Paco Roca: "The drawing teacher used to say that I wasn't a great drawer but that I had aptitudes: he defined me perfectly"

The Grand Honorary Prize of Comic Barcelona that he received last year –at only 56 years old– was the last recognition missing for Paco Roca (Valencia, 1969), the most important author of Spanish comics of the 21st century, who despite his success continues to strive to offer lively and restless works, whether How does this comic's journey begin?

— that he will create together with Rodrigo Terrasa for the Diari del Còmic of ARA or his new long comic,

A fundamental element of El viaje is memory, which I would say has become the fundamental element of his work.

— When we talk about memory, in the end, we are talking about the present. Memory is built with a purpose, which is to learn. Reflecting on the past and putting it in order helps us to organize and understand the present. Learning from what has happened to reinvent ourselves, to see what we are from what we have been. And this applies to both historical and personal memory. I wanted to reflect on all this in the comic, to see how we manage memory in the sense that, sometimes, we also need to forget. Memory is important, but there are things that must be kept in a drawer. Knowing where they are and that they are part of you, but forgetting them a little to be able to move forward and start again.

It is curious that he claims the importance of forgetting after a comic that, precisely, fought for memory.

— Understanding is putting things in their place, and for that you need to create a subjective narrative of what has happened, with a cause-and-effect relationship that brings us to the present. It also happens with history, which is a pile of things that happen without order or cause to which we need to bring a certain order. But this order, especially in the personal sphere, we modify it over time. In the end, it's not about forgetting, but about changing the narrative throughout our lives.

Reading The tripafter a comic that, precisely, fought for memory

— It's a mix of both. I like to tackle stories that, apparently, don't seem like comics in a traditional sense. Comics have evolved in parallel with cinema as an art that tells stories of people doing things. Tintin, superheroes, are people doing things. Most manga and the French industry are based on the same. But literature isn't like that. There is literature about people doing things, but mostly about people feeling things and reading the inner world of characters. For me, at this moment, I'm not interested in themes about people doing things. I want to talk about the characters' feelings. And for that, we must stop using the comic panel like a film camera and look for other narrative resources to explore the inner life of characters.

The protagonist of El viaje barely does anything during the comic, only talks to another character.

— This was the challenge. The bulk of the comic is two people talking about their things. In a novel, it wouldn't attract attention or seem like a rarity. But in the world of comics, we have the dilemma of how to make it not a story of talking heads, new resources are needed. But it is in this area where I like to work, looking for these tools, always aware that the majority of my readers are people who do not usually read comics. So I try to do it very clearly so as not to lose anyone along the way, and to do it only because the story demands it, not out of a mere interest in exploring.

We discover the protagonist of El viaje stranded in Patagonia, where he has gone to see the End of the World lighthouse that inspired a novel by Jules Verne. But you set the story in a not particularly novelistic town, in a gray hotel out of season, and the lighthouse doesn't even appear. Why?

— I wanted the guy to be completely sunk, and for that I needed a place that was nondescript in every sense, without any external stimuli, to force him to connect with his inner world. The starting point came to me: a couple of summers ago I went to Argentina and my return flight was cancelled. And the passengers who couldn't be rebooked on other flights were paid for a few days in a Buenos Aires hotel where a very curious sub-world was created among us. But Buenos Aires wasn't a good setting for this story, so I thought of Patagonia, which is a more isolated place, and to do my research I went there for 10 days with my daughters. At the travel agency they didn't understand me: "I want a hotel that is isolated, that is nondescript," I told them. And my daughters also didn't understand that, with all the beautiful hotels in El Calafate next to a beautiful lake, we were in one of the outskirts that had nothing special and was far from everything. But it's the hotel from the comic book, it's exactly like the drawing.

The journey is a comic that, deep down, is constantly asking itself: "What now?". Compared to his other works, this is a comic that does not try to convey any idea, but rather to formulate questions for which it has no answer.

