For Shintaro Kago, the body is a playground. Or open-source software susceptible to modification (or, directly, hacking). Or a piñata that needs to be burst to discover what candies and toys it hides in its belly. All of this, in short, to say that the panels of the mangaka, a distinguished guest of this year's Comic Barcelona, spill fluids, viscera, and all sorts of unimaginable substances. , the title just published by Moztros, is no exception: the four chapters that make up the bulk of this volume have as their leitmotif the intrusion of sharp items (worms, cables, spaghetti...) that cause havoc and burst the characters from the inside out.With this premise, it is understood that Kago is one of the most prominent contemporary exponents of eroguro, a Japanese aesthetic tradition that delights in showing grotesque scenes, extreme violence, and aberrant sexuality, and which, far from being the exclusive heritage of manga, links revered ukiyo-e painters such as Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, writers like Edogawa Rampo, and filmmakers acclaimed at Sitges like Shinya Tsukamoto. In addition to defending a particularly psychedelic take on nausea (it's no wonder that the twisted electronics producer Flying Lotus commissioned him to design the cover for his album

The comic will once again be the absolute protagonist of ARA's pages next week. To mark the opening of the major sector fair, Còmic Barcelona, on Friday, May 15, the entire newspaper will be illustrated by cartoonists. On this occasion, the bulk of the images are part of the history of Catalan comics through the archive of the Generalitat de Catalunya, which is collaborating on this special edition. In fact, past and present will go hand in hand because, as we have done in the already increasingly long tradition of special comic newspapers, the cover and the day's dossier will be the work of a comic author: Paco Roca, along with Valencian journalist Rodrigo Terrasa, will give their vision of a current topic, and it will be demonstrated once again that comics are also a journalistic genre.

On Friday, April 4th, comics will once again spread across the pages of ARA. Coinciding with the start of Comic Barcelona, ​​​​the sector's major fair, the Diari del Còmic returns, a special edition in which all the news will be illustrated by cartoonists. The initiative, which ARA has already promoted in previous years, reinvents current events with the help of a roster of cartoonists who will contribute their perspective on the news; it will, of course, be a collector's edition, an ARA by author (of authors) to keep and frame.