España, Ramón de

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COMICS 
MONTESOL. NEO B POST. QUADERNS CREMA. BARCELONA, 1988 
BARCELONA AND THE COMIC 
RAMON DE E S P A ~ A  J O U R N A L I S T  
1 arcelona, like any city with a his- tory and a life of its own, has been a backdrop for a large number of 
creators, whether painters, writers or film- 
makers. Some of our best living novelists 
(names that come to mind are Manuel 
Vázquez Montalban, Joan Marsé or  
Eduardo Mendoza), have taken things one 
step further by making the city not so much 
the setting for the plot, but a fundamental 
part of the story. A central character. 
The adventures of Pepe Carvalho can7 do 
without the run-down streets of the Red 
Light District or the comforting menus of 
Casa Leopoldo. La dulce Teresa and the so- 
cial-climbing Piioaparte could only have 
spent their last evenings in Barcelona. Only 
in this city could Onofre Bouvila, the great 
village snob, reach the peak of his dreams 
of greatness. 
When it comes to films, Barcelona hasn't 
been so lucky. It seems that the less "res- 
pectable" the medium i s  (assuming there 
are fields of creation that are more worthy 
than others), the less i t  contributes to 
making the ciiy the productls central figure. 
In this respect, it seems logical that Barce- 
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PEREJOAN. PARAL.1EL DE N I T ( W  GRAF) 
lona's presence in comics, a "minor" art if 
ever there was one, has so far been scarce 
and doesn't seem likely to improve. 
We have to remember that it's only in the 
last thirty years or less that comics have 
been considered a proper and adult form 
of expression, an art with which to tell the 
sume stories as in literature or the cinema. 
A lot of people, though, still look on it as 
children's entertainment not really worth 
bothering about. In fact, until the end of h e  
seventies, al1 h e  Catalan comic did was to 
tell more or less exotic adventure stories or 
try to be funny. We have examples of this in 
El Capitán Trueno or Mortadela y Filemón. 
It wasntt until the birth of the North- 
American underground comic that Catalan 
artists, both native and transplanted (a dis- 
tinction of no importance in drawing), not 
only set about busily making up police 
thrillers staged in a Manhattan they had 
never set foot in or intergaladic adventures 
from an improbable future, but also started 
to look around them and tried to reflect the 
real¡?. of what they saw in the comic strip. 
To be honest, this approach, which emer- 
ged from the underground, hasn't yet 
produced a single work of any importan- 
ce. All we have (which isn't actually bad 
at all) are the strip cartoons by a series of 
artists who have chosen the "city of prodi- 
gies" as the stage for their fabulations. 
There are lots of illustrators who, at one 
time or another, have set the action in 
Barcelona. Rather than make an exhaus- 
tive list, I think it would be more worth- 
while to mention the three who have con- 
tributed most to reflecting particular 
atmospheres. 
COMICS 
MAX. EL BESO SECRETO. ED. IA CUPULA. BARCELONA, 1987 
Carlos Giménez. Born in Madrid, he has 
been living in Barcelona for years. He 
presents the city through the eyes of the 
immigrant who has come to earn his 
daily bread. The series Los profesiona- 
les, with its autobiographical tone, por- 
trays a city that is merciless, but unques- 
tionably fun. 
Javier Mariscal. A Valencian, renowned 
for his design of the Olympic mascot, he, 
like Giménez, gives us his "foreign" view 
of the city. Unlike Giménez, in his condi- 
tion as a mental post-Francoist he tends 
more towards fun and games, design and 
beaches. 
Montesol. The pseudonym of Barcelona- 
born Xavier Ballester, today retired in 
the south of France and devoted to 
painting. He was the emblematic chroni- 
cler of the "modern", well-designed 
Barcelona. He produced a large number 
of short strips and two albums with 
scripts by the present author: Fin de se- 
mana and La noche de siempre, modest 
attempts at making the city the central 
character in an album. 
It's said that in the world of comics 
there's everything left to do. Amongst 
everything else that's needed i s  the 
comic stri.p equivplent of The City of 
Prodigies and Ultimas tardes con 
Teresa. For. these to take shape, we 
need writers and illustrators who love 
the medium and can make it compati- 
ble with literature and illustration. We 
also need a public interested in good 
comic strips and capable of seeing 
more in cartoons than iust children's 
entertainment. ¤ 


Barcelona and the comic

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