(photograph - Blog De Comics)

Until the 6th of May, the Sala El Águila exhibition hall in Madrid, Spain, is putting on an exhibition about the legendary Moro studios.  Dubbed The Announcement of Modernity, the show illustrates the groundbraking genius of Jose Luis Moro who from the 1940′s until the 1970′s, together with his brother Santiago, pioneered modern animation in Spain, and for that reason often is dubbed the Spanish Disney.

Most of Moro’s output was within the field of advertising, and it’s no suprise that the large part of the exhibition is dedicated to the numerous innovative animated ads that the Studios put out during the 50′s and 60′s.  They were not only very productive (at one point the studios had three hundred employees and produced hundreds of ads per month), but also very succesful creatively.  In five years the studios won three Golden Palms in Cannes, awards in Venice and in total over a hundred advertising awards in international festivals.

La Familia Telerín

For most Spanish viewers, the Moro studios will however forever be linked to the television series La Familia Telerín, which featured stories by Santiago and quite groundbreaking designs by Jose Luis.  The success of this series in Spain and in many Spanish-speaking countries, would introduce Spain to the abundant merchandising and marketing that is so typical for animation project these days.

The announcement of Modernity, in the Sala (C / Ramirez de Prado, 3 – 28045 Madrid), until May 6th.  More info here.

Cartoonist Alex Robinson (his self-portraits get more self-depricating every time) is one of the guests of honor at this years ComiCS festival in Castellón de la Plana, together with Catalan surrealist wizard Max and topical cartoonist Manuel Fontdevila.  The festival, which runs from March 28th until April 1st, also features exhibitions on the South-African Bitterkomix antology, Catalan cartoonists Calo and Ruben Fernandez (who also does an illustrated concert), and a special show of original work by Catalan cazrtoonist Rubén Lardin that appeared in various American publications.

A side show on animated films features a showing of the celebrated feature Arrugas (Wrinkles), which we wrote about before.

A detailed programme for the event can be found on the ComiCS blog.

Spanish illustrator and cartoonist FH Navarro is creator Sushi Online magazine and of the beautiful Dos Hojas, which I described as “one of the most poetic and thoughtful little comics I’ve read lately” – see my review here.  He has started a new webcomic, Zoe.  This time, “I don’t speak Spanish” is no excuse for checking it out, since Navarro also faithfully publishes an English-language version of every page as they come out.

It’s still a bit early to tell what it’s all about, but it features the moon, vampires and victorian explorers, so there’s not a lot that could go wrong!

This way of appealing to a larger audience by providing English versions of your webcomic is starting to be the new thing, it would seem. Israeli cartoonist Asaf Hanuka has been doing this with his The Realist for a while now, and Amir and Khalil’s Zahra’s Paradise was even published in no less than thirteen languages.

At the Expocomic festival in Madrid, Spain, the winners of the 2011 awards were announced last week.   The lifetime achievement award went to Esteban Maroto, who is probably best known for his work for various Warren Publications magazines, such as Eerie, Creepy and Vampirella.  He is also credited with the design of Red Sonja’s famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view regarding the depiction of scantily clad buxom female warriors) metal bikini  in Savage Tales #3.

The award for best Spanish book and for the best Spanish creator went to El Invierno del Dibujante (The Winter of the Draftsman),by Paco Roca, which chronicles the early days of the comics industry in Spain.  Best new talent is Carlos Pacheco for his work on Ultimate Thor, while Nemesis by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven gets the award for best international work. Revelation of the year is Montse Martin for Curiosity Shop. And finally, the best online comic in Spain is the humorous fantasy comic, El Vosque – which is also available to read online in an English language edition as well as the original Spanish, so go and have a look.

(via La Cárcel de Papel)

As I explained yesterday, all this week we’ll be previewing Sean Duffield’s War: The Human Cost.

Today it’s a hard-hitting work by Underground Comix legend Spain giving a historical and global view on Faith-Based Terrorism.

Faith Based Terrorism

By Spain Rodriguez

You can (and you should) buy War: The Human Cost from Sean Duffield at the Paper Tiger Comics webstore. £1 from the price of each book goes to Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT).

But more importantly than this donation, the book may well stir you to action, to find out more. Change is possible. War: The Human Cost shows us the way.

(Spanish language version of Spanish Revolution by Pepo Pérez and Santiago García)

Since the protestors were not there to campaign for either of the two main political parties I’m not sure the law covers the protest and frankly find it rather disturbing that such a law even exists in a democratic country. In the event the protestors ignored the authorities and the police chose not to enforce the law in this case – go people power. I don’t know how much of an impact the protest had on the Spanish political landscape, but kudos to them for standing up and expressing themselves to the politicians, especially when someone in authority thinks they can tell people that they cannot protest – given Spain had to struggle to get that democracy back after the dictator Franco’s period I’d guess it is an especially sensitive subject there. Alberto Garcia Marcos drops us a line to let us know that the country’s cartoonists were, of course, involved: Pepo Pérez and Santiago García created this comic strip, Spanish Revolution and to so they could share their concerns with people outside Spain (many of whom are undergoing similar woes) they also created an English language version.

More on this on the BBC News site here and here.

La BD à Bilbao : rencontre avec les Editions Astiberri from Bilbao Kultur Lab on Vimeo.

Graphic concerts, a sort of multimedia performance with cartoonists or other graphic artists sharing the stage with musicians, have become a bit of a mainstay at comics festivals.  At the 2011 edition of the Festival BD Pyrénées, which is appropriately held in the mountain range that separates France from Spain, a new twist was given to that formula, with draw-offs between two cartoonists.  The “fights”, which took place in a real boxing ring, had a particular ring to them, as each of them was between a French and a Spanish artist.  Most of them are predominantly well-known in their own countries, but for English-speaking comics lovers, the draw-off between Guarnido and Vuillemin (above, resp. known for their work on Blacksad in Hara Kiri, above) is pretty entertaining.  Other confrontations included Bruno Loth vs. Paco Roca(below), Jordi Lafebre vs Wouzit, TEBO vs. Munuera, David Rubín vs. Flao, and Vuillemin (again) vs. Munuera.

(via La Carcel De Papel)

The book, which was given nearly every graphic novel and comic award going in its native Spain (including the prestigious Premio Nacional del Comic) tells the story of  a former bank employee who is forced to move to a hospice for elderly people who suffer from dementia.  He tries to keep his head up, but feels himself slipping away further and further.  The dreadful fear that he will end up on the top floor, where the most desperate “cases” are housed, fills his life, and in the mean time he reminisces about how things got this far, and about what the meaning was and is of his life.

(cover art to Arrugas by and (c) Paco Roca, published Astiberri)

Paco Roca uses a very recognisable artistic style, which can be situated somewhere between the classical ligne claire, and your typical modern alternative comic.  His colouring is very expressive, and plays an important part in brining across the tone of the narrative, even if you don’t happen to read the language that it’s written in.  Indeed, I need to admit something.  I have not read this book myself, but people that I trust have given it high praise.  I guess I’ll have to hunt for the French version, but maybe some British or American publisher is interested in bringing out an English version, just in time for the movie ?

(based on reporting at Stripgids and Smith Orbit)