Narrator drawing and illustrator telling, always and anyway. Careful to bring to life characters that let you glimpse much more than they show. Curious explorer of stories that, apparently related to a genre, open up to many other perspectives and interpretations. Yet Paco Roca likes to present himself like this: I consider myself one of those privileged people who have managed to achieve their childhood dream. From an early age I wanted to be a designer and today I work both as an illustrator and as a cartoonist». From the press and advertising, Paco Roca (Francisco Martínez Roca, Valencia, 1969) enters the world of comics working for the adult magazine El Víbora. After Gog, written by J.M. Aguilera, in 2001 he published his first graphic novel, Il gioco lugubre (ed. Tunué 2013), a personal and disturbing interpretation of one of the most famous and appreciated characters of surrealist art, Salvador Dalí: the alleged testimony of a collaborator of the Catalan painter provides the pretext to re-read in a new key some of the distinctive elements of the Catalan painter’s art - madness as a method of work, love as a game of power and death drive, the dream as a recurring nightmare - until you get a new portrait of the artist, his dark half. After the myth of Dalí, Paco Roca decides to look at today’s world and one of its taboos: a courageous operation that leads to Rughe (2007, ed. Tunué 2008). Old age and Alzheimer’s are a tragedy that causes pain and tears, but they are part of life and, since they have to face them, it is good to do it with dignity, without giving up laughing. Many have enjoyed this graphic novel, deep and light, poetic and never rhetorical, painful, but also incredibly ironic. It is not by chance that Rughe has collected numerous awards and has become an animated film (directed by Ignacio Ferreras) winner of the Goya Prize and numerous other international awards and even vying for the final five nominations for the Oscars 2012. Wrinkles was also appreciated because it is a great proof of empathy. From the experiment Emotional World Tour (2009, ed. Tunué 2011), written with Miguel Gallardo, Paco Roca reports a lesson that shows that he has learned with time and work: writing and drawing means first of all knowing how to listen to friends as readers, family members like strangers, because what people live, feel and suffer is what is most authentic can be in a comic. Paco Roca’s works show another strong interest: the attraction to eras, environments and imaginaries far from their present. The series published in 2003, The Sons of the Alhambra (ed. Planeta De Agostini 2007), combines the Andalusian setting with the imagination of French painting of the nineteenth century through a dense plot of adventure and action. After this attempt, Paco Roca took two parallel paths: on the one hand, it has mastered a verbal and visual language markedly literary and has explored this fiction declared until finding an unexpected but tangible contact with everyday reality - is the case of The sand roads (ed. Tunué 2009) and The metamorphosis (2011); on the other, he has created detailed and precise historical reconstructions where the chronicle episode becomes teaching of universal value - is the case of The lighthouse (2004, ed. Tunué 2007), The winter of the designer (ed. Tunué 2011) and Los surcos del azar, which he is currently working on. Paco Roca continues research of different types, with curiosity and eclectic spirit, with conviction and professionalism, but also with great frankness and awareness of their limitations. After the awards and applause, Paco Roca is still there, as in one of the last cartoons of his autobiography, Memoirs of a Man in Pajamas (2011, ed. Tunué 2012), sitting in pajamas at the work table, waiting for him to come up with a new idea.