Vincent Price, the king of horror and comedy

un fondo morado y negro con un marco cuadrado en el medio con una pequeña cantidad de puntos pequeños, Bedwyr Williams, plasma, arte digital, arte por computadora

The god of Olympus pop

At the top of Mount Olympus of pop, above Leonard Nimoy, Mickey Mouse, Núria Feliu and the rest of the divinities, we have Vincent Price. Whether standing with a lightning bolt in his right hand or sitting with a majestic gesture, he has been there since the beginning of time: consuming the drug of invisibility in film versions of novels by H. G. Wells, giving his radiant voice to The Saint, making laughing at Roger Corman’s creepy low-budget films, participating in epic biblical productions by Cecil B. DeMille, inspiring Stan Lee in the creation of the wonderful Doctor Strange, filming melodramas with our Sara Montiel, playing an egg-faced villain in the Batman series of the sixties, commenting on works of art from the Prado Museum on surprising vinyl records or collaborating vocally on the song The Black Widow by Alice Cooper and on Thriller by Michael Jackson. And in the same way that he dominates the heavens and determines the destiny of mortals with his characteristic theatricality and savoir faire – a raised eyebrow, sweet voice and evil laugh – he acts as creator and presenter over the creatures of the underworld.

A book full of endearing monsters

“I have never met a monster that I didn’t like,” the actor told Kermit the Frog before being vampirized by it. Strangers is both a tribute and a mockery of the golden age of classic comics and B-movie horror, with Vincent Price introducing each tale and stitching the narrative seams that follow the adventures of a series of monstrous characters — and friendly at the same time—who try to adapt and be “normal” within this fucking strange world. A classic from the Javier Sáez Castán National Illustration Prize that the Barrett publishing house recovers 10 years after its original edition. A book where vintage nostalgia and pulp aesthetics are combined with the sharpest humor.

Editorial miracles and mysterious disappearances

“Javier Sáez Castán is a phenomenon,” Manuel, Zaca and Belén, the three-headed monster behind the Barrett publishing house, confirm to me. His way of drawing, his ingenuity to pay homage and parody B movies at the same time, fascinates us. Strangers was completely out of stock and it was almost impossible to find the edition of Sexto Piso. We had to publish it, it is a mythical work, people have to have it in their homes. A girl told us that a copy of the previous edition fell behind a piece of furniture and disappeared… Now that’s strange! For people like her, here is the new edition.”

From the golden age of comics to Flow 2000

The prestigious Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben asked what is contemporary. To answer, he recalled Roland Barthes, who, in turn, thinking of Nietzsche, said: “The contemporary is the untimely.” That is to say, that which is contemporary or current is that which is disconnected from the present, out of fashion, but that does not go out of fashion. In a time when “the old days” means dressing in ‘Flow 2000 (two thousand)’, resorting to the imagery of the 40s and 50s, of the Golden Age of comics, pulp magazines, Amazing Stories and cheap horror and science fiction films, like Strangers does, can be for the reader a miraculously healing balm of contemporary malaise, an embrace of the imaginaries of a futuristic past, with the hope of returning to what never was but always can. be about to arrive.

You are the strangest thing!

Back to the present (or the future), I do not reveal any important information if I warn you that the reader will begin the journey contemplating monsters and will end up becoming one of them. Jordi Costa said in the catalog of the Trash Culture exhibition that: “Looking at monsters does not make us legitimate tasters of trash culture. We will only be when in the eyes of the monster we recognize a spiritual brother.” “I had the movie Freaks, by Tod Browning, very much in my mind,” continues Sáez Castán. In fact, as you get to know the monsters in the comic, you realize that they are absolutely human: they have very common reactions and feelings. Lambton, the infinite worm, feels very insecure, he is unemployed, he has very little self-confidence… The Big Pink Monster can’t stand being laughed at. Bud Chapman, the interstellar movie star, only pretends to be one more in his host country. And the rest of society appears blurred, like a machine in which we are immersed. I wouldn’t know where the monstrosity is. It hasn’t been a conscious concern, at least. I associate the monstrous more with the collective, on a personal basis. There is one thing more monstrous than Leviathan and it is what we now call social networks: all that autonomous existence that social groups, collectives, etc. acquire. All of that seems terrifying to me.”

Barrett’s tricephalus, more human than monstrous

To finish, we return to Barrett’s three-headed monster, who also ends up confessing his humanity: “Actually, we are ordinary people. Of course, we do some strange moves like complaining and protesting about the things we don’t like about the book world. We published (and we say this in the past tense) ten books a year, but since 2023 we have published only eight titles. Because? Well, because in bookstores they have to select from around 1,500 weekly editorial releases, and at Barrett we want to be as little part of that capitalist bubble and madness as possible. Hopefully in your next interview we can tell you that we only publish one book a year. Is that very strange?”

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