Good times for the clown: new movie which was already exciting passionate opinions, and he directed some comical emissions in Spanish, like a torpedo of laughing gas at the hearts of the target. On the one hand, a series of volumes entitled ‘Jester: A Biography of a Stranger’ compiles notable stories, and on the other; a very unique compilation of stories titled ‘Joker: The World’ which, dedicated to the image and likeness of the former Batman, completes short stories with the Clown Prince of Crime traveling through different countries.
These, of course, are native authors from different places. In Spain, DC and ECC, their editor here, had David Rubín, one of our authors with the most international projection (‘El fuego’, ‘El hero’, ‘Gran Hotel Abismo’, ‘Cosmic Detective’; ‘Ether’. And Ruby brought him to Madrid, where the thief feels like he is in Gotham itself, or better, if possible.
The volume is full of authors and obituaries from very different countries: Germany, Italy, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Mexico, Turkey, South Korea and up to 13 others, although Rubín’s contribution is by far the best known. He shows us the joker, who not only visits emblematic places in the city (Gran Vía, Prado), doing his thing, but also reflects in his writings, in a postcard he sends to Batman, how comfortable he is; We pursue good citizens, hate is keptcriminals are rewarded.
It is a story with the sharpest piece of social criticism in the whole volume, a merciless and pitiful portrait of one of the most hated and beloved cities of Spain. He spoke with Rubín to reveal some of the keys to this story, and he begins to tell us how the thing was born, which at the beginning of Madrid did not necessarily happen: “I thought where it could be developed; that when it was ordered to be done demonstrations in Ferraz“.
It was a breeding to express the Madrid of the time as well as the dark neighborhood in Gotham: “That breeding that breathed those days, that violence in the atmosphere, that ferocity. People protested what they didn’t want. It.” which, following the results of the elections, said that they had come to defend Spain in the gradation of democracy. It was such a crazy and dark thing that I could clearly see what was there And he insists on the advantage of Madrid over other places: But as soon as I saw that virgin vein from which I could extract gold, I resolved to stay there.
When we ask him if such arguments would have generated any problems with the publisher, he reminds us that “from the beginning DC understood that it was a comic that was going to have a lot of business. And they did just that. A whole army of lawyers was deposited at Warners to analyze every text and every drawing. In fact, after the first review and seeing the quality of the work, DC gave him two extra pages to cover the story. “No censorship problems, no discussions, no surprises, nothing at all,” he said.
Regarding the subject of the play, Rubín is clear that he does not criticize him harshly: “I used the mother because, To paraphrase our president, ‘the Spain of Madrid is within Spain’. What I am talking about are problems not only in Madrid, that too, but in all of Spain and not only in Spain, but also in a large part of Europe and in a large part of the West. “The rise of fascism, racism, machismo, a lot of issues that I consider problematic and that I wish were not so present in the city that I love and have lived in for ten years, like Madrid.”
“I don’t see this as a comic attack on Madrid,” he said, “but a warning to sailors to try and think a little bit about the direction we took to this city, to Spain, and to our lives in general. The way it’s going is not going to happen to my daughter when she grows up I would like Cascorro, Prado, Madrid.
And all these things are washed away, of course, with a certain humor, which is adapted to such a clown. Rubín says, “Sure, I’ve never thought of a clown, let’s say.” Yes, he is the guy who asked for this role and doesn’t care about anything.that he finds everything ridiculous, because the world is more royal and he likes to have fun with everything and wants to imagine how he, with his head confused, thinks it should be.
This is how the idea of the traveller, Scurra, is born, absent from most other stories, which rather include the idea of global terror or international criminal freedom: “The joker here is the beginning of the tourist city. About a typical tourist who comes to Madrid to spend a few days. This gives me the opportunity to show all the bad things that I wanted to show the oppressed by the tourist’s eyes, with the fact that he is a real and murderous psychopath.
The joker, in a way and according to Rubín, looks forward to the future. He states that “the future promised by these social economic plans that are being carried out in Madrid) is really crazy. I think the city is quite hostile to the citizens.more towards tourism, the sporadic visitor, and less towards creating a serious and adequate quality of life.
The most powerful message that we could read in these times in a superhero comic comes, in this way, from a dangerous sociopath like the Joker: “We live in a community where the president signed a book for which almost 8000 people died in residences. And absolutely nothing happened here.
Header | ECC Editions
