Berta Cusó: It is important to laugh and take off the mask of functional adults

BarcelonaIn 2020, a still unknown Berta Cusó (Barcelona, 1989) was a finalist for the Premi ARA de Còmic. She felt no sadness for not winning, but rather excitement for a career that was just beginning with that short comic strip (Paral·lel) and which now also includes two magnificent long comics: La conca dels àngels (Pagès, 2025), which has just won the first edition of the Vinyeta Ficomic award, and the recent L’extraordinària història del Circ Cric (Andana, 2026), winner of the València graphic novel award.

Her career is marked by awards.

— They have had a very great weight, especially because the Premi ARA de Còmic and the València have allowed me to concentrate on doing my own projects. The Vinyeta prize is different, because it is a prize for published work and I already had a publisher behind it, but it still helps a lot, it is a very big push for the book to be known and to give it value.

In 2007 she was the student with the highest grade in the university entrance exams and later studied architecture, but she ended up dedicated to comics and illustration. How has her path to drawing been?

— I had loved drawing very much since I was little and I never stopped. When I was studying architecture and even when I was working as an architect, I always drew in my free time. And a moment came when I realized that this was what I had to do with my life. If when you get home instead of looking at architecture blogs and magazines you start drawing, it is very clear where you want to go. I was also very attracted to telling stories, so in 2020 I left my job as an architect and, as I had time, I started making a comic and submitted it to the Premi ARA.

And has he abandoned architecture?

— Yes. In the early years I still took on some commissions as a freelance monument conservator, helping to measure old castles and things like that, but now I only dedicate myself to illustrating, making comics, teaching drawing classes at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and giving drawing workshops in Berlin.

The comic he made for the Premi ARA, Paral·lel, originated from the memories of his great-uncle. What is the inspiration for the stories of women and wars in The Basin of the Angels?

— Undoubtedly, living in Berlin, a city steeped in history where World War II is very present and where many Syrian and Ukrainian refugees have arrived in recent years. But it also arises from conversations with my editor, Jaume Borrull. He wanted to adapt a novel, but as a result of talking about the themes that interested us, the female gaze and war experiences, I started reading many books and testimonies and realized that I was interested in pulling this thread.

Why does it focus on the female gaze on war?

— In a war, everyone suffers, but the stories most told in movies or novels are often war narratives from the front lines, where there is a greater presence of men. I wanted to shed some light on the suffering of women during wartime, which is less known, even though many lived through very extreme situations.

How much of it is fiction and how much is reality in what he/she/it explains?

— Everything is inspired by real events and experiences of women, but I united testimonies from diverse women into a single character. There are real anecdotes that do not correspond exactly to the same person, and also some fictionalized elements that allow me to intertwine the stories.

I was fascinated by the protagonists of one of the stories, a Russian regiment of female aviators whom the Nazis called Night Witches.

— This is one hundred percent true. The Russian army recruited women and, although they weren't allowed to fly at first, they eventually succeeded. They had a very good female pilot who trained them, and one of the regiments specialized in night bombing: they flew at night in special planes that weren't even warplanes and drove the Nazis crazy. There's a video on YouTube of one of the pilots explaining anecdotes, and it's incredible.

The common element of all the stories is the Berlin pond that gives the comic its title.

— It is a pond that has a small park around it, and what interests me is that it has many layers of history. It had been a canal for transportation between the Spree and the Berlin canal, and when they closed it, the pond remained. In World War II, they bombed it and a ruined church remained as a testament. During the time of the Wall, they closed the entire pond on both sides, and it was called the death strip. After the fall of the Wall, they rebuilt the public space with the current pond and a garden area, but stones from the wall remain as vestiges.

What led you to explain the story of Tortell Poltrona and Circ Cric afterwards?

— When I was little, I had been taken to the circus quite a lot and I had very good memories. As an adult, I've also gone a few times, and since I have nieces, we go almost every year. Furthermore, my father was a theater actor and a distant relative of Tortell. I started reading interviews of his, and I found it incredible what these people had done since the end of the dictatorship. What they do goes against common sense: it seems impossible to establish your own life model in this capitalist world full of wars. I find it so precious and admirable that I wanted to explain it. First, I thought about submitting the project to the Premi ARA, but I quickly realized that 14 pages wouldn't be enough, that it had to be a long book. So I started developing the story and submitting it to awards, until it won the València prize.

Tortell Poltrona and the Circ Cric team participated in the comic?

— They have helped me a lot. I have spoken with everyone, especially with Montse, Tortell's wife, who is also the circus clown. Before starting the project, I did a lot of research with interviews: there are a thousand on TV3 and in the newspapers. And when I already had the storyboard I got in touch with them and they gave me their approval.

There is a great graphic contrast compared to The Basin of the Angels, which was darker and the use of color was limited to two tones. In The Extraordinary Story of Circo Cric there is an explosion of colors and narrative solutions that denote a playful attitude that fits with the theme.

— Yes, I wanted to play and try things out, to not get bored and to be a little freer. I had a paper in the office with a series of guides, so as not to lose the thread, and the first is the question the book asks: how can this absurd thing of having an alternative life model in this world become a reality. I also knew that the comic had to be brought closer to the circus. Obviously, they are two different languages, but in the circus, especially in Circo Cric, visual poetry is very important, so I wanted to challenge common sense with moments of surprise. And I wrote down a phrase from Tortell: “We are just passing through and we have the opportunity to be happy,” which is the spirit of the book.

One of the most surprising decisions is that the narrator is invisible: the flea Orzowei.

— Being invisible forces you to leave the world of reality and enter the world of the circus. It is a pact of fiction that you have to make with this universe, just like what you do when you go to the circus and believe in the flea. At first, the narrator was Tortell, but I wanted it to be a more collective book. I didn't want to write a biography, but to talk about the construction of the circus.

What is the most extraordinary thing about the history of Circ Cric?

— The bravery and resilience that Jaume and Montse and the people who have accompanied them all these years have shown. And how important it is to make children laugh, but also adults. It is important to sit together, laugh, and take off the mask of functional adults. We must allow ourselves to be in touch with our sensitivity and connect with others. Great bravery and strength are needed to carry forward a project like Circ Cric, which didn't work out for them and they had to start over. This seems to contrast with the vulnerability of the clown and making people laugh, which seems like something very volatile, but in reality, one thing goes with the other: if they are so strong, it is precisely because they do this work.

Indeed, the political dimension of Tortell Poltrona is of great importance in the comic, both for his humanitarian work and for the reflection on the social function of the clown.

— It is that here is where the value of all this lies and the reason why I am so interested in explaining this story. I do not add the political discourse, but rather it is found in them from the beginning. Everything they do is political, from performing street theater in Catalan since the end of the dictatorship to traveling to war zones. Their position is one of resistance.

Until now you have been able to make all your comics in Catalan, a freedom that comic authors do not usually have. Have you had to fight a lot for it to be like this?

— I think I was lucky to arrive at a time when comics in Catalan were starting to move and grow. If I had started five or ten years earlier, perhaps I wouldn't have been able to, because the awards, the market, or the publishers that are now starting to exist and that I hope will continue to grow were not there. I write in Catalan because that's how I think; it would be very difficult for me to write in another language. And, therefore, the paths I've sought to make comics were already focused on being able to do it that way. Besides, I live in Berlin, but I miss it a lot, and making comics in Catalan is a way to be in contact with my homeland.