We live in an era of multivitamin hyperconnectivity, where socialization is transforming from a face-to-face practice to a constant digital exposure where the boundaries of public and private are thinning. We are in constant contact with the known and the unknown, in an endless conversation stripped of organic prejudices by the fake and artificial beauty of Instagram filters. From the comfort of a couch with pizza boxes and snacks, we can be whoever we want, whenever and wherever we want, within the reach of a mobile screen. Yet loneliness once again remains an omnipresent problem, complicit in a frustration that has left many as helpless spectators of its existence.
Two works are coming out this week that delve into that society that ruthlessly casts aside those who can’t keep up with its rhythm and demands. The acting class, Nick Drnaso (Salamandra Graphic, translated by Carlos Mayor; Catalan version by Editorial Finestress) recovers constants from his previous work to bet on a much more complex structure that takes the members of a class as the protagonist of acting. using natural exercise as therapy for their ailments. People who cannot get on the train of society because of their past, complexes, and fears, trying to learn to represent who they are not as an escape from their own reality, a search for a way to the future. what they no longer believe in. Drnaso manages to convey a constant feeling of discomfort that arises from the tension between the hidden truth and the played lie, developed with dialogues that require perfect characterization, that draws the silence of the conversations and loads the power of reflection to the gaze. It’s not easy to put up with a comic book narrative with constant dialogue, but Sabrina’s author takes the pulse of a work that raises the bubbles, with an ending that leaves the reader with a final and compelling introduction to the story.
Nadia Hafid’s new work The Jackals (Sapristi Cómic) traverses similar regions known as Intermittent Explosive Disorder, interweaving the stories of three people who are unable to channel a frustration and impotence that turns into uncontrollable anger. Without needing a word, with an almost schematic style, the cartoonist manages to transform the asepsis of the geometric line into pure instinct, pain and anger. It doesn’t even need facial expressions, not even gestures, just a color that acts as a rhythm box for narrative, as a fundamental part of a style that creates an immediate and strong visual impact. The vignette consists of a two-dimensional space in which the characters are trapped and locked, its lines are the bars of their being, confined to an oppressive plain from which the city and streets can escape for just a moment to steal the spotlight. people. It’s fascinating how the perspectives at Chacales have a depth that we recognize but seem wrong to us, against the silhouette of people that cast shadows where the urban elements are lacking. Shadows, perhaps the only escape from this flat world, are preoccupied with the dark complexity of reality. Analytical montages that turn the architecture of the page into mechanism so that the reader can see it through the eyes of the heroes, as part of a personal and recognizable narrative that has made Hafid one of the most meaningful, interesting and promising authors of our national comic. .