Paper ‘sputum’. The Spanish underground cartoon

Abstract

To know the origin and development of contemporary Spanish comic, we get into the suburbs of visual culture to discover the history of Spanish underground comics. A comic with which, thanks to the relative freedom of expression offered, the counterculture found a versatile vehicle that could express themselves without problems, becoming a new form of social protest and claim it offers an invaluable testimony to the Spanish reality, superior to that afforded other contemporary arts. The text examines the main features, aesthetic aspects and new language of Spanish comix, discovering the main authors (Ceesepe, Gallardo, Mariscal, Max and Nazario), series (Makoki, The Garriris, Gustavo, Anarcoma,...) and magazines (El Rrollo Enmascarado, Star, La Piraña Divina, Butifarra!, Los Tebeos del Rrollo, Rock Comix, El Víbora,…), and showing its connection with other arts, as painting, cinema and photography, not to mention its relationship to the world of drugs and rock music.