Image by Filipe Alves, from comic Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, by Álvaro Áspera & Filipe Alves, published in Aula Magna #0 magazine (Nov 2008).
Credits
Artist: Filipe Alves
Concept: Álvaro Áspera
Client: Aula Magna
Medium: Mixed
Script
Before leaving home, Angelo opens up a tumbled book, that seemed abandoned on a bookshelf: it's La Boétie's Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, published in Portugal by Antígona. He reads the dedication handwritten inside:
"May the words of old friend La Boétie
someday wake up the god
sleeping inside you.A Big Hug
a."
The handwriting has to be from someone real as well as the signature. Reality and fiction are merged together like in a self-portrait. The date "2015" has to be visible; it's taken from António Câmara's speech at the Pessoa Award ceremony in 2006: "In 2015, Portugal is the more vibrating place for living, studying, and working in the European continent". Each and every detail about this sequence is important and significant, even the publisher's name. Nervertheless, not all details need to be within reader's reach.
Álvaro Áspera, in Discourse on Voluntary Servitude comic script
