Ten comics that will change the way you look at architecture

Paolo Bacilieri: These days, it’s impossible not to think about the father of dystopian comics, Enrique. The Argentinean comic The Eternaut (1957) by Oesterheld and Solano-Lopez is very interesting also from an architectural point of view, in its 'brutalistic' simplicity and graphic immediacy. The story begins, as many people know, with a deadly snowfall. It’s all set in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, in a small Tyrolean-looking villa that has always struck me for its "distant" appearance, that vague sense of familiarity and, at the same time, of space-and- time remoteness! Together with the Eternaut, who’s the protagonist, the readers can travel in space and time with this immortal masterpiece. Enrique Bordes: Querido Paolo! The first time I went to do the shopping in Madrid wearing a medical mask, I felt a bit like Juan Salvo, the protagonist. There was also one day, at the beginning of the lockdown, where it seemed like it was snowing. Nothing else to add.

PB: What made this situation even sadder was the news of the death of Albert Uderzo, the illustrator of Asterix, Enrique! I usually divide cartoonists in 2 categories: the “archimedics” and the “proustians”. The works of the “archimedics” seem to be a continuous invention coming out of nothing, which materializes in real iconic elements, such as the vault of Scrooge Duck, Tin Tin's spacecraft, Captain America's shield, and so on. The “proustians” instead, with the most different techniques, take us back to a lost era and time, they evoke it, and bring back to life the past, the myth. You can feel the '70s in Valentina's clothes and armchairs, the uniforms and weapons in the stories of Corto Maltese, and so on. Perhaps this same macrodivision can also be applied to architects, Enrique? Frank Gehry, archimedic! Aldo Rossi, Proustian! Well, Uderzo is an archimedic for sure, it doesn't matter if his stories are set in the Gaul of 2,000 years ago. Everything, in his splendid illustrations, comes from scratch: from the village of Asterix and Obelix to the monuments of Imperial Rome, from the Roman “castrum” to the wild boar banquets that inevitably mark the ending of all the adventures, not to mention that perfectly iconic object that is Obelix’s menhir! EB: And the Gaulish village under the magnifying glass, too! 

PB: I understand and share your passion for this great comic, Enrique! Among the (few) advantages of my Catholic upbringing, there was Il Giornalino, a weekly magazine that published beautiful comics, including The adventures of Commissario Spada. No doubt that even from an “architectural” point of view De Luca’s comics are full of surprises, with acrobatic decoupages and creative visual solutions! His comics are as incredible as they are clear, limpid, perfectly readable even for a young boy from Veneto in the late seventies! All the elements of DeLuca’s language of comics are reinvented and reshaped into a unique, coherent and recognizable whole. But I believe that Gianni De Luca is a Proustian cartoonist: he takes us back, nay, he catapults us in "his" Milan of the late seventies! Nobody better than him managed to tell in a comic book those cars, those hairstyles, those phones, those hallways, that fog. EB: I agree! Maybe we can say that he was an archimedic of that language of comics? What struck me the most about De Luca is the fact that the first time he saw Rome, he saw it as a great comic book!

PB: Italo is the new graphic novel by Vincenzo Filosa, a Crotonese mangaka to whom we already owe in recent years the translation and diffusion in Italy of Gekiga, the Japanese comic neorealism, and a handful of other beautiful graphic novels. Italo is a comic book characterized by a disarming authenticity and a great visual richness. It’s the story of a struggling young translator, graphic designer and cartoonist. He’s stuck between Milan and his native Calabria, between work difficulties and drug addiction, between the role of son and that of man and father, between Milanese SERTs (public bodies that help drug addicts). Filosa’s tender, precise and moving black and white even manages to make Calabrian abusive buildings look beautiful: the ground floors and first floors are plastered and inhabited, while the upper floors look skeletal.

PB: Paolo Cattaneo, a young Genoese cartoonist, tells us Danilo’s story. Non mi posso lamentare is a long, intimate, articulate and desperate love letter that a young misfit and terminally ill father, Danilo, writes to his unborn daughter, imagining she’s already a grown woman. Alienation, televisions, mobile phones, video games, Fiat Panda 4x4, canteens, supermarket parking lots, gas stations, Kinder Fiesta and Tobleroni, collapsed transmission towers and the squalor of the Italy of the early 2000, in a precise, cruel and colorful register. EB: I can't wait for this lockdown to end to get my hands on what Vincenzo and Paolo created! PB: What do you say Enrique, do you want to tell us your titles? EB: Alright, Paolo!  

