distance from the past, but not its forgetfulness. But the intermediate steps have also been taken, since this (self) biographical narrative seeks a direction in relation to the others in the search for a united walk in the fight so that all those who suffered with the loss of relatives and friends in the dictatorship had the right to know what happened in that still disappeared past¹⁴. This historical graphic narrative expresses a structure of feeling of radical human dissidence (^{WILLIAMS, 2003}) by means of a search of the historical sense-generation conditions for a common future among Brazilians.