DIBUGRAFÍAS, now on sale!

Some things are born by accident. I believe these dibugrafías are a case in point.

Last Christmas, while driving me to Gran Canaria airport, Miguel Panadero said that as it was normally me who commissioned artistic works of all kinds from him, we were going to change the dynamic just for the fun of it. So, from that moment on it would be him who  would send me a drawing, and that I was to write whatever it inspired in me. In other words, this was his vendetta. The conversation continued, and even before we reached the airport we’d baptized the project “dibugrafías” and planned that we wanted to publish them in a book, and exhibited in an exhibition, and…

As a result of this happy accident, this benign vendetta, the dibugrafías  were born. As you can see: half drawing (dibujo, in Spanish), half graphō, from the Greek “to scratch, to scrape, to graze”. Fifty stories inspired by myriad places, practicing what others have called writing on the move, wherever it occurs, stripping writing of all that stuff about preparing to write, and instead seeing it as normal as having a beer… In short, I thought this way of writing would fit perfectly with the mobile existence I practice.

At the same time, we shouldn’t forget that the simplest laws always apply in life. So, what goes up must come down, and when you spit up, you’re really spitting down. These are laws that apply as much in the private sphere as in the public. I am reminded of this, because when these dibugrafías were born, we set a composition rate of one a week. A rate that we maintained, until I had a few days free in Russia during Holy Week of 2014. From there, I asked Miguel Panadero to up the pace and so were born Cosmic Censorship, The Torpedo, Vertical Vestiges…  And other dibugrafías that we later threw out, like What is Strange?

Back in Madrid, I mentioned to him that it would be good to maintain a rate of four a week, which he acceded to without problems, thinking — I presume — that I would be unable to take it, given my work commitments. It has to be said that for Miguel Panadero, it had all been pretty straightforward up until then, given that his vendetta had consisted simply of pulling stuff out of the larder. And that is what he carried on doing, and me hanging in there, until by June, he realized that the larder was empty and that he had to start drawing so that I could write. Something happened to him that he had not calculated: the vendetta had turned against him, proving once again that the simplest laws always apply.

There is nothing more to be said than that by accident we have given each other the pleasure of working together; also we hope you enjoy these dibugrafías as much as we have enjoyed composing them, and that you think twice before carrying out vendettas.

Dibugrafías’s authors: Drawing: Miguel Panadero, http://miguelpanadero.com Text: José Félix Valdivieso, Director of Communications. IE Business School, ie.edu.es Vídeo: https://libros.com/crowdfunding/dibugrafias/ https://libros.com/crowdfunding/dibugrafias/adelanto/