Friday 18 September 2020

Mikel Casal


The trauma of news continues its relentless path through our times. The only possible good news for the world could arrive in November, but history indicates otherwise. Here, there is no good news, starvation, floods, riots, civil war look inevitable to me in the dark winter, mixed with horrific covid deaths as the governments play games with statistics and make some people believe there is no threat (to them!).



 

But maybe I am not an optimist . . . I used to be, or at least I saw ways of progressing through problems, currently, I am beyond perplexed.


Meanwhile, I found 'This is the Dictatorship', one of four books originally published in the 1970's conceived and written by Equipo Plantel republished by  Media Vaca in 2015 with bright, stylish, new illustrations by Mikel Casal an illustrator from San Sebastián. 

"When searching for the right tone for the book, I couldn’t help being inspired by the Ernst Lubitsch film, ‘To Be or Not to Be’, and Chaplin’s ‘The Great Dictator’. I never considered a serious and harsh look for the illustrations, despite the seriousness and harshness of the subject matter. I wanted to emphasise the almost theatrical, tragicomic aesthetics of every dictatorship, full of ridiculous lies." Mikel Casal 








It will be available in English in Spring 2021 by Book Island.

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