If we think that photography hasn’t been considerate like an art worthy of being part of the most important collections until the 90’s boom -only 30 years ago- is not so strange the delay in duly recognize the best works of comic authors, illustrators or also scriptwriters. However, the recognziment of the comic has recently started and is increasing in some countries, like the United States or France, in museums as well as galleries like art auctions.

ComicLAB 2024. Free Graphic also wants to remind, or just show, that this art, called comic, comic strip and other ways, was, is and will be much more than an art that can be reduced to labels such as “graphic novel” or any other. We’re talking about drawing, about artists and its work, about a graphic creation that includes a narrative component -developed or only insinuated- that can include words or not, that is free and therefore can choose different modes and tones, from conventional or classic narration to humorous synthesis or plastic expression of a more experimental, abstract or surrealist nature, in the key of essay or poetic.

Finally, there’s a third aspect that defines this proposal: its intergenerational character, which means certain continuity in innovative graphic creation. The artists' selection for LAB36’s exhibition brings together authors born between 1956 and 1993 and works produced from the eighties of the twentieth century to the current twenties of a twenty-first century that some of us may imagine being bright but which, for the moment, is turning out to be rather dark. But not for the arts.

The selection exhibit in ComicLAB 2024. Free Graphic includes inedit and recent drawings, some of them made ex profeso for this exhibition (those by Pere Joan, Olaf and Fum), and also earlier works that have rarely been exhibited in their original format. These are the agents that make up this exhibition of free graphics:
Pere Joan (Palma, 1956), Isa Feu (Barcelona, 1956), Calpurnio (Zaragoza, 1959-Valencia, 2022), Olaf Ladousse (París, 1967), Ana Galvañ (Murcia, 1975), Marc Torices (Barcelona, 1989), Fum (Barcelona, 1989) and Conxita Herrero (El Prat de Llobregat, 1993)

The most experienced were once founders and contributors to the best 80’s comic magazines: “Cairo” (Pere Joan), “El Víbora” (Isa Feu) and “Makoki” (Calpurnio). Olaf Ladousse -founder of the best fanzine that I know: “¡Qué Suerte”- and Ana Galvañ represent the intermediate generation. And Marc Torices (author of “Cornelius”), Fum (“Asunción el televisor”) and Conxita Herrero (“Gran bola de helado”) are three of the illustrators more originals of the latest generation.

And we are particularly pleased to exhibit several original drawings by Calpurnio, creator of an extensive and memorable work: "The good Cuttlas".

- Juan Bufill