Lunfardo as an Identitary Element in the Argentine Comic. Fueye by Jorge González

Abstract

At the end of the 19th century, lunfardo was born in Argentina, and mainly in Buenos Aires. This jargon belonged to the lower social groups of Argentinian Spanish. Over time, this new linguistic aspect is consolidated as an identity element thanks to cultural products such as music, theater or literature.

At present, lunfardo continues to be a dynamic jargon that is represented by these artistic forms, such as the case of comics. In this last area we are going to focus this investigation, specifically in Fueye by Jorge González. We will show how the author presents the context where this jargon was born: the conventillo, tango, loneliness, the low social groups and immigrants. In the same way, we will expose how all these social and cultural elements are treated with the aim of unifying the graphic story, the language and the identity context.