Drawing has been your eternal passion?When I was little,
I filled all the topics: I was drawing in all the books and then the teachers were scolding me. I've always liked it, but my father didn't let me study fine arts or graphic design, and I did the Business Administration and Management. And then I worked as a lifeguard, but over time, I found it increasingly clear that what I really wanted to do was draw. I started sending my drawings everywhere, and so I was able, for example, to do a section of graphic humor in an economic newspaper. I didn't have much grace, but well. Now I wouldn't. At first I took everything that gave me visibility or money. In addition, to be able to work on this you have to be stubborn and call all the sites without shame. Today, fortunately, I can decide what to do. Living from this is very complicated, but you can get it.

He was in Kukuxumuxu for several years. What was the experience like?
There we acted with great freedom, as Katuki Sagüyaki today. We had a good atmosphere in the Kukuxumusu work team and among all the drawings we did. For that I had to learn a lot, but first what I was thinking of unlearning. It's very difficult to make simple, synthetic drawings. Now I can do the town hall of Pamplona with four lines, for example. I was from the illustration and didn't understand it, but it's been great for me to learn to synthesize.

I'm now working at Katuki Sagüyaki with Mikel Urmeneta. It's a very interesting project, but it still needs to be developed a lot. He recently made a short film on autism starring the Bulit bull, which will be presented to the Goya Awards.

In the end, the judges had to decide that Urmeneta’s characters were from Urmeneta… What was the sad ending, no?
Yeah, it seemed like we were doing merchandise. In addition to the 8,000 drawings transferred, the new owner Ricardo Bermejo wanted the characters not to be used by us. I couldn't believe how we could be sitting on the bench of the defendants in a trial, like in the movies, for drawing drawings.

What do you like the most about what you do?The
comic book, the graphic novel, because you have to do everything. The challenge is bigger and the adrenaline is also impressive. My first experience in this field was pretty tough. The Government of Navarra [Yolanda] commissioned me at the time of Barcina on the occasion of the 5th Centenary of 1512 to make a children's comic in bilingual. An adventure was called in three times. I made the script and the drawings, they accepted everything, and when I was already in print, they stopped the rotary because someone on top seems to read it with political criteria. I was told that it was not acceptable as it was, and that many amendments had to be made. I worked with three historians and they did not agree with the amendments either. We had a strong debate. In the end, I changed a few things and they added the prologue that they wanted. It was printed in 2011, but then it wasn't broadcast because it didn't like it. Then the Osasuna Foundation commissioned me another children's comic book and I was more comfortable.

He then made a great illustrated biography of anarchist Lucio Urtubia. Happy?
Yes, absolutely. It's called Gerez-The Treasure of Lucius. The sixth edition is in Spanish, the fourth in Basque and also in French, Catalan, Galician and Danish. I was in Copenhagen presenting it.

The truth is that Lucio's work has been a candy. The idea was Txalaparta. Lucio saw similar works in Durango and said that he also wanted to tell his life “in cartoons” and the publisher proposed to me to do so. I already knew a little bit about his story. Then I read his books, saw the documentary of his life and also had the opportunity to meet him several times in Cascante and in Paris. For me, the real treasure has been to meet Lucio himself. My life has changed. The way of thinking, the day by day… Now I see that we don’t need so many things to live. Before, I was not very materialistic either, but now less. After being with him, I would come home carrying piles and with the illusion of changing things. He was eighty-year-old and he was a great entrepreneur until the end. In view of his model, I am convinced that I too am in time to say and change things.

Did he like Cereza's time?
Yes, a lot! In May 2018, I read him in Paris on the computer. It was exciting. He cried several times. Fighting with him during the writing of the book was a very curious matter, but it was very nice and we eventually understood ourselves as a family. He also placed his conditions on me at all times. Because I was alive or known in Cascante so I wouldn't say anything about that person. He told me a lot of things of this nature.

He was a very interesting person. As he said, a humble mason of Cascante who had only read the parish page. He said that his fate was a lack of knowledge, which is why he entered those matters of theft and counterfeiting. In Paris he met the anarchists of the CGT, but they only listened to music and read and wrote poetry. Lucio was an activist, and so he was an anarchist in anarchism. He never joined the CNT. Lucio praised the work. I often wondered if I had finished the book, and when I said no, I answered that it was a vague.

