Olladas Do Cómic Ibérico ['Perspectives on Iberian Comics']
2008; Berghahn Books; Volume: 1; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1754-3797
Autores Tópico(s)Spanish Culture and Identity
ResumoAntonio Gil Gonzalez and Anxo Tarrio Varela, eds., Olladas do Comic Iberico ['Perspectives on Iberian Comics']. Special issue of Boletin Galego de Literatura ['Galician Bulletin of Literature'] 35, 10 semestre, 2006 (Santiago: Servizio de Publicacions, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 2007) Interest in comics has never been widespread among literature journals.6 It is even more rare for a journal to devote a whole issue to the subject. For this reason alone, the publication of Olladas do Comic Iberico, an issue of the Boletin Galego de Literatura,7 is already remarkable. 'Iberian' is a transnational denomination that includes two countries, Portugal and Spain, and multiple nationalities with distinct traditions and languages, such as the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia.8 It is no surprise that Olladas do Comic Iberico comes from the latter region. Galicia, because of its geographic location and its long and close relationship with Portugal, is the ideal space for an Iberian perspective on comics. The Boletin treats the subject of comics with care, from the format (note the beautiful illustration on the cover and excellent well-subtitled colour reproductions) to its carefully researched articles. The interviews section in Olladas features a conversation with Miguelanxo Prado and Paco Camarasa. Prado is the most important Galician comics author of recent decades and Camarasa is one of the most daring Spanish comics editors. In the 'creative works' section, Olladas presents a small anthology of the new Galician comics, with works by both young and already established authors, such as Xaime Asensi, Manel Craneo, Kiko Dasilva and Jose Carlos Fernandez. The research articles section provides an excellent introduction to comics studies for an academic audience who may not be familiar with the field. This section offers, on the one hand, historical overviews and evaluations of the diverse Iberian comics. On the other hand, it presents examples of some of the academic disciplines (genre, gender, style, socio-history, etc.) on which comics studies can shed some light. In the first group of articles, Olladas presents a 'state of the art' of Galician, Portuguese and Basque comics. German Hermida ('BD 2005: Apuntamentos e direccion' ['BD 2005: Notes and Trajectories']) writes about Galician comics. Iratxe Retolaza ('Breve percorrido pola banda desenada vasca' ['Brief Overview of Basque Comics']) presents a historical overview of comics in Basque language. Marie Manelle Silva and Rui Manheiro ('A banda desenhada portuguesa: autores, temas e tendencias' ['Portuguese Comics: Authors, Subjects and Tendencies']) provide a critical synopsis of the history of Portuguese comics.9 Finally, Henrique Torreiro ('Algunas reflexions en torno a banda desenada na sociedade peninsular actual' ['Reflections Concerning Comics in Today's Iberian Society']) evaluates the current status of Iberian comics. One of the common themes in all of these articles is the crisis10 in Iberian comics and the development of new and clever answers to it. Many of the articles in this journal highlight several trends that are generating new possibilities for Iberian comics: the BD Banda group and the publications around it (Galicia); the popularity of a character such as Xabinator (Basque Country); the persistent work of Jose Carlos Fernandez, author of A Pior Banda do Mundo ['The World's Worst Band']; and journals such as BD Journal (Portugal). All these articles concur in pointing to the current radical transformations in the medium,11 and, therefore, to higher expectations for Iberian comics. Alongside these panoramic studies, Olladas has a number of articles devoted to showing some of the theoretical directions that comics studies can take. In 'A nocion de estilo no comic. Posibilidades para unha revision diacronica das tendencias comicograficas' ['Comics' Notion of Style: Possibilities for a Diachronic Review of Comics' Graphic Tendencies'], Ruben Varillas tries to identify the characteristics of style in comics by analysing examples taken from Iberian and international comics. …
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