Anthropomorphic characters in comics and the case of Türkiye

Anthropomorphism (human formalism) has been a phenomenon in the field of art since the beginning of human history. Anthropomorphic characters have existed throughout human history in many cultures, in areas ranging from religion to philosophy, from literature to visual arts. This research includes the comparison of the representations of anthropomorphism in comics media with successful examples in the world and analyzing the character examples in comics produced in Turkey by using characters created with anthropomorphism based on animal, plant, object, divine, and conceptual anthropomorphism, which are sub-types of anthropomorphism. The findings of the study show that the representation of anthropomorphism in comics media in Turkey is largely limited to cartoon (humor) magazines and educational magazines for children. In the last part of the study, successful examples of comics using anthropomorphic characters in Turkey are evaluated through the 4 forms put forward by DiSalvo, Forlizzi, and Gemperle, and in the light of the data obtained, a comic book example with anthropomorphic characters is created for Turkey, and an animation application using the cut-out animation technique is created by using the scenes of the produced comic book. In this process, comic book production stages such as story creation and scriptwriting, page layout and panel planning, character and environment design, sketch drawing, digital inking (clean-up), and adding text have been applied.