Spatial Storytelling in the Transmedial Storyworld of The Walking Dead Franchises
Mirko Lino
(University of L'Aquila)
ORCID: 0000-0002-0082-2886
Translated by Filip Cieślak
(University of Gdansk)
ORCID: 0000-0002-3112-1636
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Zombies are conceivable as cultural artefact that follow and embody the evolution of media narratives. They have migrated from the margins of a media system (the niche of the horror cinema genre) to the center of media convergence practices, which could be summarized in the crossmedia dissemination of its key features and the construction of a transmedia storytelling for its fi ctions. Crossmedia dissemination and transmedia storytelling seem to have become two of the most dominant logical elements of contemporary entertainment; they indicate the power of the narrative to spill over the media boundaries in order to arrange a story through media ubiquity and a network of integrated media. To demonstrate this affi rmation, the following analysis will focus on the transformation both cultural, medial and formal of zombie fi ction, by considering as a case study the infamous comic novel (2003–) and TV serial The Walking Dead (2010–). The analysis will also be carried out into the ways they engage the spectator within a storyworld sustained by different media sharing and working together to consolidate a narrative system via fi ctional and – as we shall see – „real” spatialities.
The sample of Polish version of this article is available here: https://tekstualia.pl/index.php?lang=pl&p=numery&s=genologiatransmedialna&val=&pid=