Diarismo e giornalismo nella serie animata Rebibbia Quarantine di Zerocalcare

The essay examines Rebibbia Quarantine, a series of animated shorts released by renowned Italian comic artist Zerocalcare (Michele Rech) both on his social network channels and via television broadcast in the Spring of 2020. The series chronicles the consequences of the lockdown on the author himself and the people of his neighborhood, Rebibbia (a suburban district of Rome). While these shorts are comedic in tone, I argue they can actually be considered as an example of 'graphic journalism', albeit combined with a semi-autobiographical, diaristic narrative. This paper engages in a close reading of Zerocalcare's pandemic-related shorts, exploring their peculiarities as regards to content, style and format, and underlining their importance in the Italian media covering of the Covid-19 crisis.