We will take the planet Linbo in our hands and then we will turn to other things. After opening the book, the following dedication phrase: “A child who never lets you dream.” But it's not just a book for kids. It's easy
to read, and I think it's catalogued for people over eight. But the subject deserves a different reading, and as age progresses, it gets deeper into it.

We recently published in ARGIA an interview with Craig Thompson, a well-known American comic book artist. He talked about how the job of the comic book artist is to keep the passion of childhood. Yes, as an author, for him; but I think he looked more at the reader. How do you experience it?
I would say that I am like this, of those who keep the illusion even with small things, among them experiments [notes the comic book]. I think I take it in character. But yes, and I like, as an adult, people who keep their essence as a child. I myself try to keep it.

That's what comics do, right? I mean, the rest of the books, the novel, the poetry, etc. In other words, “serious things” and for adults. Instead, it’s “misplaced,” or we’re afraid to see an adult reading a comic book.
That's something that's in our society. It has to do with culture. You go to Japan and you see the adults reading comics on the subway. The thing about comics is not just about kids. In our case, I would say that the image has always been underestimated. In the end, in Euskal Herria, the weight is given to language, to the word, because there has always been fear of losing it. Therefore, the image has always been a little abandoned.

However, going back to the question, I would say that comics has a way to link up with their childhood. Some of that is very interesting.

He has just published the planet Linbo and has arrived at the Durango Fair. What does history tell? What was the script that came to you?
This is a theater play by the company Dejabu, which was brought to the stage in 2017. The proposal has come from them. They wanted the war, as a theme, to approach the children. So they created the story, to tell from a child's point of view some of the qualities of war, in a fun way. But history has another twist: it takes a lot of work of imagination. It's not a history of gross war.

There is a protagonist, a girl named Numa, who hides in the refrigerator to escape the bombs that fall from cielo.Vive in a harsh, very violent situation, in the ruins of the houses of his city, as
the war destroyed the whole environment. It is he who has created his own life, where it has touched him to be. Around him, with his dolls. It's completely lonely and has a shelter for the refrigerator. He wants to escape from that situation, dreams of it and uses his imagination to do so.

History is of Arab origin.
Yes, the theater also took it like this.

The comic book begins with a few phrases in Arabic.
The Arabic language was also heard in the theater. That's how it came to me.

It is not explicitly mentioned, but it concerns Palestine. That's what you're doing.
They give clues to understanding. Numa is alone until he meets a dog and becomes his friend, and tells him how there is a huge wall that goes there, that there is sea here, desert there... I mean, you can't leave. And he suffers attacks throughout history. At all times, you think about how to escape from this situation, and because the stars and the planets really like it, you get to it: to look for gadgets to be able to fly, to escape.

Later on, Numa tells how they have come to this reality.
She counts her memories as a child. He is not very aware of what happened, but he knows that some men came to his land, that suddenly they could not do one thing or another... And from day to day, artifacts began to fall out of the sky. She also remembers that a lot of people left, but her family decided to stay there, taking care of her home. A night of such bombing, to protect him, Numa gets into the refrigerator, and when he leaves there is no one in the whole city. Military only.

The soldiers say: “These lands are ours. That’s what our book says.”
Of course, there is the issue of occupation, yes.

I found the story very vivid, the thread is easily followed, and you can also find very different pages in terms of design and illustration. And in very thoughtful two-page format. I took that trace.
Yes ... It's been difficult, because in the end it was a play. The work seemed very powerful to me, from the actors, because it was well worked, they filled the stage a lot and managed to keep the viewer very attentive. But of course, the work was limited to the stage, where everything happened. The comic book asks for another elaboration.

[Open the book and point with your finger several cartoons as the pages go] You can draw the first drawings, or you can be more general, you need the characters to move... Finally, on stage, Numa was almost always in the refrigerator and was leaving there in very few moments. That, moving on to the comic book of nothingness, would be very boring; I would get bored to myself.

And what decisions have you made?
In the history of giving dynamism, I have sought to place some elements slightly outside the vineyards. Sometimes more closed, others wider... This [notes a part of the comic book in which an interactive path is drawn through a thread] I really liked to do it, play a little bit with the place that surrounded Numa, explain more, give dynamism, better understand the situation in which people live... It also works as a game.

