We find ourselves at a crossroads, and we enter the Golden Valley. We do it with the help of Sergio García and Lola Moral. There we meet its inhabitants: a boy who wanted a dog and was given a cat; a dog that does not know how to communicate; a ghost girl trapped in the world and a president who is not like the others, because he is actually a monster hunter. The house of each of these characters is a book, and the four books live in a box, a chest that contains these four illustrated albums published by Astronave and written by Lewis Trondheim.
“Their minds, which had coincided in previous times, meet again and when they get together something interesting and good always comes out,” Lola Moral tells us, referring to Lewis and Sergio. “Following the strategy that Sergio always adopts to tell stories, interweaving them, stories within stories, “Crossroads in the Golden Valley” emerged, which is this beautiful book.”
“Whenever we work with Lewis Trondheim, the truth is that our intention is to do something experimental, and it was born after a meeting we had in Toronto, which is where this was born. It is basically a box, which is what the reader will find, which contains four little books, and which are actually like four visions of the same world. In fact, the funny thing is that the cover of the four books coincides and they make up another cover, the cover of the book itself,” says Sergio. Garcia.
“To differentiate each of the stories, each one is treated with a different technique, both in terms of drawing and color, especially color. There is one that is made with a traditional color, another with bichrome, another is treated with dot patterns, industrial patterns, and another with washes, basically. And well, they are, as I say, four stories that are starring four characters, but in reality they make up the same universe and at the same time each of the four books has a different style and theme and a different narrative rhythm.”
“It is something very multifaceted, but very easy to read. Whenever Lewis makes a script, they are very simple scripts, very funny, hilarious, ironic, cynical and brilliant,” says Sergio.
“Actually it is a chest, it is like a treasure that is put inside a little chest and there are four stories, four stories that are independent, that intertwine and are told in a very fun way and with very intelligent humor, aimed at children. very smart, very dedicated parents,” says Lola Moral. “Let’s say that it is a very special product, that is brought together in a very special format, with four different types of colors, with four different graphic styles for each story, and although you can pick up a book and read it independently, if the Together, there is a story that runs through the four books and makes it super fun and entertaining.”
“A president different from the rest”, “A dog’s life”, “The ghost girl” and “The boy who didn’t want a cat” are the four titles that we find within “Crossroads in the Golden Valley”. For Sergio “they are very different points of view. One of the topics that are like taboo is death, for example. It’s like you can’t kill anyone in a children’s comic, especially the protagonist. Well, she dies, the protagonist dies and in fact is part of one of the stories, the ghost of the protagonist. So, they are those types of ruptures that Lewis likes to make so much, because the truth is that the narrative concept is his, naturally, as it could not be otherwise, that is what really impacts.
“Or, for example, I especially like the president’s little book. It’s like suddenly finding a tribute to B movies. I think there was a movie out there called “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” or something like that, well it’s something similar to that. Here is a president of France who you quickly realize is endowed with a series of powers, and he is killing bugs everywhere. These are things that are very shocking when you read them, but then everything has a great narrative coherence – Sergio assures -. I think that is the strength of the book. We wanted each one to have their own identity, to identify them with the character they represent, with the boy, with the dog, with the ghost girl, with the president, who are very particular, and in this way they would be distinguished in a way independent, but at the same time they had a link between them.”
“One of the books is inspired by The New Yorker strips, in black and white; another with plots, another with traditional color… and I think that together they form a wonderful group, because they express what they want, they send a message about each character and at the same time they form a splendid group,” says Sergio. “It’s all done with Procreate. What happens is that the drawing oscillates a little as a graphic conception. For example, the ghost girl chapter conceptually responds, that occurred to me, to the jokes in The New Yorker, which have that kind of black and white image, which is very iconic, with a small text in the bottom. In terms of narration, the entire book has that concept. So, the book is the most spiritual of the four and it lent itself a lot to working with that type of aesthetic. For example, the story of the dog is made entirely with industrial plots and that gives it a very dynamic, very lively aspect. It was very fresh and very spontaneous, it is probably the one I like the most of the four. I like them all, each one has its own point and the President’s is very funny. The truth is that I had a great time destroying monsters, and it didn’t matter that there was blood, because that part is bichromatic and there you work with a false bichromatic, in a way, or trichromatic, and the funny thing about it is that, of course, the blood is still orange, it is blue and so it is very funny, it has a very nice point.”
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