20 new Catalan comics to give as gifts this Christmas

BarcelonaCatalan continues to make inroads in comic book publishers' catalogs, with a diversity of genres and styles that seemed unimaginable a decade ago. Graphic novels, non-fiction, children's comics, graphic experiments, and literary adaptations represent a varied offering with options for all ages.

In 2020, Pep Brocal won first edition of the ARA Non-Fiction Comic Award with a short comic strip about Caridad del Río, a fascinating character who spans the history of the 20th century. Five years later, the Terrassa-born cartoonist expands that comic strip into a graphic novel that delves into the chiaroscuro, contradictions, and half-truths of the mother of Trotsky's assassin, an unreliable narrator of his life.

Finally, the most unique work by the most important living author in international comics is published in Catalan. The Book of GenesisRobert Crumb faithfully adapts the sacred text of Christianity without sacrificing the power and rawness of his characteristic black and white artwork. The father of underground comics neither parodies nor ridicules the biblical passages; rather, he offers a human interpretation that reveals the strength of this foundational text of Western culture.

An ideal comic for beginning readers and for parents who want to read and laugh with their children. Scott Campbell imagines a world of little men who carry all sorts of things on their heads: a tree, a cabin, a stone wall, a swimming pool where parties are held... The humor of this almost surreal premise gains momentum as the characters interact in increasingly delirious stories, without ever losing its tenderness. The surprise hit of the year in children's comics. Recommended for readers aged 4 and up.

The Belgian artist suffered for years from vaginismus, which erected a wall between her and sexuality. The reconquest of her desire was a long and emotionally intense journey, which she recounts with honesty and great courage in the magnificent ImpenetrableAlong similar lines, the Czech women Tereza Drahonovska and Stepánka Jislová recount to Bald (Andana) the process of self-acceptance that Drahonovska went through after losing all her hair due to early and brutal alopecia.

James Sturm and Joe Sutphin visited the paths and hills surrounding Watership with Richard Amans' daughter, understanding the need for an almost documentary-like realism in adapting the English writer's acclaimed novel about a group of rabbits who form a new, squawking community and stand up to many others. The result is a captivating immersion into the animal world that unfolds as an epic adventure of survival and social transformation. A read that will fascinate both young and old.

Frenchman Jérémie Moreu, winner with The Pizzlys Winner of the Best Foreign Work award at the last Comic Barcelona, ​​returns to bookstores with an even better, more refined and graphically spectacular work: Fibi It follows the odyssey of the only toad to survive from the clutch of a wounded and dying mother. This little toad's journey through a dangerous yet wise wilderness is a visual delight, a poetic re-creation of the cycle of life that captivates from the first page to the last.

The South Korean author responsible for successful works such as Grass (Reservoir Books, 2022) and The wait (Reservoir Books, 2023) approaches the figure of Kim Jong-un through interviews and the testimony of people who knew him, such as former South Korean President Moon Jae-in. The portrait of the North Korean dictator is complex and incorporates a wide range of opinions to convey, essentially, a message of peace between the two opposing countries.

After shining as an illustrator in projects such as Lightning rod and to publish short comics in the magazine Lime kiln and the first Vineyard (Parallel Berta Cusó (a finalist in the first edition of the ARA Comic Award) makes her debut in long-form comics with a mature and complex work that intertwines six stories of women marked by war. Cusó establishes the precise emotional distance to humanely recount the horror and suffering, erasing the gap between the Russian invasion of Berlin, a Nazi concentration camp, the Vietnamese diaspora in East Germany, Rojava where jihadists clash with Kurdish warriors, and the tragic journey. Special mention goes to the incredible story of an all-female Russian air regiment from World War II: the Night Witches, as the Nazis called them.

Planeta continues the chronological edition in Catalan of the work of Joe Saccoand after the foundational Palestine Publish now GorazdeIn this work, the father of journalistic comics investigates the atrocities and ethnic genocide perpetrated by Serbian military forces against the Muslim population of eastern Bosnia. Sacco travels to the region in 1995, when the wounds of the conflict are still fresh, and gives voice to victims who recount a story that should forever weigh on the conscience of Europe.