— Yes, it's the feeling I had when I finished. I usually make comics to find answers. I have an initial idea, of course: in L’abisme de l’oblit I was logically in favor of the exhumations of the victims of Francoism, but I didn't know exactly what motivates families, and I discovered all that as I made the comic. In the end, I leave the doors open, but more or less I feel that I have unraveled the subject. In this comic, on the other hand, I haven't gotten any answers in the end, I've ended up with the same doubts I had at the beginning. In couple relationships, there are too many factors at play, a component of chance, and uncontrollable aspects like feelings. And the fact that I haven't found answers makes the comic have less light than my other stories, because it ends practically at the same point where it begins.

But there is a change.

— The only difference in the protagonist is that it changes who narrates their life. We spend our lives narrating in our heads what we do, usually to another person or people. After a breakup, you have many dialogues in your head with the other person. You ask them what happened, why, many things. And yes, in the end the narrator begins to narrate to himself, he no longer needs to narrate so much to another person. The end of a crisis begins to be seen, although it remains a bit up in the air. We know that over time he will overcome it, but the story asked me to leave it at a moment when he has not yet overcome it.

The journey is already in the process of being adapted into a film. Are you participating in the project in any way?

— I no longer get involved in the films made from my comics. A few years ago I had a bad experience and it seemed to me like a waste of time to dedicate so much effort to something in which, in the end, it's the producer or the director on duty who makes the decisions. I prefer to stay out of it. If the screenwriters or directors want to, I love to chat and explain things to them, because in the end I have a lot of discarded material that didn't fit in the story or with the passage of time things have happened that can no longer go into the comic but can go into the film. In any case, I don't feel like going back to a story I've already done and dedicating two more years of my life to it, I prefer to work on new projects.

How did Paco Roca's journey as a comic book artist begin? If you were to tell the story of how an electrician's son became the most important Spanish author of his generation, what would be the first scene?

— The first one would be me, at 10 years old, drawing in my room after seeing Star WarsA few years ago I had a bad experience

It's curious that even from a young age I used comics to fix my memory.

— Well, I hadn't thought of it, but yes, that's how it is. And it's true that, while you draw it, in a way you relive it. Afterwards, you have the little story to relive the memory again, but above all it's the joy of remembering while you draw it.

And what is the best memory you have related to drawing?

— I suppose some from childhood. It was the time when I drew without any pressure. I started working as a cartoonist at 17, and from then on drawing became something else, a product that people will see and for which they will pay you. So the most special moments are earlier. I remember I was a very sickly child, and I often stayed at home drawing comics for my brothers to read when they came home from school. And I think those are the moments when I enjoyed drawing the most.

His first readers were your brothers.

— Yes, I used to make comics for them. One of those comics was in the exhibition they held for me at Comic Barcelona, which was called The Stone Age of Paco Roca because it's a journey through that formative period. Perhaps it's not the exhibition people expected from a Grand Prize of Honor, but I think it's fun, I think it works. To know how the beginnings of someone who has finally been able to dedicate themselves to comics were. Comics have been present throughout my life. I was never a child prodigy, but I have always had a passion for explaining things through drawing. And the exhibition shows all the influences I have received, especially from childhood, from Ibáñez to Uderzo. I loved copying panels from Asterix, but I also had many influences from science fiction and more current things.

Why do you keep all this material?

— Fortunately, my mother saved it all. When I discovered it, I was very excited to see all those pages... There were things I remembered drawing, but others I didn't. And it was everything I liked at that time, from superheroes to Verne's novels and the Joyas literarias juveniles collection. Deep down, that's what creates you as an author and as a person, and it was all already in those drawings.

He dedicated a comic strip to the memory of his mother, Regreso al Edén, but she, in her own way, was also the guardian of his memory.

— Yes. It's true. I could have thrown it all in the trash, but I kept everything, even the notes I have from private drawing classes. The teacher gave me a 5. He said I wasn't a great artist but had aptitude: he defined me perfectly. It was more passion than talent, and I think that can be motivating for people. If you're truly passionate, it doesn't matter if you're not a virtuoso.