They have recently brought Lucio's life to the Gayarre Theatre with jazz music. What kind of mixture has been produced?
Very curious. This was what Lucius was missing. In the show you hear Lucio’s voice, you see my drawings… and all accompanied by live music. In addition, I believe that jazz melts very well with Lucius, because in jazz you have to play with a certain anarchy.

Now what do you have in your hands?
Now I'm doing a job for the comic book magazine of the Ikastolas Xabiroi Federation, I'm doing all the funding of the television program Ene Kantak and I'm working on a new graphic novel.

It's located in
post-war Galicia and that's why I've been there for two months of summer. It's a fiction based on real facts. The Falangist priest is the handsome, with a gun and a motor.

How do you see the comic in general?
There is more and more quality. Resources are constantly invented. You grab the cartoonist like Paco Roca and you see it's kind of an encyclopedia.

You can say the health of comics is good. In Euskal Herria, in general, a lot is read. In Durango, for example, that looks pretty good. The works of publishers such as Astiberri, Harriet or Txalaparta are very good and are sold a lot. I believe that every day we are expanding the reader, but before this we have to say that the authors are in a very weak position. We earn only 10%. The time is very cheap and sometimes it is not worth doing some jobs. That is why movements and negotiations are now taking place there and here to change this situation.

Is the graphic novel the same as the comic book?The graphic novel
has begun to be called now to give it more seriousness. They have come to libraries, they serve to count in classrooms the historical memory, a national prize has been created and now it is no longer just a child entertainment. And it's that more and more people are beginning to get interested in comics at the age of 50 or 60.

Comic book has a lot to do with film, but what are the differences?
It has a close relationship with the cinema, but in the cinema the author cannot stop the film. In the comic, on the contrary, you mark the rhythm. You decide if the reader has to read quickly or slowly and you take it on one side or the other. That's the challenge I love the most.

Comic books are frikis?In the Barcelona comic book
room those who dress Superman are only part of the comic book.

But the alternative does exist the world of comics, right?There are commercial
comics and the comics and fanzines that give wood, TMEO, On Thursday, Napartheid… I was at TMEO. It didn't give you money, but there's a way to start and reach out to people, and it's also very refillable to say whatever you want. Artists would be very silly if we weren't against the system, because most of us have a very precarious life.

Are graphic novels a useless reader?
Don't think it can sometimes be heavy to swallow comic. If you don't have a habit, it can be hard to read the comic book. Having to go from left to right, in what order to read the snacks… all that you have to learn. Normally, bad readers have difficulty reading comics.

How is consumption on digital media going?
Comic book likes paper. The pages are read from two to two and the moments of tension are left on the pages of the right, but the end is always on the pages of the left so as not to see them on the shores. This is lost in digital media. I've read a few in digital, because it's cheaper, but knowing that I wasn't going to read it that easily.

How does it adapt to the workshops and conferences it gives?
Satisfied. Children are often surprised at the ease with which drawings can be made. In addition, it is good to make this trade known and claim. And it's wishful thinking to see that someone who's been through your class is still drawing. I also enjoy at the conferences. I gave them in the psychiatric hospital, in Paris 365, in the association of deaf-muds and in the prison in Pamplona, among others.

Is the world of comics a male?
I gave a talk about the gender gap in comics. If you start making a list of known names in comics, almost every author comes out as a man, and when a female character comes out, it's going to have something wrong or it's going to be someone's partner.

For years, girls have been forced not to like the comic book. They didn't see their scope there. The role of women is gross in cartoons. Disney is terrible. A man must always save the girls. In the field of illustration there are more women, but very few in the world of comics. They have now begun to enter and are protagonists. It is clear that for many girls manga comics are more attractive because there are more women protagonists. And more authors. My learning process in drawing has been hyper-male and I've had a lot of trouble seeing some things. I wasn't conscious.

Why do we stop drawing at an age?
Because they force us. Many see it as a waste of time. Now, however, they start to realize that in education, for example, it can be very appropriate to work historical memory. Art in general helps us to be happier, creators are always thinking about something.

What worries me in large part is the great leap of the new generations. Now, there's a lot of cartoonists starting to use digital tools. It's OK, and most of us use it, but we also have to know how to draw in an analogue way. If a blackout occurs, we will not be able to do anything!