Paco Roca: «All my stories arise from anger»

Paco Roca is from Valencia, a cartoonist and illustrator, winner of the National Comic Award for ‘Arrugas’ in 2008, and author of many other essential albums: ‘Los surcos del aleja’, ‘La casa’, ‘La encrucijada’, ‘Regreso al Eden’ ‘…For a few days now, on the façade of the La Rambleta Cultural Center in Valencia, a 16-meter mural designed by him, and painted by the artist Martín Forés, honors the dana volunteers. That illustration is already the symbol of solidarity and hope. We took the opportunity to talk to him, but on the contrary, about capital sins. —I forgive you, of all people, a capital sin.—Forgive me for envy.—Because you prefer not to talk about envy or because it is your capital sin? —Yes, I am a little envious. I think that what they say about healthy envy is a condescending way of referring to envy, envy. To that of all life. It happens to me, above all, with work things. I read something that I really like and I say: “Wow, I’m so envious, I should have done it myself.” I am very envious, I admit, towards other authors who do fantastic things. Related News THE SEVEN CAPITAL SINS OF… standard Yes The 7 deadly sins of Alfonso J. Ussía Rebeca Argudo The chronicler publishes a new novel, ‘Borroka’. “You have to be an asshole to believe something when there are doctors saving lives…” he says—And who is the one who forgives most easily in others?—I could easily forgive any of the most carnal: lust, laziness or gluttony. If I have to choose one, I think I would excuse the laziness. Maybe because in my family, they instilled in me a lot that you had to work at all hours, always be on the go, not waste time… And I still have a hard time letting go of that, so I apologize to others because they find it difficult. I understand. —Do you think that in creative and promising professions, like yours, when you succeed and are recognized, it is more difficult to keep arrogance at bay than in other disciplines? —Well, I think that, in a way, it is like that. But it is also true that pride does not help us: it is better to create, I will not say failure, but rather the lack of success. Success gives you a certain visibility that makes you be less demanding of yourself, you believe that what you do is really good, you relax and put in much less effort.—You start by keeping arrogance at bay and end up having to maintain laziness at bay…—Well, a little bit (laughs). It is a fight, in the end, with yourself. Because this type of work requires a lot of discipline: you don’t have a boss, you work at home, the delivery times are very long… So you are all the time, in a way, fighting against your own nature. You will always have an excuse, from raiding the refrigerator, to resting a little, or putting on a washing machine.—The next thing will be to fall into anger for having fallen into all the sins before.—I am not very irascible. I have a hard time getting angry, so anger is not one of my cardinal sins. And many of the stories I tell do arise, in a certain way, from a kind of anger. They are always fights against some element, whether it is a disease like Alzheimer’s, whether it is against forgetfulness, or against certain social issues.—Use anger more than suffer it. —To tell stories we need all those great passions. It doesn’t mean that we have to feel them disproportionately, but our characters do. And it is necessary to understand them and them to be able to narrate it. —He has not turned out to be very sinful.—A moderate sinner. It’s all about balance.

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