These newly produced memories challenge the official reading of the civil war, as established during the transition to democracy, as a “collective insanity.” As part of this process, the last three decades have produced numerous novels, documentaries, and journalistic accounts that have brought to the fore the untold stories of the repression during the civil war and its aftermath. Since 1989, Spain has gone through a process of re-emergence of the memories of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and Francoism (1939-1975). El análisis de su figura dentro de este ecosistema de cambios se configura como indispensable, tanto por la amplia influencia de su producción gráfica como por el salto al medio audiovisual. Sus trabajos en los años noventa potenciaron una relación con el medio audiovisual que luego se rubricó en la década de los 2000, con la dirección de la película de cine de animación De Profundis (lanzada en 2007). En el caso de Prado su camino creativo discurrió hacia el sector audiovisual: trabajó para la televisión gallega en la realización de carteles, ilustraciones, diseños y todo tipo de merchandising para el programa Xabarín Club o en el diseño de personajes para la serie Men in black. Algunos autores lo abandonaron definitivamente y otros volvieron a trabajar en el medio pero con un estilo totalmente distinto. Drawing on Anne White-head's recent discussion of modes of inscription and collective memory, this article explores the representation of memory and the fantastic in Miguelanxo Prado's 2012 graphic novel Ardalén, noting the strong implications of Ardalén's main character's incapacity to distinguish between what he lived and what he heard in the context of the Recovery of Historical Memory in Spain's early 21 st century.Įl periodo que siguió en España a la desaparición de las revistas más características del boom entre la segunda mitad de los ochenta y la década de los noventa trajo consigo una merma en las posibilidades de trabajo dentro del cómic.

Blurred margins exist metaphorically in the book's story as well as visually in its images, both within its panels and in its gutters. Appropriate to its title, this winner of the 2012 National Spanish Comics Prize blurs lines between the real and the imaginary, between self and other, between land and sea, and between life and death. In the fictional tale, this sea breeze carries with it not just air and smells, but also stories and memories, as well as living sea creatures.

The title of Miguelanxo Prado's 'Ardalén' is a word invented by its author, but which refers to a real phenomenon: a long-distance wind that carries the scent of salt and sea far inland from the coast.

Ardalén by Miguelanxo Prado