2023-12-04 21:30:05
The pencils of Irene Márquez (Valdepeñas, 1990) have been impregnating the pages of the satirical magazine that made her debut in the professional world of graphic humor for more than five years. Her cartoons have dared to portray in a caricatured way the most burning current issues with a comic acuity more corrosive than sulfuric acid and a particular drawing style that is reminiscent of the disturbing pictures on the ‘The Garbage Gang’ stickers. The cartoonist answers ABC by telephone from the Huéscar region, in the heart of Levante Granadino.
– When you entered the Fine Arts degree, did you already know that you wanted to dedicate yourself to drawing comic strips?
No, because I have not been a reader of children’s comics. The comics that fell into my hands were from the age of 14, but I wasn’t very aware of them either. It was precisely through university when I began to come into contact with it. Many classmates and teachers told me: “You’re going to draw comics, right?” I didn’t see it as an option and I barely knew him. But during my studies I began to get more in touch with the world of comics, although in a very superficial way.
– Tell me about the evolution in your drawing style. Does having deadlines mean that you pay less attention to the final finish?
Well, it’s funny because it should be like that, you should adopt an increasingly loose style because you don’t have time. But in my case it is the opposite. What you do is learn to draw better, and that implies that your way of adapting to delivery times is by doing what you already know how to do. You don’t risk doing new things, but the level of drawing is higher than before starting to work for El Jueves. Before I had a much more punk style and now they tell me that I have a clear line. The drawing style is extremely refined and you try to be very functional. The important thing is that the joke is understood, and I have tried to find clarity in the drawing and purify all those dirtiest lines, those plots, those points…
– Current events mark a large part of your vignettes. Does that mean that you can’t dedicate as much time as you would like to perfecting the script for the vignettes?
Yes, totally. Before the deliveries were weekly, and for less than a year they have been monthly, but you still set deadlines because you can’t spend 15 days to make a double page. In the end we are self-employed and we have to take on many different types of assignments and you try to get them done in a time that seems reasonable to you. There are colleagues who have a more simplified drawing style that allows them to spend more time refining an idea or trying jokes with a specific tone. I have always given a lot of importance to the script. I try to be ambiguous, I really like that you don’t see where I’m going. I’ve always liked having time to be able to take that part easy.
– How do you manage your creativity and what are your inspirations?
It is something that is moving quite a bit. For example, when I was in full swing with ‘South Park’, I was very aware of its humor, analyzing it a lot and seeing how I could filter it to keep something, but I hardly do it anymore because it is not a reference for what I am doing right now. But that’s the beauty of creative jobs, that you can be discovering things all the time. Last year I started watching all of David Lynch’s films, I also read his autobiography and I got a lot of ideas from there, but a priori it has nothing to do with me. Now I’m really into scary movies and the mix between terror and humor.
– When you draw a gag, do you focus it according to what makes you funny or what you think the audience who is going to read you might find funny?
It has to be funny to me. There are things that I don’t like at all. For example, English humor seems to me to be a contained thing that never explodes. But I don’t mean that it’s not very brutal, there are jokes that are very naive and are more sparkling. I don’t like this humor that has a sophisticated base, like a badly thrown stitch. But it’s good that there are people for everything, we can’t all laugh at the same things.
– Your cartoons give off a very acidic black humor. How do you make humor in times of censorship?
I am not an expert, although people think I am because of my profession. I myself often hate black humor, because it has become a search for scandal. Everything is settled with a dead baby or fucking a chicken, and there is nothing else underneath. That doesn’t interest me. You can’t stay there, I don’t like leftovers for leftovers’ sake. My humor is very dark, but it is also very tender. Many times it doesn’t even seem that black to me. I think that the label of black humor seems to mean many things, and in truth it doesn’t mean that many. You can be making some great jokes and they may occasionally be more acidic or take you to a slightly more disturbing reality, but they can perfectly fit into the framework of ‘The Simpsons’, which is a series that everyone watches. Humor should not be asked for so much blackness, but rather sparkle.