EB: During this lockdown, several versions of a Spanish classic with which many generations have grown up have made their comeback: especially 13, Rue del Percebe, by Francisco Ibáñez. The idea behind this isn’t too original: the sections of a building become the layout of a comic page where you can see all the co-owners, living a more or less forced coexistence. But Ibáñez, by pure accumulation, has turned it into one of the best portraits we have of Spanish urban society, perhaps of Latin-European cities. The first pages of this type appeared in London and Paris in the 19th century, and the last one I saw, a few days ago, was of Lisbon, already satirically portraying the Coronavirus lockdown.

EB: When talking about intimate spaces and Spanish comics, we cannot forget Paco Roca and Daniel Torres. Both of them, in the same year, published works that talk about our intimate history through the same title: La Casa. Roca tells the story of a family, while Torres talks about the whole humanity. However, deep down, they are both talking about the same thing: the strong link between our history and the spaces we inhabit. I would like to introduce even a third comic book with the same title: La Casa by French cartoonist Victor Hussenot, which further highlights the role of the comic book. Hussenot’s comics revolve around one thing: our home.

EB: Art Spiegelman is one of the authors who most focuses on the idea that comics themselves can be a type of architecture. In The Shadow of No Towers, which talks about 9/11, form and substance are used to carry out a reflection on the medium and our reaction as a collective during difficult times. Now, you in Milan and me in Madrid, we are all “waiting for that other shoe to drop”, an expression that Spiegelman explains in his book about the aftermaths of 9/11.

EB: Almost at the creative antipodes of Ibañez, there is the great Chris Ware, a cartoonist who, through his Acme Novelty Library, revolutionized the language of comics. His Building Stories is an absolute masterpiece, containing vignettes and cartoons of intimacy in a big, not-at-all black box. I must confess that, for me, Ware is a God, his influence has been so great that some authors I know already jokingly say that they want him dead! (Paolo, I don't know if you are one of them...)

EB: Paolo, after reflecting on your classification of authors, Archimedics and Proustians, and on their relationship with architecture, I think it would be interesting to focus on what Fior did with his Celestia (which I initially discovered on your blog... Can you believe there are still people who read and write on blogs?) His story includes two absolutely iconic architectures in Venice, that Wright and Le Corbusier, two of the most significant architects of the twentieth century, never managed to realize. If we did not know these two architectures, we would think that Fior is an archimedic creator... when in reality I think he's a Proustian in disguise. By reconstructing an architectural past that never existed, Fior creates a dystopian, fantastic Venice and new icons for the comics world. It fascinates me to see how many places are transformed and end up having another life through the eyes of comics, whether they be Proustian or not. Herrimann's Coconino, Seth's Dominion or the city of Palma de Mallorca itself in Historias del barrio or the Calabria of Filosa you were talking about earlier. PB: Yes, Enrique, I also like to think of another less evident connection between cartoonists and architects: the design of a story resembles that of a building, it starts for both of them with more or less confused sketches on paper, maps, glimpses, decoupages, details... We also design spaces where our characters move, love, hate, die... In a word, live.

EB: Paolo! Since you’ve helped me make this list, I’m tempted to list a few of your works and your particular approaches to architecture as well. But I’ll try not to list too many of them. Maybe Tramezzino would be my first choice, with its double affirmation of the true beauty of a Modern Milan and of comics-architecture as a support of our intimacy. But, if I had to choose among your latest works only, I would choose the details of Bonelli editore comics, for example the details of your last Dylan Dog (#369, together with Ratigher, Giuseppe Montanari and Ernesto Grassani). Here, your precious square cartoons, real icons of your comics, become the tiles of a bathroom, as a testimony of something I always love to say: the comic strip is our second skin. I can't wait to see what you’re going to do in the next Dylan Dog. Paolo, during this difficult situation, it was really nice to talk about these things with you!