"The artist must be countercultural. One must always go against the grain."

BarcelonaA grandmother from the Clot neighborhood, a waiter of Chinese origin, a one-eyed ex-legionnaire, and a dog that doesn't speak but makes itself understood. Marga, Quico, Miguel, and Macuto are the core from which Javier Pérez Andújari Raquel Gu They orchestrate a delirious and surprising journey in the comic book Mrs. Marga and the Vampires, which publishes Ventanas in Catalan and Liana in Spanish. This troupe A galactic group led by Marga and drawn with a lively style reminiscent of the master Raf crosses an imaginary Europe to save Julia, the ghost hiding in Marga's shopping cart, who is also being held captive in his castle by the vampire Virgil. Along the way they encounter a very heterogeneous catalog of characters, from the Home Llot – who is more reminiscent of Swamp Thing than Home Llop – to a reversible girl and vampires galore, including one who looks like RuPaul and another who looks exactly like Robert Smith from The Cure.

In some ways, the impromptu adventure of these friends is reflected in that of the authors, who met when the writer presented Raquel Gu's comic. The wonderful age at the La Llama bookstore. "After that, we met up a few times, and Javier suggested we do some comic strips, and that's how the story began," the cartoonist recalls. "But we realized that no one would publish strips as often as we needed, so we thought we could just do a compilation of strips or, if we were going to do it, an album." According to Andújar, it's "an album created via WhatsApp," since they've only met in person "four or five times." "It's been very organic," Gu emphasizes, "like taking out some toys and starting to put together a story," she confesses. The writer always sent her the scripts four pages at a time. "That's the rhythm of comics, because that was the number of pages that were published." Mortadelo either Asterix "when they were serialized in a magazine," says Pérez Andújar.

The writer already made his debut as a comic book screenwriter last year with The design (Autsaider Comics), an exuberant and polymorphic underground odyssey drawn by Laura Pérez VernettiFor him, there's no "leap" from literature to comics, and he defends a "continuity" in his "ongoing writing." "They're different techniques, but you never stop writing," he says. "It's like addiction for addicts; the point is to write," the writer confesses. If it doesn't matter what discipline you write in, then it certainly doesn't matter what you read. "I don't care what I read." Corto Maltese that The Magic Mountain “The result and the emotions are different,” Pérez Andújar affirms, “but the physical act of reading is still there.” He acknowledges that in comics there is an “intermediary between him and the reader,” which is the artist, but he feels “very comfortable” in this situation. “Writing for artists is like being a flamenco guitarist; you play so that someone else can play. The artist is sacred,” he says. Gu witnessed this firsthand when she saw how, once she sent the drawings, he would change the dialogue to match the expressions. “And I liked the first lines of dialogue, but the subsequent ones were even better,” she asserts.

From Lang Lang to Maruja Torres

The result of this creative dialogue is an adventure that conveys a very organic sense of spontaneity, a journey where, upon turning the page, you might encounter anything: a blues prince singing his sorrow, a vampire dance, or Maruja Torres with a sack that's impervious to demons. As Quico says, "bridges are unpredictable; you never know what's on the other side." flow"That rock 'n' roll feel of the comics is because the characters are so alive, so well-developed," Gu explains. Each character has their own reference point: Marga is inspired by the English lady in a famous photograph by Català-Roca; Quico's model is the pianist Lang Lang, and Miguel's is the classic Hollywood actor Walsh. The characters speak Spanish full of colorful and difficult-to-adapt expressions. This was a decision—agreed upon with the publisher—made by the comic's Catalan translator, the writer Martí Sales.

Mrs. Marga and the Vampires He also stands out for the purity with which he understands comics as a space where certain things happen and other things are called that would never work in film or literature. "Each medium allows you to tell certain stories," Pérez Andújar explains. "Having a car lowered off a cliff with ropes can only work in a comic; only then can it be believable. When you write for the theater, you can't write a novel, and vice versa. And the proof is that few novelists have succeeded writing a novel; they've screwed up. And that doesn't mean the characters speak like they do in Bruguera comics all the time; they can also speak like..." Corto Maltese or like the comics of Muñoz and Sampayo,” she concludes.

The writer’s vindication contrasts with a comic book scene that, following the rise of the graphic novel, has incorporated increasingly literary and socially conscious genre elements. Gu herself acknowledges that, while they were finalizing Mrs. Marga and the VampiresShe and the screenwriter realized they had created "a comic like the ones they don't make anymore." But Pérez Andújar insists that her goal wasn't to revive a dying style. "It's not that I miss it and want it to exist," she emphasizes. "My attitude is countercultural. An artist should be countercultural: if something isn't in fashion, we should do it. You always have to go against the grain. What's in fashion now, telling stories about life? Well, screw telling stories about life."