– Is it scary to get into topics that are too swampy or susceptible to being criticized by public opinion due to cancel culture?
Yes, it is scary. It is also true that the problems that I have had have not been due to dark humor jokes, they have been due to current jokes and ideological themes, for poking fun at certain concepts or making fun of certain things. People become very hooligans. Satire is what causes the most problems. It is also true that I believe that you can say anything, as long as you know how to say it. The Twitter format is a hysterical format. That is why in this discussion format, if you know that the waters are troubled, it is advisable to be lucid. The job of a good fiction author is to hide in an ambiguity that helps you say whatever you want. And that’s what the greats have done, always. Even Cervantes has done that.
– Have you ever changed a joke or stopped publishing something for fear of cancellation?
What I have done is stop uploading things to networks that I would have uploaded. And I haven’t done it because I know what networks are. I prefer to put it in the magazine, which in the end the paper has a much freer dimension. Let’s not forget that the internet is the constant Big Brother, you are always watched. At any moment the hare could jump out, nothing could happen or you could get a big deal for something stupid that is simply out of context. There I have censored myself. Context is everything in this topic.
– Do you like to generate healthy discomfort that disturbs the reader?
That’s something that happens. But what I’m looking for is to make a twist and for the reader to not expect the end. Cross ideas that have a dialogue between them and that maybe at the beginning you are not even realizing, but that is where the surprise comes from. Things that a priori have no relationship but you are being able to mix them.
– Your cartoons sometimes have a clear violent focus. What do you think of violence as a vehicle for humor?
Well, it is super agile, because it is the vehicle with which you arrive the fastest (laughs). I really like to recreate that, but perhaps because I have a somewhat cartoonish drawing style, because I make graphic humor and I think it looks great. When you are drawing in a slightly soft way, with a clear line and you have to add blood… Come on, every time I have to draw something with blood, I dedicate all my time to making that blood abundant, bright, striking and that it is exaggerated because it seems to me to be a great humorous resource and at the same time very scandalous. I find it very funny.
– Is it healthy that there are limits to humor? How do you apply them in your vignettes?
I have thought about it a thousand times like anyone who dedicates themselves to this. Humor, in the sense of causing laughter, has no limits because you can laugh at anything deep inside. But what has limits is the world we live in and that is perfectly understandable. We are not going to be fundamentalist about graphic humor. If I can’t laugh at whatever I want in public, isn’t it worth it? Nor should you put the freedom you have to say what you want above all else. I understand that there are limits when it comes to living in a community. But it also seems surreal to me that a person slips one day and ends up in court. It is a complicated issue, but I don’t like to take refuge in freedom of expression to throw a stone and hide my hand. I believe that when you dedicate yourself to this, you give importance to the job because of the love you feel for it. I once heard Ignatius Farray say that he thought it was important that humor had limits, because those limits helped him work and make humor much better, and that is absolutely true.
– Has black humor become mainstream?
I don’t know if it’s mainstream, but I have to admit that it’s a label that makes me a little angry. Although I am associated with that label because it is what I have done for a long time, I consider that what I do now is my own humor, which may be a little dark. But sometimes I start looking at memes from accounts that are dark humor and I think that they are boring to me. To make something of quality you have to think about it, think about it and not stick with the first idea. There is very weak black humor.
– How do you see the future of graphic humor in the long term?
I believe that graphic humor will always be there. And now on social networks there are a lot of people who make vignettes and upload them to their accounts. What I don’t know is what it will materialize into. Magazines are practically a thing of the past and we authors ultimately have to live off some remuneration. But in networks, very good cartoonists and comedians continue to emerge who may do it for free at first, but then they get a job and remuneration from it. It is a time of a lot of change in formats and of seeing where the money comes from, but it will continue, it will continue. I’m sure of that.
#humor #dark #tender