Sergio Andreu |
Barcelona (EFE).- The filmmaker Álex de la Iglesia, invited these days at Comic Barcelona, where he arrives as one more member of a parallel community that not long ago was condescendingly labeled “geek”, does not mind boasting about origin of his “vital belly”: “I constantly feed on images, cartoonists and illustrators”.
The man from Bilbao moves like a fish in water through the pavilions of the Barcelona event -the main event in the sector in Spain, of which he is one of the guests and which has dedicated an exhibition to him- surrounded by fans of comics, video games, role-players or cosplayers, among other fans of alternative narrative supports.
His links with cartoons and drawing go back long before he moved to moving images: “My relationship with comics is deeper or as deep as with cinema, I am a filmmaker by profession, but what has always liked above anything else is a comic”, he clarifies.
The director recalls that in the eighties, as a teenager, he dreamed of going to the salon and meeting “(Miguel) Gallardo, meeting the people of El Víbora, the people of Cairo – the two main adult comic magazines in the time-, to Joan Navarro, and so many others who made me who I am”.
De la Iglesia puffs out his chest when he sees the intimate connections that now the world of comics, video games, role-playing games (“I have always liked “Dungeons and Dragons” and the one that the most “The Call of Cthulhu”) maintains with the cinema and more recently with the production of series, something unusual when he began his career.
Storyboards, “comics” for filming
“Our alternative way of seeing things has become global content, and that fills me with pride, because it is as if, between quotes, humanity agrees with you”, underlines the director of “Acción Mutante”, who has lucky to lead one of the most prolific careers in Spanish cinema.
“I don’t mind talking about my vital belly, I work enjoying myself, I work doing what I like, making movies, making comics, playing role-playing games, it’s my profession, with which I can tell stories and I’ve gotten ahead, I have to thank you very much to these extra kilos”, he laughs.
What he also knows is that if he had not been able to draw his films, they would have been very different or would not even exist.
“It wouldn’t have been possible, because one of the biggest difficulties when shooting is precisely the speed with which you have to do it. Everyone involved has to know what we are going to do and when. That is why it is drawn, so that everyone knows where the characters have to be, when the tracking shots are going, the short shots…”, explains the director about those storyboards, his “comics” for filming.
If you ask him which comics he would like to adapt, it seems that he has the list well thought out: “’The Grand Vizier Iznogud’, I would like to do ‘Hulk’ or ‘She-RanxeroxHulk’, and above all ‘RanXerox’, but yes, there are a thousand projects that you have in mind and that you are thinking about them ”he details from a list to which the Spanish market adds the “super group” of Pérez Navarro and Jan.
In the middle of the interview, which takes place next to the exhibition on his career (“Points of sanity: the role, comics and cinema of Álex de la Iglesia), the curator of the same Cels Piñol appears, whom the director and the scriptwriter receives it with a resounding kiss and makes him intervene.
“Here we can see how Álex’s brain works -its deficiencies, the director himself corrects him between laughs- we see it through his art, his drawings, we have before us one of the best illustrators in Spain and he is discovering it a lot people. Apart from his cinema, here we have his art ”, explains Piñol before the exhibition that brings together original drawings, large-format illustrated panels, storyboards, as well as several of his fanzines and comics.
Alex de la Iglesia bets on a much wilder second season of “30 coins”
The director has taken advantage of his time at the Barcelona event to unveil the trailer for the second season of “30 Coins”, the horror series he has made for HBO Max with Miguel Ángel Silvestre, Megan Montaner, Eduard Fernández, brand new in October.
“This season is much wilder, more fun, not so much horror as action, suspense, mystery. It has more characters than the previous one. With scenes shot in hell, something complicated, but we had good contacts to go down”, reveals the author of the mythical “The Day of the Beast”.
De la Iglesia will leave Barcelona with more luggage than expected because these days “a fortune” has been spent on comics.
“The last of Daniel Clowes I need it. All the news from Panini, from Norma… Norma is a publisher that is constantly bringing out jewels, it is almost necessary to have everything and then you will discriminate”, affirms this multi-creator capable of transmitting the passion for his obsessions, be it cinema or cinema, with just a few words. comics.
“It’s a kind of chaos, they are accumulating in an organic way… there are times when I think, I have that comic, but I don’t know where and I say to myself, I’m going to buy it again,” he admits about a hobby that has gone out of his way. hands, but surely the editors will love to know.
