They say it's never too late to make great discoveries. I admit I haven't been very interested in graphic novels until now, but today I want to recommend one: Regreso al Edén, by the Valencian Paco Roca. A friend recommended it to me, knowing my fondness for old family photos.

The Honorary Grand 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 Spanish comic author of the 21st century, who despite his success continues to strive to offer vibrant and restless works, whether it is the journalistic comic strip the journalistic comic strip La vida en espera that he created together with Rodrigo Terrasa for the Diari del Còmic of ARA or his new long comic, El viaje (Astiberri), a story with evident autobiographical touches about a recently separated writer who is forced to spend a few days in a hotel in Patagonia when his flight is cancelled. But El viaje is not just the story of a breakup –in fact, it begins where many stories of heartbreak end, with the separation consummated–, but an immersion into the pain and emotional tribulations that follow the end of a relationship. A moving and honest work by an author in full command of his narrative faculties.

Paco Roca is busy. On top of his studio desk in Valencia, we find sketches for his latest project: a journalistic comic about the regularization of immigrants, which will be published this Friday by ARA, in an already traditional illustrated newspaper coinciding with Comic Barcelona. Precisely, Roca will visit the multitudinous fair on Thursday to inaugurate an exhibition about his work, one year after receiving the Gran Premi del Cómic. Asked what he believes justifies an ever-growing list of recognitions, Roca speculates about his legacy: having built with other authors "a bridge between the world of comics and the general reader." Roca assures that most of his readers do not usually read comics, and that it is more important to have entered neighborhood bookstores than to have exhibited in museums. Prestige and commercial success have allowed Roca to fulfill the dream of many artists: to make a living from his art, without having to compromise it. That is why, he says, he has the privilege of accepting only the commissions he likes. This is the case of the ARA comic, titled The immigrant in his labyrinth.

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.