Melancholia as method : Dylan Dog, the detective of loss

Vrtačič, Eva (author)

An interpretation of Tiziano Sclavi’s comic series Dylan Dog as a sustained melancholic inquiry is provided in the article. Dylan’s melancholic epistemology, a way of knowing grounded in repetition, ambivalence and loss grants him almost metaphysical lucidity. Such an internal condition becomes a melancholic methodology, a hermeneutics of loss that actively resists closure and deduction. The comic’s horror functions as a language of mourning, with monsters embodying the unresolved collective losses and structural failures of late modernity. Dylan’s ethical persistence constitutes a radical practice of political existence in the face of a systemic impasse.

• Language: English
• Keywords: Dylan Dog, melancholic epistemology, melancholic methodology, horror, mourning, comics, dark humor
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 24.04.2026
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 169-180
• Numbering: Letn. 63, št. 1
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-183586
• UDC: 741.52:82-7
• ISSN on article: 2820-591X
• DOI: 10.51936/tip.63.1.169
• COBISS.SI-ID: 277624835
• Publication date in RUL: 15.06.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Teorija in praksa
• Publisher: Fakulteta za družbene vede
• ISSN: 2820-591X
• COBISS.SI-ID: 143157507

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Title: Melanholija kot metoda

Abstract

Članek interpretira Sclavijev strip Dylan Dog v kontekstu melanholičnega preiskovanja. Melanholična epistemologija Dylana Doga, spoznavni način, utemeljen na ponavljanju, ambivalenci in izgubi, mu daje skoraj metafizično lucidnost. Njegovo notranje stanje se uteleša v melanholični metodologiji, hermenevtiki izgube, ki se aktivno upira razrešitvi in dedukciji. V stripu grozljivo deluje kot jezik žalovanja, v katerem pošasti poosebljajo nerazrešene kolektivne izgube in strukturne neuspehe pozne modernosti. Dylanovo etično vztrajanje predstavlja radikalno prakso politične eksistence, ki se zoperstavlja sistemskemu zastoju.

• Keywords: Dylan Dog, melanholična epistemologija, melanholična metodologija, groza, žalovanje, stripi, črni humor