Paco Roca

Paco Roca (Valencia, 1969) studied at the Valencia School of Art and Design. Although his work focuses on comics, he combines his time with illustration and talks and workshops. In the field of comics, his work has been translated into a dozen countries. Among his bibliography stands out The lugubre game (2001); El Faro (2004) Diario de Avisos Award for the best realistic script; Wrinkles (2007), National Comic Award 2008, Barcelona Comic Fair Award, Critics' Dolmen Award, Madrid Expocómic Award, Rome Romics Grand Prix, Lucca Grand Guinigi Award, Japan Media Art Festival Excellence Award, nominated to the Eisner Awards; The streets of sand (2008); The Cartoonist's Winter (2010), Saló del Cómic de Barcelona Award, Madrid Expocómic Award, Treviso Comic Book Festival Award; the trilogy A man in pajamas, (Memories of a man in pajamas (2011), Adventures of a man in pajamas (2014) and Confessions of a man in pajamas (2017), a compilation of the pages that appeared in the newspaper Las Provincias and El País Semanal; Los furrows of chance (2013), Barcelona Comic Fair Award, Comic Zone Award, Critics Award, Zaragoza Comic Fair Award, Cartagena Mandarache Award, Finalist for the Book of the Year Award, Grand Prize Romics; La casa (2015), Comic Zone Award, Romics Grand Prix, Comic Con Portugal Award, Star for the most outstanding comic by the newspaper of the French capital Le Parisien; La encrucijada (2017), collaboration with the musician José Manuel Casañ ( Social Security), El Tesoro del Cisne Negro (2018) with a script by Guillermo Corral, Splash Sagunt Award, Madrid Comic Heroes Award; El Dibuixat (2019) created for the walls of the Valencian Institute of Modern Art, IVAM and published in 2021; Return to Eden (2020) AC Award DCómic (Association of critics and disseminators of comics of Spain) for the best national work of 2020, El Corte Inglés Comic of the Year award, Best work of international authorship at the Zaragoza International Comic Fair.

In 2019 he received the Inkpot Award at the San Diego Comic Con. Also the same year the Gráffica prize of Valencia. In 2020 La casa, edited in the United States by Fantagraphics in Spanish and English, won the Eisner award in the category of "best edition of international material". In 2021 The Cartoonist's Winter was nominated for the Eisner Award for Best North American Edition of International Material and the Harvey Award for Best International Work. Some of his comics have been taken to the audiovisual field, such as Wrinkles (Ignacio Ferreras, 2011), which won the Goya for best animated film and best adapted screenplay; Memoirs of a man in pajamas or The treasure of the Black Swan, television series directed by Alejandro Amenabar. In the field of illustration, he has made posters, book covers, murals and social campaigns for all kinds of events, publications or clients, especially non-governmental organizations such as Oxfam Intermón, Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Red Cross, Farmamundi and in 2021, together with Martín Forés, made the mural that honors the historic neighborhood of Natzaret in the city of Valencia. 

He gives talks and workshops throughout Spain and outside our country, has collaborated with the Germán Ruipérez Foundation, The Pleasure of Reading, of the Provincial Council of Seville, the La Caixa Foundation, the Cervantes Institute... He has been a radio talk show host with Pepa Fernández on RNE and a collaborator on Ramón Palomar's Open at Noon program on the Valencia 99.0 station. Numerous exhibitions and institutions have been held, including the MuVim in Valencia, the Fundación Telefónica in Madrid, Las Naves in Valencia, the Centro de Historias in Zaragoza, the International Comic Fair in Barcelona and the International Festival of Bande Dessinée in Angoulême, the IVAM of Valencia… In 2016 he was named the favorite son of his city, Valencia, and in 2021 he received a distinction from the Generalitat Valenciana.