2024-01-09 23:40:37
In 2013, the comic industry in Spain was going through a very hopeful moment. A short time ago, in 2007, Wrinkles by Paco Roca and Maria and I by Miguel Gallardo opened a path for Spanish authors, that of the graphic novel, marked by creative freedom. In full effervescence, Santiago García (Madrid, 1968) and David Rubín (Ourense, 1977) joined forces to reimagine the Anglo-Saxon epic poem of Beowulfan anonymous text that could date from the 8th century, which both made their own in a rereading that avoided epic fantasy and focused on exploring the chiaroscuro of the figure of the hero.
David Rubín: “I could have made ‘El fuego’ for the American market, but we have to generate an industry in Spain”
The large book became a success in the career of the authors, who today have become two of the leading names in Spanish comics. The original publisher, Astiberri, has just launched a new edition that commemorates the tenth anniversary of the title, which includes all kinds of sketches and graphic materials, as well as texts and a big surprise: the unfinished version of the work that Javier Olivares (Madrid, 1964) made before the project changed radically.
To know the origin of Beowulf We have to go back to 2002, when García began working on his first scripts. One was from the first volume of the series The neighbor (2009), with Pepo Pérez; and the other the adaptation of the text of Beowulf, a fixation of the scriptwriter and translator since his childhood, which Javier Olivares would draw. The project was conceived as a French-style album, with 72 pages, “the model we could have at that time,” García explains in statements to this medium.
It was a difficult time for the Spanish industry, with hardly any opportunities to carry out projects of a certain magnitude. Olivares accepted the task, but things got complicated: “It was my first attempt at making a long comic, but I didn’t know how to manage it,” confesses the cartoonist and illustrator. “The desire to do it combined with inexperience, and I started with too much energy, trying to cover all the aspects of the book, making decisions that, seen now, seem very wrong to me,” Olivares develops. “For example, I decided to color it by hand, gouacheand I dedicated months to the process of documentation and making designs, delaying the moment of starting to draw the pages, which is when you take the risk,” he adds.
The result was only 22 pages, which the author created based on García’s script over several years. His style evolved, and he moved further and further away from that used in Beowulf. “That’s how I came to the moment of having to face reality: that was never going to end,” says Olivares. His creative partner, meanwhile, published another adaptation, that of The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde (2009). Thus, in 2012, Santiago García, in agreement with his partner, decided to publicly announce that the project would never see the light of day. Or so they believed.
Beowulf Rising
David Rubín was finishing the second book of The hero (2011-2012) the diptych that established him as one of the most original cartoonists on the Spanish scene, when he read the news, and he didn’t think about it: he wrote to Santiago García and proposed that he draw Beowulf. “I needed to make that comic, I wanted to work with Santiago and pay tribute to Javier, who is a reference and one of my favorite authors,” says Rubín.
García accepted the proposal and the project started again. But the authors point out that it was not about Rubín drawing the previous script that García had written for Olivares, but about making a new one. Beowulf. “There are things from the original script that were preserved, and many others that were not. It was a rewriting that turned the 72 pages of the first into the 200 that the book finally had,” explains the screenwriter.
But also, Beowulf he benefited from his greater experience as a writer and the new circumstances. “When I write the script for Javier, I don’t know what I can write, we had not done anything together nor had he drawn a long comic. But, when I write for David, he is finishing The heroso I know what it is capable of and where it can go,” he says.
Javier Olivares’ interpretation was more colorful and formally conventional, influenced by certain classic animated films and the work of illustrators Alice and Martin Provensen. “My way of contributing something interesting to the book was more plastic than narrative,” the illustrator acknowledges. For his part, Rubín, aware that the public could compare the new book with The hero, another approach to certain heroic myths, gave a twist to his work. “The key was to separate all the elements pulp and pop of history. The hero It was a very postmodern work, full of references,” analyzes the cartoonist.
That key has an unexpected origin. “I became aware of the way forward in an exhibition of Etruscan art that I saw in Barcelona: there was part of a foot of a statue that must have been gigantic. I was so impressed seeing the foot, imagining everything that was missing, a figure of at least 30 meters… I realized that this was the way: we had to make it epic without turning a corner, without wanting to be modern. The poem itself is so forceful that it happens to you like that Etruscan foot: it makes you feel very small.”
García also points out another key: changes in the market and in publication formats. “What David and I are making is no longer a French album, but a Spanish graphic novel, fully aware that we were making a different type of comic that was reaching its peak in those years. The differences were not just in format or length, but in something more complex.”
