Echoes of signs

reverberations of the semiotics of Eco and Peirce in comics

Abstract

There is a co-creative bias in interpretation: the sign grows in interaction with whoever interprets it. In Umberto Eco's studies, the interpretative freedom of the reader feeds the definition of a model reader, a fruitful agent who actively cooperates to complete the ellipses of the aesthetic message. In addition to creatively filling in the gaps in the text, the model reader analyzes the work in current social, cultural and historical conditions. Given the dialogues that Eco establishes with Peirce, the article proposes to highlight this relationship within the context of comics. Eco recognizes the importance of semiotic studies of works of art and presents a triadic analysis based on code, text and reader. We aim to list similarities between the authors and apply this knowledge to the production of a comics page, focusing on the Peircean concept of abduction. The structure of the resulting comics will guide the construction of multiple imaginative hypotheses.