The Visual Co-textualization of Spatio-Joual in the Motel Galactic Series

Résumé

In this article the authors question whether the co-presence of words and pictures specific to the comics medium creates possibilities for the comprehension of regional languages and dialects abroad. They propose to call this phenomenon "visual co-textualization" rather than visual contextualization after the difference which contemporary linguistics makes between the extra-textual environment of a given utterance (context) and its textual or visual surroundings (co-text). They examine in what way the interaction of words and pictures can generate (linguistic) intelligibility and raise the question as to how the intelligibility-generating operations possible in the comics medium can be used as creative narrative devices on a micro and a macro-level. The authors formulate an answer to these questions by analyzing the Motel Galactic trilogy (2011-2013), a series of Quebecois science-fiction comics written primarily in Joual and produced by the creative tandem Francis Desharnais (scenario) and Pierre Bouchard (drawings).