Pau Valls' debut in a long-form comic is one thriller An addictive tale about the intertwined fates of a lovesick man and a reluctant criminal. Told with a cinematic sense of humor. indie From the 90s or the absurdist poetry of Kaurismäki, it is one of the most pleasant surprises in Catalan comics in 2025. An exquisite illustrator, Valls has also published the children's book The capybara and the grumpy friend (La Galera), with a script by Carla Garcia.

The first three volumes of Lewis Trondheim's new children's and young adult series are a small gem. Aurora's new classmate is a wild orc who has been transported to our world by a spell. With a one-page comic strip format, the series revels in the absurd humor that arises from the clash between a heroic fantasy universe and the everyday life of an elementary school. Trondheim also introduces new ideas and twists in subsequent volumes, adding complexity to the story. Recommended for readers aged 8 and up.

Third best comic of 2025 according to the ARA, Blank This is the third graphic novel by Valencian artist Ana Penyas, who studies the insomnia epidemic as a symptom of the economic, employment, and housing insecurity of contemporary society. Through a mosaic of fictional stories, Blank It shows the historical degradation of our sleep habits and the worrying widespread use of benzodiazepines to alleviate an increasingly serious problem.

Historical accounts of Robert Peary's expeditions to Greenland and the conquest of the North Pole have a dark side: that of the five Inuit men Peary took back to New York as exotic souvenirs after one of his journeys. From a critical, postcolonial perspective, Chloé Cruchaudet empathetically reconstructs the odyssey of the group's sole survivor, the boy Minik, torn between two worlds and never quite belonging to either.

Ghosts of friends who come and go, vampires straight out of Robert Smith, Maruja Torres and many songs are what Marga, Quico, Miguel and Macuto find on their journey through an imaginary and pop Europe that Raquel Gu draws with a free stroke like Raf's from the script of a more mischievous Javier BD. One of the purest comics published in 2025which can be complemented by exploring the myths of witchcraft with Raquel Gu's playful comedy Is she a witch? (Garbuix).

Inspired by the essay A popular football story (Paper Tiger), Jean-Christophe Deveney and Lelio Bonaccorso have triumphed in French bookstores with this A graphic exploration of the relationships between football and power, politics, and resistance movementsThe comic book features football stories that champion the militancy and purity of the sport in contrast to the rampant commercialization of modern football.

Senyor Pot is a character that Jordi Gastó and Christian Inaraja created more than ten years ago in Strong HorseAnd a modern classic from Catalonia's oldest children's magazine. Like a more rounded Mr. Hulot, his one-page comics exude an absurd and mischievous humor that draws as much from masters of wordless gags like Picanyol and Coll as from the minimalist expressiveness of the great Calpurnio. Recommended for readers aged 4 and up.

In a tone difficult to describe, somewhere between a bittersweet tale and an unsettling satire, Anna Sommer recounts this disturbing story that intertwines the lives of a clothing saleswoman who discovers an abandoned infant in the back room and decides to keep it, and a student in love with a professor. The Swiss author narrates the vicissitudes of these women with great purpose, captivating the reader from the first page until reaching one of those endings that seems both surprising and inevitable.

Winner of the Young Talent Mention at the Finestres Awards, Emma Casadevall's first comic It delves into the daily lives of the coal miners of Berguedà. Archaeologist Laia Gallego's research into the objects found in the barracks and the witnesses interviewed inspire a critical reflection on power structures, visually expressed through a hypnotic graphic style of flat colors, prone to experiments in repetition and deconstruction of the image.

Rare elderly in the Catalan context, Logbook It's a comic of rigorous graphic minimalism that observes the daily life of a couple in their small boat as they travel along the coast. Philologist Mercè Fort and illustrator Aleix Canal (organizers of the Cadaqués Mini Print engraving competition) convey summer indolence, bewilderment, and a typically Mediterranean sense of humor through short, wordless comics—hardly anecdotes—that amplify a more anthropological and cultural intention.

There is a certain Adamism (and, certainly, little poetry) in the presumption of titling this volume Poetry in comicswhich can be justified by the clear intention to convey a poetic view of life and the world to a child and young adult audience. Grant Snider returns to the minimalist style of previous works such as The way of life (Garbuix, 2022) and What your library says about you (Garbuix, 2022) to explore, through graphic narrative, the sensations and experiences of a girl during the four seasons of a year. Or, simply, words and drawings that capture the world in a straightforward, fun, and beautiful way.