The magazine Krokodil as a space of the Soviet comic strip in the 1940s

Abstract

The article is devoted to the history of Soviet comics in the 1940s through the example of the Krokodil magazine. The first part discusses stereotypes about the history of comics in the USSR, analyses the concept of the comic strip as the main form of comics in the Soviet period, and considers the use of Media studies as a framework. The purpose of the article is to examine the work of Krokodil as a space for the development of the Soviet comic strip, through R. Duncan’s and M. J. Smith’s communication model of the comic book. The second part explores the process of work of the magazine’s artists, the censorship by various gatekeepers’ actors, the typical features of the visual language of the Soviet comic strip, the distribution and perception of comic strips and the magazine itself. It is especially noted that the distinction between caricature and comic strip is not typical for the 1940s, and it will emerge only by the 1960s. The article also provides a parsing of a corpus of diaries from the 1940s, in which memories of Krokodil are highlighted. The hypothesis of H. Alaniz about the special role of comics during the Great Patriotic War is verified and questioned.