In the book come the Alajaineta festivities, but this year nobody can dance giants on the street, thanks to Izar, Ainubi and Etxahun to get wonderful things that they are able to achieve, with the help of Kukutturlio.

Particularly among the smaller ones, giants are a huge phenomenon in many homes. Why do these gigantic illusions produce?

Gorka Bereziartua: The giant is a figure that comes from far away, is in the traditional folklore, but it can also be found in classic Greek texts, as Herodotus mentions that they have to look for the bones of the giant Orestes, etc. There is a figure that has always fascinated the human being, with different variants at each time. They are a phenomenon among children, but also among adults: those who are larger than us, who go beyond humanity, who are afraid in different cultures, and others more friendly (in Basque mythology, for example, we have Basajaun). From the children's point of view, there's also a question of scale: parents are bigger than you, but giants are even bigger.

Adur Larrea: And they dance better than their parents. In the giants you have everything: known characters, mythological and others, good and bad, as well as “common” characters: farmer, fisherman… Do not forget that along with the giants there are usually heads, and they are also an interesting element, you always have to go looking at the liver, in case they go behind and they will touch you.

The story also shows the heads, with which children have a love-hate relationship.

Prado: I would say that the level of hatred has fallen a great deal. The heads used to hit harder, they played well, they were at that. Now, on the contrary, if they are not too locked up in the world of political justice. Sometimes they also give candy to children, it’s a little disappointing…

Differentiated: What happens with the heads is that they don't know very well what their intentions are approaching; the intention is usually different depending on their age, but they also learn something about that ambivalent relationship, that point of fear that the heads have. Courage, fear, limitations… mix at the party.

Some of the giants of the story will be known to him, others will not. They have very special giants in Alajaineta…

Prado: In the story we have a good salsa, yes, and we can find many giants: Zumalakarrangi, the farmer, the king of the giants of Vitoria-Gasteiz… and among them are the giants who have come out with some psychodelia from the words of Gorka.

Differentiated: What I thought when I wrote the story was, why not combine the giants that are part of the Basque tradition with figures that are part of other more contemporary mythologies like Marvel's superheroes? And from there came Gonagorri Bionic, in Marmitakoma…

Because there is tradition to touch, change, update…

Differentiated: Tradition demands to be creative and to adapt it to each moment, although as in all areas, here too there are more purists and things more varied. We have tried to open the door a little bit to try new things.

Gorka, you're used to doing journalism and literature for adults, is it written differently for children?

Differentiated: Yes, because children have another look, which in many things is not as infected as adults; adults demand a basic realism to any story, while children don't care as much, magic and surprise are easier to assimilate and are more comfortable in it. At the same time, writing has a difficulty for children: children are very demanding readers, they clearly express what they like and what they do not, and that gives me respect. That has been the challenge, to do something that satisfies those demanding audiences.

Goodbye, I'll ask you the same thing. Is it different for children? Has Disney done a lot of damage?

Prado: With the creation of comic books or illustrations for adults, we have already internalized some codes and it may be easier to work with them to understand what you want to express. The advantage of children is that they have a very flexible imagination, that leaves more space than we do in the imagination, and that they can understand and internalize something that is impossible for us, even if, for example, they don't keep the racorda or even physically change the character. So it's an advantage, because we can try to draw outside the margenes or because you don't have to respect the conventions.

Disney also follows some conventions, I'm not going to go in if they're good or bad, it's true that they do a spectacular job, visually very attractive, but sometimes the message or the essence, which you want to tell, is not very original, even if it works later.

You said that children are a demanding audience and yet we do not consider them as stupid.

Differentiated: “As it is for children, everything is worth” there are ideas on several occasions, and you don’t realize it right away.

Prado: I don't know if they're considered stupid, but the authors, the parents, the teachers -- in general, adults sometimes don't think much, what food we give to our little ones. And yet, they pick quickly, they have a level of demand according to their criteria. I'm not saying everyone has to read Roald Dahl or love the drawings of Quentin Blake, but if Dahl and Blake have reached the children of today it's for something, they're able to convey a special look that has come to this day.

History has many subtexts and messages behind it, several layers, but it is not one of those “pedagogical books”, one of those books that aims to deal with something. What did you ask the literature (children)?

Differentiated: We were very clear that we didn't want to make a book to convey a value or a concrete message to children. Then they're in history, but they're in everything we do. The writer Rafael Chirbes spoke at a conference in San Sebastian in which he said that in writing a novel he did not care about two things, style and ideology, because style is going to be asked for by his own story and ideology is going to be shown involuntarily. In this, too, our thinking, our values… are there, but we have tried to make a fun, entertaining story that children will enjoy, that will lead them to read. Because reading and literature have to be that, especially with all tastes, variants and colors.

Prado: And not only for the kids, I've also done it with a lot of pleasure, and while I was drawing, I didn't care what the kids thought. I've had a very good time doing this.

Differentiated: The process itself has been beautiful. I very much liked the relationship between the text and the images; imagine, the text has changed almost completely from beginning to end, and it has been for the better. For example, I've seen a lot clearer the character of the characters when Adur has turned them into images, and it's interesting how that influences text and history.

Precisely, one of the characters that our son liked the most was not in the creation of the story, it was gaining prominence in the process: Kukutturlio mascot. I've also done the contrast work with the adults, and lo and behold, a father told me how you put a child playing with a knife, Adur.

Prado: If I had drawn it with my cell phone, would I have paid attention to it? The political justice that sometimes exists, due to the fears we sometimes have, seems to me to be excessive. Fortunately, children are not what we want, and they're going to choose to make an arc with a knife, get into the river -- without the parents going behind. Leave the children alone!

Differentiated: Well, at least the knife has drawn his attention and not the revolt that the children organize against the City Hall, ha, ha. Despite everything, beyond the readings that adults are going to do, I'm interested in children feeling identified.

Speaking of adults, are the adults in Alajaineta a bit heavy? Boring? What can you learn from the children of Alajaineta?

Differentiated: In this story, adults are pretty brave characters, and the initiative and the leading role lies in children, trying to solve for themselves the problem that comes up in history. What can children, organized among them, do to get what they want, in this case to save the kalejira? That's the most interesting thing, adults are secondary characters.

Prado: In the Hanna-Barbera cartoons, the cat and the mouse, as the protagonists are small, when the man appears, often only the legs of the man appear so that the cat and the mouse look good. In our story we have children and giants, we have to make a bigger panorama so that everything stays well in the drawing, because in this story are important both the small and the large and not so much the middle (adults).

Differentiated: This is a story that transcends the world of adults from above and from below.

Is this the beginning of a saga?

Differentiated: I would like to do so. The common work has been very nice and both the main boys and girls as well as the giants and Alajaineta still have many hidden adventures.

Prado: This has been an aperitif, there is still something to be told.

We are organizing a special presentation of the book, you will also be at the Durango Fair…

Differentiated: In an environment full of other kinds of cultural references that come in a very violent way, we must try to accommodate our stories, and that's why I want to encourage children and adults to give this book a chance.

Prado: In addition to the presentation and Durango, on November 16 we will be at the Hernani Comic Book Hall presenting the book. Remember that Christmas is there and that this is a perfect gift.

* To buy the book, enter the ARGIA Fair.