Las figuras y los signos de la memoria en Paco Roca

Memory plays a key role in many graphic novels by the eclectic Paco Roca. If in Arrugas memory has been cancelled by Alzheimer, the same topic – this time related to the Civil War – is present in Faro and Juego lúgubre, among others. Its social importance is differently modulated especially in Roca’s most recent works, such as El invierno del dibujante. The novel is a journey through the memory of those Spaniards grown during the Francoist Dictatorship and educated by the comic books published by Bruguera and by reading Los surcos del azar, novela gráfica, the story of a group of young republicans who, forced to leave Spain in 1939, continued their battle against Nazism in France as exiles. Roca’s particular attention for narration in his drawings, sustained by a rich and meticulous investigation, highlights the way he artfully analyzes the historical and social memory in order to provide the present with possible answers