Antoni Garcés

Garcés originals are pure art and mystery. His full-color illustrations for science fiction covers are astonishing and captivating… India ink, watercolors, brushed gray shades, wax… In his comic pages, his artisanal work is evident, using techniques from another era, like patterned paper, but his clear line drawings become very realistic and believable, no matter if they reflect an uncertain and unsettling future, the present world, or pure fantasy.

Garcés is a graphic designer, illustrator, scriptwriter, and comic artist. In the early eighties, he began publishing in the fanzine Zero, of which he was a key contributor. This marked the start of his professional journey in the comic world, as his works soon appeared in the legendary magazine Cimoc, with some of his stories and covers even winning awards. Garcés has a very personal style, an overflowing fantasy with a taste for science fiction mixed with surreal touches, creating impossible universes. Still, these are grounded with elements of social critique and dark humor in equal measure. Noteworthy is his lengthy science fiction comic, Demasiado humano (Too Human) from 1985, scripted by Enrique Sánchez Abulí, and a year later, his first album as a writer and artist, Ú, la grieta móvil, another work of science fiction.

With scripts from writer Emili Teixidor, author of titles like Pa negre, Garcés illustrated a comic on Catalonian political events, Lavínia 2092 o la guerra de les essències, which was published in 1988 in the Sunday Supplement of the Diari de Barcelona. In the nineties, for six years, he collaborated with the magazine El Jueves on the series MixTurmix, scripted by Miguel Ángel Nieto, and Bobot by Enrique Sánchez Abulí – humorous tales but always set in his very personal futuristic worlds. Garcés is also adept at capturing traditional atmospheres; in the 2000s, along with a script by Eloi (José María Casanovas), they created the comic strips Veranitas for Diario de Ibiza. These are fun and worldly stories set in the summer.

Another significant aspect of Garcés artistry is his illustrations for hundreds of science fiction and fantasy novel covers for publishers like Ultramar, Júcar, Fénix, and Alcodre. Illustrations that enticed you to buy the novel or enriched the interior texts. His works have been published in France, the USA, Italy, Holland, among other countries.