SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 22nd March (EUROPA PRESS) –
Commencing this Friday, the former Convent of Santo Domingo in La Laguna is hosting an exhibition featuring the comic ‘The Abyss of Oblivion’, a creation by Paco Roca and Rodrigo Terrasa that narrates the accounts of the political prisoners who were executed during the Franco regime.
The comic has garnered significant acclaim from both the general public and critics: with the initial print run of 40,000 copies selling out within a month, it clinched the VI ACDCómic Awards in the category of Best National Work. A total of thirty original pieces from this comic book can be viewed until 3rd May in this exhibition arranged by the Cine+Cómics Foundation.
The inaugural event took place on Friday with the presence of the mayor of La Laguna, Luis Yeray Gutiérrez; the president of the Government of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo; alongside the Minister of Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres; in addition to the head of the Comics Sector, Alejandro Casasola, and the president of the Cine+Cómics Foundation, Francisco Pomares.
Visitors can attend the exhibition from Monday to Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. It is being held to coincide with Comic Book Day, celebrated in Spain on March 17, made possible through the Sectorial’s efforts to emphasise the significance of comics to the Ministry of Culture.
This exhibition is not the sole undertaking by the Foundation, as it entails other activities such as the granting of the Gold Medal for Cultural Merit to the popularizer Manuel Darias on Monday, 18th March, the online broadcast of various interviews and discussions over the internet in the next two weeks, as well as the presentation of the ‘White Book of Comics’. The latter is a public event to be led by Casasola, president of the Sectorial, at the La Laguna City Hall at 5:00 p.m. on 22nd March, coinciding with the inauguration of the ‘The Abyss of Oblivion’ exhibition.
THE RETURN OF PACO ROCA’S ART TO TENERIFE
The display of original artwork organised by the Foundation for Comics Day 2024 signifies Paco Roca’s return to Tenerife, following his prominent appearances in the previous edition of the Tenerife International Comic and Illustration Fair and the recent November-Wine Month edition, where he visited La Laguna as the central figure in the ‘Wines and Vignettes’ segment.
At the Comic Fair, the Valencian illustrator had a significant showcase at the Municipal Museum of Fine Arts in the Tenerife capital, featuring a small collection of original pieces from ‘The Abyss of Oblivion’ for the first time in Spain. In the current exhibition in La Laguna, the array of original artwork accessible to the audience has been expanded to thirty pieces, including preliminary sketches of comic pages and various character studies.
Paco Roca initiated his comic career in the renowned magazine ‘El Víbora’ and has contributed to several publications (El País, Las Provincias, and Corriere della Sera). In the realm of comics, he has crafted graphic novels such as ‘The Lugubre Game’, ‘Children of the Alhambra’, ‘The Lighthouse’, ‘Emotional World Tour’, ‘The Streets of Sand’, ‘The Cartoonist’s Winter’, ‘Memoirs of a Man in pyjamas’, ‘The Furrows of Chance’, ‘The House’, ‘Return to Eden’, ‘The Black Swan Treasure’, among others. He has been honoured within and beyond Spain, securing accolades like the 2008 National Comic Award and the Goya for the best adapted screenplay for ‘Wrinkles’ in 2012, the Excellence Award from Japan, the Inkpot Award at the Comic-Con in San Diego in 2019 in the US, the Eisner 2020 for the best foreign work, and the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts 2021 from the Spanish Ministry of Culture. Some of his comics have been adapted into films such as ‘Wrinkles’, directed by Ignacio Ferreras in 2011, and ‘The Treasure of the Black Swan’, directed by Alejandro Amenábar in 2021.
