They are two different looks but they complement each other. The first deals with the trans world from the real experience of a mother who finds it hard to accept the process of transforming her daughter into her son. A case told with enormous honesty. The second proposal opts for fiction, humor and parody. And yet, the personal residue is also present, although the first person is diluted under the mask of fiction.
The first album is Transitions. Anne Marbot's diary, published in Spanish by Andana and in Catalan by Comanegra, with translations by Silvia Moreno Parrado and Alba Coma, respectively. It is a graphic novel based on the real case of a mother who transferred her experiences in a diary and whose story flows parallel to that of her son and her transidentity. Transitions is a sincere work that questions us about our freedom to decide to be who we are in society. Question the reader and break topics. It explains very well the reasons that lead its protagonist to change gender but, above all, it is completely correct in putting on paper the mother's reaction to her child's decision and her subsequent evolution.
The emotional journey of the mother is especially well treated. For her it is also a long and complicated process, another transition. She begins with the initial rejection and continues with the search for new points of view that allow her to understand situations that she had previously rejected. Know, understand and empathize. Open your mind knowing that it will involve correcting ideas that seemed immovable. Questioning convictions of a lifetime.
Anne Marbot – the person is real but her name is not – wrote a diary to understand the process of transformation of her creature and her own. From this material, Élodie Durand builds an emotional story far from clichés, drawn with a clear line, which she sometimes mixes with other graphic styles to evoke the past or to convey feelings. Élodie Durand, she made herself known in 2010 with an impressive and admirable work, The Parenthesis, in which she recounted her struggle against epilepsy and a brain tumor.
Transitions is completed with abundant bibliographic references that bring it closer to the field of the essay – the influence of the so-called comic-report, very important in France, is noticeable here – and offers complementary information, so that this learning period of the mother is shared with the reader, who will have the opportunity to expand his readings beyond this book.
The second album is Dragman, a fun cartoon by Steven Appleby published in Spanish by Astiberri (translation by Rubén Lardín) and in Catalan by Finestres (translation by Núria Molines Galarza). A comedy with a very British humor that is the first graphic novel by Steven Appleby, in which he tells the life of August Crimp, an ordinary man who works in an office but who becomes a superhero as soon as he dresses as a woman.
The premise is a success, as it allows for a fun parody of superhero comics (where double life is a mandatory rule) and at the same time manages to portray deeper problems through that protagonist who is forced to hide his identity. This is how, by way of humor, he subtly addresses issues such as sexual identity or the difficulty of sharing that intimate secret even with his partner, for fear of rejection. Ultimate irony, Dragman himself is not satisfied with the nickname with which he has become popular because he does not define himself as drag but as trans. Appleby also qualifies as transgender, she dresses as a woman although she retains her masculine name and identifies interchangeably with masculine and feminine pronouns.
The work is supported by a detective plot and at times surreal that runs through the entire album, but it is precisely Appleby's ability to build such a rich and suggestive subtext that makes it interesting (signaled by a great ending that we are not going to reveal but that contributes to that reading beyond the anecdote). A beautiful fable about transvestism as empowerment. Or put another way: a song to get superpowers when one is oneself.
Appleby, a regular contributor to The Guardian newspaper, draws with a simple line, close to a sketch. His trajectory as an illustrator is evident and Quentin Blake's rugged style does not seem far from his universe. Nicola Sherring's color adapts easily to this style and contributes effectively to the reading.
For this debut in the field of comics, Appleby has had the ambition not only to make an extensive work with various levels of reading, but has also dared with a very free comic format (perhaps precisely because it comes from another medium) as evidenced by the textual fragments that introduce another narrative level to the story. Dragman has been recognized with the 2021 Angoulême Festival Special Jury Prize and the 2022 Max und Moritz Award for Best International Comic.
