Spanish Graphic Narratives

“The essays included in Spanish Graphic Narratives represent a much-needed step forward in turning Spanish graphic novels and comics into a rigorous field of study that deserves to be taken seriously when exploring 21st-century Spanish culture and society. This book shows how relevant Spanish sequential art has become to the reformulation of social issues—such as migration, cultural identity, gender, and the relations between historical and personal memory—into a format well suited for newer generations.”

--Luis Guadaño, Associate Professor of World Languages and Cultures, Old Dominion University, USA

Spanish Graphic Narratives examines the most recent thematic and critical developments in Spanish sequential art, with essays focusing on comics published in Spain since 2007. Considering Spain’s rich literary history, contentious Civil War (1936–39), oppressive Francisco Franco regime (1939–75), and progressive contemporary politics, both the recent graphic novel production in Spain and the thematic focal points of the essays here are greatly varied. Topics of particular interest include studies on the subject of historical and personal memory; representations of gender, race, and identity; and texts dealing with Spanish customs, traditions, and the current political situation in Spain. These overarching topics share many points of contact with one another, and this interrelationship (as well as the many points of divergence) is illustrative of the uniqueness, diversity, and paradoxes of literary and cultural production in modern-day Spain, thus illuminating our understanding of Spanish national consciousness in the present day. 

Collin McKinney is Associate Professor of Spanish at Bucknell University, USA. 

David F. Richter is Associate Professor of Spanish at Utah State University, USA.