When silence speaks: Visual Rhetoric in Zeca Afonso - Balada do desterro

This article examines the rhetoric of silence in comics as both a discursive strategy and a mode of visual writing, focusing on the graphic novel Zeca Afonso – Balada do Desterro (2023), by Teresa Moure and Maria João Worm. Drawing on theoretical approaches to silence (Block de Behar, Glenn, Picard, among others) and on the framework of visual rhetoric developed by Groupe µ, the study proposes the concept of silenciography as a set of semiotic-rhetorical strategies that inscribe silence into graphic narrative, moving beyond its reduction to the mere absence of words or sound. The article distinguishes between graphic silence and silenciography, and further between isotopic and structural silenciography, in order to account for the multiple ways in which silence organises both page layout and narrative rhythm.