Fernando de Felipe: So many things at once

"For background, put on a live performance by Paul Weller. Or Greg Dulli, who drives me crazy when he unleashes in a gospeliano reverend style," asks Fernando de Felipe with a knowing smile, standing at the bar, the foam of his freshly served beer still sliding down the sides of the glass, before adding: "And something to snack on, because I'm a big fan of tapas." As a good maño, he says, it's in his blood.

"I've done so many things, and so different from each other, that sometimes I find it hard to recognize the common thread that unites them ---he explains as the first notes of Weller's Days of Speed begin to play---. Above all, I am an enthusiastic professor who is paid to teach in the most passionate way possible everything he loves madly and has always learned self-taught. I studied Fine Arts, I got my doctorate with a thesis on Hitchcock's cinema, and from there I moved into university teaching, first at the UB and then at Blanquerna. And I'm still there, directing an official Master's in Audiovisual Fiction. I am or have been a comic book artist, television critic, film and TV screenwriter, animator, script editor, essayist, editor, lecturer, academic researcher, and even, if nothing goes wrong, a novelist. And, almost always, several of those things at once."

All of that is the result of a first big decision: "To leave Law in Zaragoza in my second year of university and come to Barcelona with almost nothing to study Fine Arts. I had a terrible time and was often on the verge of giving up, but in the end, I ended up accepting an offer as a professor, in the same Faculty that almost ended my vocation."

In parallel, he managed, not without great effort, to make a name for himself in the comic book world. "There were even editors who told me to dedicate myself to something else, that this wasn't for me. But I, stubborn as a mule, kept trying again and again. And in the end, the miracle happened, and I carved out a career that was like a rocket." Thus, comic book classics like Nacido Salvaje, S.O.U.L., ADN, Black & Decker or El Hombre que Ríe were born. A body of work that the ECC publishing house has begun to re-edit through its Biblioteca Fernando de Felipe. "I went from being slammed the door in my face by all publishers, to publishing worldwide and winning the Barcelona Comic Fair award with Museum, perhaps my most complete work."

The call of teaching

When he was at the peak of his career as a cartoonist, when his name was pronounced with reverence in the comic gossip circles throughout Europe, Fernando de Felipe left everything to dedicate himself exclusively to teaching and essay writing: "I spent almost 25 years without drawing a single line. And the truth is that this return to the world of comics through the reissues of my works is one of the things that is giving me the most satisfaction right now."

The regular confesses that, back in the day, comics were something like his passport to the world of cinema. "I worked with people like Balagueró, Salgot or Luis de la Madrid, I made some short films, and even Guillermo del Toro tried to take me with him to work in Hollywood as an art director."

--- No kidding! And what happened?

--- I told him no, that my life's commitment was teaching and that I wasn't planning to move from Barcelona. And so it has been until now, even though, in parallel, I haven't stopped publishing books, creatively advising friends and former students, directing collections, collaborating in all kinds of audiovisual projects or writing for the press.

Fernando's production as an essayist is also worth mentioning and falls within that ability to do many things at once that I alluded to earlier. In this case, it started one day, when "without anyone asking me, I decided to do a nearly 500-page monograph on the Coen brothers when only the most audacious cinephiles knew them. It was my baptism of fire. Now I have almost twenty titles under my belt." The next thing to see the light will be the regular's first novel, of imminent publication.

Addicted to Sant Antoni

While finishing his beer before ordering another, Fernando recalls the Barcelona that made him fall in love: "That cultural scene I stumbled upon as soon as I landed here in the mid-80s. Curiously, I ended up living right in front of one of the things that amazed me the most back then: the Sant Antoni Sunday market. Total addiction. Or Tallers street when it was full of record stores. Or the number of comic book stores scattered throughout the city. Or that Bermuda Triangle formed by Pastís, London, and El Cangrejo, where those of us from Fine Arts used to get lost."

The parishioner confesses to having, right now, a love-hate relationship with the city. "I have a 12-year-old kid, which makes you see the city in a very different way. And living in a neighborhood like Sant Antoni is a real bargain, three blocks from work and right in the center. But the truth is that the lighthouse keeper's life increasingly appeals to me." And, again, as in so many other cases, he expresses the "infinite sadness and absolute shame of seeing how, one after another, historic venues, bars, shops, and businesses are closing. They are tearing away our memory in bites. And our identity. Barcelona has been consuming itself socially and culturally due to alleged tourist-real estate successes."

--- Speaking of consuming, with the beer, do you want to eat something else? Should I continue with tapas? Menu?

Fernando de Felipe takes a few seconds to think about it, after which, a wide smile crossing his face and lively eyes dancing behind his glasses, he replies:

--- We eat at home as much as we can, among other things because we love to cook and are addicted to markets. When it's time to eat out, it's almost always a portion, because I had enough of meager menus and precariously combined dishes during my student days without resources.