Written by Javier Fernández
UCOPress has just published, as part of the UCOCultura collection, the catalogue for the exhibition Raúl. Historietas y dibujos de compás binario, commissioned by Javier Fernández and held in Córdoba, at the UCOCultura exhibition hall, from 28 October to 9 December 2024. The catalogue features all the originals on display, taken from the graphic novels Berlín 1931 (1991) and Ventanas a Occidente (1994)—both scripted by Felipe Hernández Cava—along with the complete series of press illustrations entitled ‘Diario ruso’, commissioned by the newspaper El País to accompany a feature by the journalist Ignacio Carrión.
Born in Madrid in 1960 but grew up in Córdoba, Raúl is one of the most distinctive creators in Spanish comics and a prodigious illustrator. His professional career began in 1982 and has unfolded in publications such as Madriz, Medios Revueltos and El País Semanal. His comics are collected in the albums Berlín 1931 (1991), Fe de erratas (1992), Ventanas a Occidente (1994), Contra Raúl (2016) and La tierra sin mal (2018). His career as a press illustrator began in 1986. He contributed to El País for twelve years and, since 1998, has been working for La Razón and La Vanguardia. Examples of this prolific work have been compiled in books such as Raúl, cuaderno perplejo (1992), De la virginidad (2016) and Aldeas globales (2024).
Radical and avant-garde in his conception of visual narrative, Raúl possesses such a diverse range of techniques that, at first glance, one might say his work is collective rather than individual, although it never ceases to be idiosyncratic. Convinced that the way a story is told always alters what is being told, he began to adopt a certain rhythm of trial and error—like that of a binary musical metre—in a series of comic strips produced in the mid-1980s for the magazine Madriz, in which he depicted his childhood in Córdoba in a dreamlike manner. Since then, the artist has adapted his graphic style to suit the demands of each narrative.
Berlin 1931 is regarded as one of the finest Spanish comics of the 1980s, a political thriller that uses the rise of Nazi ideology in the 1930s as a warning against the advance of the far right in Europe and as a metaphor for the danger of nationalism in Spain. Here, Raúl experimented with a pictorial approach using gouache, in which echoes of German Expressionism from the period depicted can be heard, and which changes radically in tone as the plot unfolds.
Ventanas a Occidente marks a high point in Spanish comics. Set in a Russia grappling with the break-up of the Soviet Union, four friends get together to drink vodka and tell stories, which serves to explore aspects of Russia’s historical development, culture and character. The artist devised one artistic style for the scenes depicting the friends’ get-togethers and four others, one for each of the protagonists’ stories. The album is rounded off with the ‘Diario Ruso’ section, which features illustrations created by Raúl whilst in Russia for the newspaper El País.
Links: https://ucopress.uco.es/producto/isbn-9788499279244/ (print format) y https://ucopress.uco.es/producto/isbn-9788499279251/ (digital format, in open access).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21071/000081