Rubín and García maintained a dark tone, but far from both Conan-style sword and sorcery and the epic fantasy of The Lord of the rings. “We didn’t want to put in cool armor or swords full of frills, but rather everything was as down-to-earth as possible, without ornaments. And the charge of modernity would focus on the formal,” explains Rubín. Santiago García also emphasizes that “Javier’s Beowulf is more synthetic and iconic, while David’s has more texture, another dimension, another fleshiness.”
A decade of success
The book, which arrived in bookstores in December 2013, along with another longseller from the Spanish comic —The grooves of chance by Paco Roca—has become one of the best-selling works of its authors, with three editions to date, plus several translations into other languages. Both critics and the public received very well this classic and at the same time contemporary story of the hero’s ancestral fight against absolute evil, embodied in the beast Grendel and other creatures. And in which the authors innovated with the design of the pages and introduced interesting narrative resources.
On the occasion of the tenth anniversary, Astiberri has launched a special edition, possible not only because of the quality and importance of the work, but also because it has worked well in terms of sales, as Santiago García explains. This new Beowulf It has a cover made by four hands by the two artists involved, and includes the original pages by Javier Olivares, never before printed, as well as other extras.
“There was an intra-history that justified returning to the book,” says Olivares. It is a limited edition, as David Rubín explains, which aims to be, in his own words, “a celebration and gratitude to the readers who have made everything possible.” In addition to “a reaffirmation that, despite the fact that the situation is not ideal and there are many battles left to fight in order for comics in Spain to be an industry with capital letters, if good comics are made, honestly, without copying formulas of fashion, it is possible to advance.”
Santiago García argues, for his part, that there were two reasons for publishing this book: one, to recover the pages of Javier Olivares. And two, recover the work itself. “I think that one of the big problems that graphic novel authors in Spain face is that there have been very important works in the last fifteen years that, due to the dynamics of the market, disappear,” analyzes the screenwriter. “We cannot afford that, because it is not viable to publish a new work every year. We need our books to remain alive and one way to reactivate them is to reissue them with added materials, which are new for readers who have arrived in recent years.
The coexistence in the volume of the initial pages of Olivares and the complete work drawn by Rubín also poses an interesting exercise, as García points out: “There are many differences in sensitivity and artistic differences between Javier and David. The book allows a comparative study about how two different artists approach the same themes and materials.” And, in that sense, “it is almost a comic book course,” says Rubín.
Looking back
Asked about their impressions when revisiting a work published a decade ago, the three authors are sincere. For Olivares, who has the greatest temporal distance with the work done for Beowulf. “It helped me realize that I couldn’t be as perfectionist with details or repeat as much as I did. The comic should be seen as something global, and the piece does not have to be absolutely perfect, explains the artist. Proof of that learning was Las Meninas (2015), the comic in which he worked with García after leaving Beowulf, and which was awarded the National Comic Award, and which was later followed by works such as anger (2020) y War of the Worlds (2022).
For his part, the screenwriter recognizes that returning to Beowulf It has been “very rewarding.” “It has confirmed to me the need to always write about things that really matter to you,” she says. “The work was the same, but at the same time I felt that it reflected my experiences of recent years. I enjoyed it very much, because I felt that more than traveling to the past, the work traveled towards my present. There has been nothing nostalgic about it.”
Along the same lines, Rubín observes how at each moment the work can have very different meanings: “When you make them, the stories are no longer yours and they can provoke different emotions and interpretations. For example, when we finish Beowulf, it was the time when King Juan Carlos I abdicated, and it seemed that history was talking about it. But, when he came out in the United States, he coincided with Trump’s presidency and there were people who saw it as a metaphor for it.”
Sometimes, perfectionist illustrators fall into the temptation of retouching or modifying their pages taking advantage of a reissue. But it has not been the case. Olivares confesses that years ago he could feel a little embarrassed when he saw first-time workers, “but it doesn’t happen to me anymore. My 22 pages of Beowulf They are a work that I feel very proud of, although I no longer draw along those lines.” For his part, Rubín is forceful: “I never considered retouching anything. A long time ago I came to the conclusion that each work you do marks the maximum you could achieve at the time you made it. It works as a reminder of where I come from and where I’m going. And it also reminds me of the things that worried me and happened to me with each one.”
This special edition of Beowulf It is a good opportunity to learn about the title, a work for which its authors have a special affection. And Rubín takes stock: “Together with other works, it showed that there was a way forward, that there was another way of telling things and treating the epic in comics. It is a comic made from honesty and from the guts, and that is why readers have valued it.”
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