Comics are a form of material art embedded in wider cultural processes. They usually appear in print form, but they have also populated the virtual world using social media to channel creativity and reach wider audiences.

Comics are part and parcel of contemporary museum exhibitions, TV series, films, music videos and, generally, consumer products within the circuit of culture. The endless possibilities of comics to narrate and their capacity to adapt and intersect with other media (photography, music, literature, theatre, poetry, illustration, games) make them an apt example of contemporary cultural production as cross-medial. Currently, comics are experiencing a great creative moment, with new aesthetic trends that broaden their horizon and strengthen their intermedial character. In both Spain and Latin America, new generations of authors are creating comics breathing new life into them and a desire to experiment. In this series of online seminars titled ‘Intermedial Narratives: Conversations with Comics Authors’, Jorge Catalá and Gerardo Vilches explore the multifaceted landscape of contemporary comics through conversations with comics artists, in which we will delve into their creative processes, their themes, and their references.

Fourth conversation: Laura Pérez Granel

Laura Pérez Granel (Valencia, 1983) is an illustrator and comics artist. Her first work, Naúfragos (Salamandra, 2016), with Pablo Monforte, was awarded with X Graphic Novel International Award Fnac/Salamandra Graphic. She alone has published Ocultos (Astiberri, 2019), Tótem (Astiberri, 2021) and Espanto (Astiberri, 2022). She is the author of the pictures books Los secretos de las brujas (2020) and Sirenas de leyenda (2021), both published by Errata Naturae.

She works as an illustrator for El País, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Vanity Fair and National Geographic.

In 2022, she was nominated for an Emmy Award for the credits of the Disney+ TV series Only Murders in the Building, for which she collaborated with the US studio Elastic.