1909, ROSE OF FIRE
Graphic Novel
For just one week during the summer of 1909, a popular revolt could change the political course of Catalonia. Among the actors of those tragic days, Gabriel, a schizophrenic patient, will be involved in those incomprehensible and chaotic events.
After a passionate night with her maid, named Ariadna, Gabriel will have to fetch her because she has unexpectedly disappeared. During this tour through the mad and burned streets of Barcelona, he won’t be able to distinguish reality from his psychotic imagination.
Through the revolution of the Tragic Week during the month of July 1909 in Barcelona, I wanted to adress two aspects of Spanish society.
On the one hand, I wanted to criticize the current and persistent social differences. After so many centuries of social struggles, the upper classes, which denigrate the lower class and destroy the middle class, still exist today. In fact, these popular claims of the Tragic Week bring up several problems still to be solved in our Western countries, such as the growing inequality between rich and poor, corruption in our governments and the authentic freedom of the people. Movements such as 15-M or "Stop Evictions" are just a couple of examples of this public unrest.
On the other hand, thanks to the schizophrenic illness of the protagonist, I invite the reader to think about our sensory limitations. As a human being, in an unconscious way, our perception continuously interprets reality in the most effective way possible, but not always in the most real way. Taken to the extreme, Gabriel then represents the maximum distortion of our world by our senses. Based on different artistic techniques, I intend to translate this distortion.
Finally, I take the opportunity to raise awareness and give information about psychopathic diseases, in particular schizophrenia. Breaking the myths of aggression or violence, based on prejudice and ignorance, is one of my other objectives for this work.
