Anima Porter

December has arrived and I still haven’t published the fourth chapter of Anima Porter?! What happened? Well many things. I offer the following update as an explanation and I hope it doesn’t sound like an excuse, note that I’m currently working on Anima Porter and I already have several pages finished in pencil.

During the months of June and July I was working on my most recent printed publication: “La Noche de Desentierro”, an experimental self-contained comic that revolves around the underground band called: “Los Hermanos Matasuegra” and deals with how their music and presentation manipulates the audience in a bizarre and creepy way. With this work I officially presented my publishing label “Casa N.100” from which I also published the printed edition of Anima Porter 1 last year. The comic was presented at the 26th La Paz International Book Fair and the good comments I received about the work fills me with joy, something that greatly relieves me for the future of the publishing house.

Unfortunately, the hectic production of “La Noche de Desentierro” took a toll on my body. In the middle of the drawing session I began to feel discomfort in my right hand, the hand that makes the drawings. This of course activated all the alarms in my head (although not enough at first to stop me from finishing drawing my comic), scared and afraid that the situation would worsen to a tendon issue, I had to take rest, get away from the drawing board and finally attend physiotherapy sessions. All this in the span of three months in which I tried to make as little effort as possible with said hand. Fortunately, the discomfort decreased considerably after the physiotherapy sessions, but before resuming my normal activities I had something pending: Nortecómic 2022.

During the year I received the invitation to participate in the first Nortecómic Festival in Iquique, Chile, which I attended with several colleagues representing the ABCH (Bolivian Association of Comic Strip Creators). The event took place on October 27, 28 and 29 and needless to say, it was an incredible experience, many people were able to see my work, I met great artists and I felt tremendously honored to have been invited to an event abroad.

Upon my return I got down to work with Anima Porter, but before that I had another unfinished business; because I had been invited to the “Colloque international hybride la Bande Dessinée Numérique Espagne, Portugal, Amérique Latine”, an international colloquium on the webcomic that is part of a study carried out by the Université Clermont Auvergne. My first invitation to an event in Europe! Of course, I was only able to attend virtually this time, but that didn’t stop it from being very exciting. I was able to share my knowledge with other authors and with the attendees of the colloquium. It was also the first time that I spoke extensively about Anima Porter, which was the main reason why I participated in the colloquium, and besides being an enriching experience, it motivated me a lot to continue drawing more pages of Anima Porter.

As you can see, despite the unfortunate injury this turned out to be a great year and it would have been even better if I finished an episode of Anima Porter, which by the way didn’t leave my head for a second. With more time on my schedule, I can more accurately estimate that the chapter currently in production will be published at some point in January 2023, and this time without fail. Finally, I’m infinitely grateful to the organizers of both events to which I was invited, for the opportunity to exhibit my work in their countries, those are experiences I’ll never forget.

Feeling very optimistic about the future and hoping that this has been a great year for everyone as it was for me, I say goodbye wishing you happy holidays.

Read you in the pages of Anima Porter 4 😉

Andrés M.