الفهرس 
Webcomics and the Revival of Carnival Humour: A Comparative Study of Islam Gawish and Carlos Latuff
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Abstract
After Arab Spring revolutions, a remarkable move towards digital platforms has become a fact
that can hardly be denied. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate how Facebook, as a digital
space, contributes to creating a virtual carnivalesque atmosphere that transfers resistance from the
borders of the real world to the open and free digital sphere. In this regard, the focus of this research
is to present a reading of the webcomics posted by Brazilian webcartoonist Carlos Latuff and
Egyptian webcartoonist Islam Gawish as manifestations of how their Facebook pages do not only
succeed in creating a public sphere that relatively frees them from the constraints (i.e. space, place,
and censorship) of real world, but it also focuses on the correlation between the new digi-public
sphere—created by webcomics—and the novel trajectories it opens for the production of
alternative discourse that challenges and questions the mainstream discourse of the official system.
Through the lens of Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of carnival, a reading of the webcartoonists’ work
is provided to show how the carnivalesque moment, created by ordinary digital citizens, represents
their collective sense of liberation from the hegemonic atmosphere of official system. This festive
moment leads to the production of new versions of truth that stand vis-à-vis the imposed official
truth. The analysis of webcomics does not only investigate how the two webcartoonists deliver
their meanings through using visual and verbal languages, but it also includes the responses of
their followers to show how they take part in creating the new unofficial truth.