Detail from Clara-Tanit Arqué’s ‘Let’s Move to the Country! You Said’
Seattle-based comics publisher Fantagraphics just released an anthology called Spanish Fever: Stories by the New Spanish Cartoonists, documenting the new wave of Spanish graphic novelists taking the medium by storm.
To promote the book, editor Santiago Garcia is bringing a small team of creators from the compilation on a week long tour of the U.S. to introduce the work to new readers. They touch down in the District tomorrow night, stopping at the Former Residence of the Ambassadors of Spain for a public talk moderated by José Villarrubia, director of the Sequential Art Concentration at the Maryland Institute of Art.
Villarrubia, himself a renowned talent in the comics industry for his work as a colorist for DC and Marvel, sees this recent explosion as par for the course for the proliferation of Spanish talent in graphic novels.
“Spain has produced a lot of painters and really great illustrators,” Villarubia said. “There’s always been a surplus of creative talent that have had to find another market to find work, as many have in comics, for publishers in America and France.”
Villarrubia’s involvement in the tour is twofold. “The purpose of the talk really is for me to introduce them to American audiences. One talk at the Former Residence of the Ambassadors of Spain is going to introduce them to an international, but mostly American, audience. The next day they come to my school and that’s going to be for the students.” (Villarrubia is also a professor in the Illustration Department.)
Following these dates, there will be a panel moderated by cartoonist Matt Madden at the Small Press Expo on Saturday, in Bethesda. Convention goers already interested in non traditional forms of comic storytelling will get the opportunity to be acquainted with these international voices.
“This exhibition fits very nicely with the mission of SPX,” Villarrubia said. “Which is to promote and to teach the public about artists who make sequential art and comics with styles and content different than what is normally expected of them.”
According to Villarrubia, the comics industry in Spain is not so different from the current state of American independent comics, where non-genre storytelling and personal expression reign supreme. When a work is exceptional enough, it can transcend the world of sequential art.
“Sometimes it has a big, big impact. There was a graphic novel called Wrinkles by Paco Roca that was adapted into an animated film and the film did very, very well. A lot of people saw it that don’t read comics. Similar to what happened with Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis.” Roca is among those featured in Spanish Fever.
Asked if there was some stylistic through-line that characterized this new movement, Villarubia said, “I see the influence of American independent comics, the underground, the influence of French comics, Japanese comics. In terms of the art, the aesthetics are influenced by what everyone else all over the world is being influenced by. I think more and more people are reading comics online and have access to materials from many different traditions. This work is informed by that. The five creators who are coming are a really great sampling of that, with different styles and age and gender.”
Editor Garcia will be joined by David Rubin, Javier Olivares, José Domingo, and Ana Galvañ, but the beauty of the anthology is in the sheer breadth of talent on display. Now that the book is out, stateside audiences have the opportunity to get acquainted with this new talent firsthand.
Authors in Conversation takes place on Thursday, September 15 at 6:30 p.m. at the Former Residence of the Ambassadors of Spain, 2801 16th St NW. Moderated by José Villarrubia, Chair of the Illustration Department of the Maryland Institute College Art of in Baltimore. An Authors Talk moderated by Matt Madden takes place Saturday, September 17 at 1 p.m. at SPX 2016 at the Marriott Bethesda North Hotel & Conference Center, 5701 Marinelli Rd., North Bethesda, MD
