I had no idea what this was about, but I've read some Paco Roca before and thought it was pretty good. I was in for a bit of a surprise with this one...

This book is basically the true story (history?) of how a few well-regarded Spanish comic artists decided to leave their publisher (they wanted authorial rights and more control) to start their own magazine/publisher. Sounds like a good story no? Well, it did not go well (in part because the publisher leaned on distributors and others to cut them out), and they all made their way back to their publisher - tails between their legs - for essentially the same (bad) deal they had before. No happy ending here - the "big guys" won - but, the artists are (still?) well-loved and fondly remembered. This whole story takes place mid-20th century...Spain is ruled over by the dictator Franco (who was the winner of the Spanish civil war) and things are kind of glum - there's government censorship and so on.

I was not familiar with the story. I was also not familiar with the artists - in fact I only knew of one of the characters/comics mentioned (Mortadelo y Filemon) - and they're all considered "classic" Spanish strips/characters... in the US this would be like Beetle Bailey, Popeye, Little Lulu, etc.

Weirdly(?) I really liked this one - even if it felt like I was reading about stuff for an audience "in the know" and I was not "in the know". Here's why:

1. The story is not presented chronologically - it's all jumbled up - my guess is this was to make it interesting for people who already know it didn't not end well? It made it more interesting - because you want to know how things got to where they did rather than know what happened. Each section (moment in time) was colored differently (in terms of palette) with the pages also having a different color. This really helped me understand what was happening when and the choice of color palette also conveyed mood (bright/warm when things were hopeful, colder gray and blue when things went south).

2. Not really knowing anyone made me wonder - why?. I grew up in a spanish-speaking country. Why was this material never exported from Spain to where I grew up? Was it and I just never knew? I enjoyed thinking about these questions... then again, the book reads as "very Spanish" to me in the slang, phrases and terminology they use. I'm guessing this might partly be "historical" (e.g. replicated slang from Spain back in the day) as well as current...so, it also made me realize that Spain is quite different culturally from Chile! (and perhaps even if the strips HAD been exported they would never have succeeded? Lots of what ifs!

3. Not even the "bad guys" are actually bad. There's an editor who's a real hard-ass and you learn that he was always between the frying pan and the fire AND had also given up on his dreams...so, I felt bad for him as well!

4. I had never really thought about what happened to people after the Spanish civil war ended - and in the book it's pretty clear that lots of people were punished professionally. Kicked out of certain jobs or fields...and were just trying to move on and do different things. It was sad - obviously - and it made me wonder what I would do if I were in a similar position. Losing side of a civil war, and then punished professionally...how would I deal with that? What would I do?

Oh, by the way - the title in English would be something like "The Cartoonist's Winter"...