Carlos Sánchez: Doing cool things like that

"Although it was always my dream, drawing and making comics didn't seem like a viable option, so I studied design and philosophy, and started working as a designer. The thing is, I missed drawing." Leaning on the bar, Carlos Sánchez takes a second of dramatic pause to sip the first gulp of his Campari Spritz, "fresh and with a bitter touch," freshly served.

"I really missed drawing —he continues, emphasizing the 'really,' which sounds like reeeally—, that's why, in the end, I decided to go for it, I enrolled in a postgraduate course in illustration and, well, here I am, a few years later."

Next to him, on the bar, a copy of Runas (HarperKids), the first graphic novel by a cheerful young man who, since childhood, caught in a lifelong romance with comics, drew his own stories. "Perhaps one of the things that marked me the most was going to see Howl's Moving Castle at the cinema. I was lucky that my parents took me to see it as soon as it came out and, for me, it was a before and after. Leaving the screening, I convinced myself that I wanted to do cool things like that at some point in my life." And he did, of course. He does.

And, certainly, one cannot deny an evident love for Studio Ghibli's imagery, taking a careful look at his stroke and the story of his debut, full of magic, dragons, ogres, druids, allusions to Lewis Carroll "and culinary references, especially waffles, because the truth is that a large part of the story and the characters of this comic were conceived with the help of my partner, while we had long breakfasts during the weekends."

So beautiful, it looked like spam

When he decided to bet on illustration, the patron immediately realized that the move was a winning one. "Suddenly, I found myself doing what I really liked to do and enjoying what I was studying." In addition, it was at the academy where he met Monika, his partner, "who is a great illustrator and with whom I work side by side," and a "motley group of friends" with whom he remains in contact.

Sánchez is working on the second installment of Runas, which will be "more professional" than the first

After finishing his studies, he published illustrations in some books and magazines, gaining experience and showing here and there what he was capable of. "Until one day Flying Eye Books contacted me and gave me the opportunity to publish a comic with them."

---You must have been blown away, right?

"Well, look, the truth is it took me several days to believe it —he laughs—, I thought it was some kind of scam or spam. But no! It turned out to be true and we immediately got down to business, to work on Runas which, besides being my first job as a comic artist, is in a certain sense quite personal." The work originally saw the light in English, "and now we can enjoy it in Castilian and Catalan, which makes me immensely happy because, among other things, now my parents have been able to read it."

The positive inertia makes the artist confess to being involved "in a thousand things at once," a victim of an excess of creativity that leads him to constantly start projects, "although many of these go nowhere." What is indeed visible on a reasonably near horizon is the second installment of Runas, "which I am currently baking and which will be cooler than the first, more professional, in addition to preparing paper toys of some of the characters from the work." On the other hand, he reveals that, among various projects "that I can't talk much about yet," he is making a fanzine with Monika, "based on a story she created a few years ago." And he smiles as he explains this. "It's a pleasure to work with your partner on something we both love," he adds with genuine electricity vibrating in his gaze.

Living in the magical city

"Barcelona was the magical city where I wanted to live," says the local, who spent his childhood "in a hundred percent Andalusian neighborhood of L'Hospitalet, because my family is almost all originally from the south." As a child, he went to a school in the Eixample, "next to where my mother worked," and there, in that back and forth between "that stately neighborhood full of huge flats, and our small flat overlooking a street full of junkies," he fell in love with that city "where all the cool things happened." And he explored it "with Carlos Ruiz Zafón's books, in search of the buildings, squares, and places he described."

And in the end, he got it. "I moved in with my partner and yes, here we are, living in Barcelona. Perhaps not the Barcelona that little Carlos believed in, but a more vibrant, more dynamic, and, above all, more fun Barcelona." And he sips the last drop of his Spritz, before alluding to the big obstacle: the rental situation. "I've wanted to live here my whole life and we'll see how many years I'll be able to keep doing it, with rental prices rising at this rate," he reflects with a cloud of worry clouding his face.

—What's going to go up, if you don't accompany it with something to eat, is that Spritz you just had. Besides, it's already lunchtime!

Carlos Sánchez immediately regains his cheerfulness and calls Monika, so she can join him at the bar and they can eat something together.

—Would you like a menu, tapas, to look at the menu, portions...?

"Portions, always!" exclaims the regular. "I like to be able to nibble on a bit of everything, try different dishes and, above all, be able to share them," he adds with a wide smile.