Pep Brocal and Tyto Alba

In the world of comics, Pep Brocal and Tyto Alba are a point of reference. Both cartoonists and illustrators, restless people with an extensive career, which converge in the Postgraduate Diploma in Narrative Illustration for Children's and Teenagers' Publications.

The programme starts its classes on 23 October, and in this academic year Tyto will be in charge of the comic classes that Pep used to teach. Gabriela Rubio, coordinator of the postgraduate course, talks to them about their beginnings, experiences and anecdotes.

Pep, what experience has teaching illustration and more specifically comics meant to you?
At the end of each course, I have to confess to my students that I learn more from them than they learn from me. I hope this is an enthusiastic exaggeration on my part, but it is true that year after year I have left the course knowing more than when I entered. About illustration, comics and life in general. And I owe that to the wonderful people I've been lucky enough to have as students, of course.

Any memorable anecdotes?
In seventeen years of teaching, there have logically been all kinds of situations, sometimes tough, sometimes stressful, sometimes funny and occasionally curious. Like the recurrent phenomenon of creative symbiosis that is created as if by magic between the students' projects without them being aware of it at first. This last year, fifty percent of the comic projects were about cats, red cats, blue cats, black cats, kittens, cats lost in the big city, and so on. What surprised faces.

Pep, the students have since become professional colleagues. Have you followed their projects?Over time I've come across former students at publishing houses, fairs and illustration and comic fairs. I remember Inge Nows, Jana Glatt, Marta Cunill, Joan Negrescolor, Miquel Manich, Henan in H, etc. In fact, the list of crack would be so long that I'd almost better give it up as I'm happily exhausted.

I haven't kept track of the projects that were born in class and have ended up being published. And when students crystallise at that level, they are logically so excited that the last thing on their minds is to send a copy of the book to that old fogey of a teacher, no matter how nice he or she might be.

And finally Pep, what would you highlight from all these years of classes?
I have seen this with my own eyes: over these years, many different projects have been generated in class: some good, some excellent, and a few great. The most significant thing about this fantastic experience of teaching has been to see how most of the students leave the course with a magnificent project under their arms, ready to take to a publisher. From there on it's up to the student's talent, their will and tenacity to become a professional and a pinch of luck (which, why deny it, always helps). 

Tyto, how did you get started in the world of comics and what have been the main milestones in your career?
I've been drawing comics since I was a child, just for fun, as a game, because I've always been a comic book reader. Professionally, I started a bit late because before that I was a painter and illustrator. As at that time many magazines had disappeared from the market, I entered the world of graphic novels of many pages, first with the now defunct publishing house Glenat and later with Astiberri and other publishers.

I suppose that the works that attracted the most attention were "La casa azul", about the relationship between Frida Kahlo and Chavela Vargas; "La vida", about the youth of Picasso and Casagemas; and "Fellini en Roma", which has also been translated into other languages. Although I personally prefer more recent works in which my evolution can be appreciated, "Whitman", "El olvido que seremos" or the very recent "El infinito en un junco".

From the world of teaching, what intrigues, excites, frightens you...?
I've only given workshops with other colleagues, but to very young children and it's been a long time since then. That's why I'm very curious and I'm very interested in trying and, above all, in being able to learn together with the students from the things that come up. Sometimes, for cartoonists, the creative process is very intuitive and we don't even think about many things theoretically.

That is to say, we have never set them out step by step orally or in writing and sometimes, as in my case, we haven't even thought about them or meditated on them in depth. Everything has always come from having read a lot of comics and having unconsciously assimilated certain solutions to the narrative in cartoons. That's why I'm sure it will be very interesting for both the students and myself to discover how all these things can be explained and to learn from doing so.