Then, when Numa starts to dream and to imagine how she is going to escape it, in that case, what is reality and what the imagination, I wanted to break with the usual format of the narrative. I've also played with that.

Leaving aside the planet Linbo, Tupust! As you are also part of the collective, you have presented the Gu comic book here at the Durango Fair, two or three hours before the interview. Eight or more years ago you started to bring together several women from the Basque Country to unify feminism and comics, to speak in Basque [in ARGIA, in number 2.756, we take Tupust more deeply! ]. You have announced the end, the cycle closure. Suspension at least. The moment we started
thinking about doing a trilogy: I was the first, you were the second and we were the third. Therefore, in that sense, the final was advertisable. Anyway, working as a team, I don't know how to say it... In the end, it's something that takes a lot of energy. What's united us is the comic book, but we're actually very different people, from different places, working together has needed a job ... We have decided, with the third book in hand, to finish the journey for the moment.

Ending Gu is no coincidence. You have claimed the importance of working collectively.
Somehow, our goal was to open the doors to another Basque comic book. Because we saw that the comic in Basque was closed in style, in terms of themes; and there were very few authors, and they are still known. We wanted to open it, and for that we started with Tupust!

We've seen that we've given a place to many authors to explain their work, and we've seen that a change is happening in the field of comics as well. We're seeing other papers in recent years.

What is the point of change? And what work does it mean?
Most comics are almost always men, and most comics are mostly directed to young men. The public tends to be that. The topics being worked on are very concrete: adventure comics, which tell a story of history... Many other issues have been neglected.

But in recent years, the Basque Government has been subsidizing the creation of comics, which has meant the realization of other kinds of comics. For example, Maitane [Gartziandia] Ño! comic book (ARGIA, 2023). At one time, surely, it would not be published in the Basque Country. It's giving a change and it's a joy.

You separated yourself from men and formed a group of women with the clear goals you are pointing to.
When you have great intentions, you have nothing more to go to the community. A single person cannot completely change the situation. Tupust has served to join forces! Creations for taking a place.

You published the first book in 2019, with an editorial, but you broke the relationship with the second book, for some dispute. This is what you said in the presentation of the book.
A lot of things happened. When we started the project, the publisher was another person, and he wagered on what was going to come out without knowing very well what was going to come out. Just before the book was published, the editor changed. OK. It is true that in this first book the authors were more known than in the second. In the second, we wanted to introduce more avant-garde authors, to make them more innovative. But that was not well seen. At first, yes, we were told they would publish it, but when they saw the work, they went back.

We had agreed with our collaborators that we would publish it, and because some of us are a little used to self-publishing, we decided to take it out.

I think that, from the point of view of publishers, there is no economic return for this type of book.
Books with images, of course, have a much lower return. Printing costs are higher, from paper. It is also true that the public is smaller, if not something that has been created for children. In the children's literature, sales forecasts can be met.

Adults who read comics are few, and that's why profitability, I guess, is lower. Perhaps the publication of a work of this kind requires the editorial some kind of commitment. That is, not so much to look at money, but to say, “this has to exist.” Some have that commitment and others do not want to make it.

In the presentation of the book you mentioned, Paula, that the creation of comics is hidden and that the collective aims to give voice to it. On the way to visualization, without publishing, is it easy?
We have tried to accommodate the many authors in the Basque Country. But it is true that not having the support of an editorial does not give as much speculation, we have already seen that this is so. But well, the one who read that first book, I hope it will also reach this third one and not stop on the way.

Before I started the interview, you told me that comics, illustration books in general, are in the background.
It's a pity. In the end, a few big names, even if they're few, take it all, and the rest of us stay on the corner.

Also at the Durango Fair. They have hardly been presented.
Only the great names are the ones that keep going, and if they get right with the subject, even more.
Some very good and very nice jobs are left behind, that's right. And that we all look at the Durango Fair, blindly, that's also the case. And if so, many will stay in the corner. It's not possible for this to show a thousand books.