Comic: Between art and popular culture

Quadre de La Giocconda, observat per un personatge

Exhibition at the Communication Library and General Newspaper Archives

25/05/2022

The Communication Library and General Newspaper Archives introduces its new section dedicated to comics with a sample of masterpieces of the art of the panel: a selection of classic and modern comic books from the world's leading authors and schools.

And not just comic books. Also comic magazines, which have provided hours of fun for young and old and have served as a launch pad for novice authors.

We complete the exhibition with studies on comics, which explain its history and analyze its weight in the popular culture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, as well as its influence on society and the media.

Visit the exhibition at the ground floor of the library. You can ask for the list of the displayed materials through the Pregunt@ service.

The comics session

The exhibition is a sample of what you will find in the comics section of the library, located on the second floor of the building.

This section is assembled around the Hernández-García del Pino family's comic book collection, donated to the university in 2021. It consists of more than 400 titles, including comic books, monographs on comics and magazines.

It includes a selection of Spanish comics from the 70s and 80s, with authors such as Carlos Giménez (Paracuellos, Los Profesionales), as well as an important representation of the Franco-Belgian school, of which it is necessary to mention Jean Van Hamme, Grzegorz Rosinski and Hermann. Highlights comprises the American classics of the newspaper comic strips, such as Milton Caniff (Terry and the Pirates, Steve Canyon) and Alex Raymond (Jungle Jim, Flash Gordon) and the popular westerns of Italian fumetti published by Sergio Bonelli Editore (Tex). The collection is completed by an extensive selection of Will Eisner, a pioneer of the language of comics and graphic novels.

The magazines contain historical titles that were already part of the General Newspaper Archives collection, such as El Víbora, Cairo and Makoki, and two long-running publications, still in newsstands today, such as Cavall Fort and El Jueves.

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