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Abstract: 

The multifaceted Galician artist, writer and politician Alfonso Daniel Rodriguez Castelao (1886-1950) has been considered a pioneer of Galician comics, or banda desenada. This is because of his key role in the development of the medium from his early comic strips in the magazine Vida gallega [Galician life] (1909), to the cartoons that he published in the press in the 1920s and 1930s. Furthermore, Castelao has become a comics character in several graphic biographies since the end of the 1970s. This article not only addresses the reasons for the recurrent presence of Castelao in Galician comics, but it also looks at how the latter have contributed to the mythologisation of this important figure of Galician culture. In aesthetic terms, it will reveal the overlaps between adaptation, biography and comics by analysing all three of them as networks.

Conclusion

Today, Alfonso Daniel Rodriguez Castelao remains the most iconic twentieth-century figure in Galician culture and politics. Such a view of the Galician artist, writer and politician results from a process of mythologisation to which banda desenada has contributed since its emergence in the 1970s. Castelao embodied anti-fascist values and Galicia's struggles for the new comic artists, whose work was marked by the repressive conditions of Francoism. His towering status in Galician culture and society and his pioneering graphic work explain recurrent references to him in their work, and the appearance of graphic biographies about his life. Borrowing Benton's term, I have described these comics as 'biomythographies' in which Castelao is approached from an almost hagiographical perspective, sometimes portrayed as a Galician hero. At the same time, these comics evince a clear didactic function (often aimed at children) which also serves to educate young readers about this key historical figure. Castelao's mythologisation and the aforementioned educational approach taken by comics authors can be explained within the context of the efforts to recuperate a part of Galician history that had been repressed since 1936.

All the examined graphic biographies incorporate Castelao's own artistic work into their panels (either reproduced directly or emulated). This recurrence of self-referential images shows the awareness that Galician comic artists have of Castelao's graphic productions, and it works as a tribute to his influence and pioneering role. In this regard, I have discussed the palimpsestuous essence of biographies and how they can be compared both to adaptations and to the view of comics as a network or a system. Similarly, these comics create a network of references to Castelao's own artwork. The insertion of his cartoons and prints into comics created decades after his death also contributes to the idea of restoring the lost continuity in Galician comic art. Furthermore, the comics establish a visual dialogue amongst themselves. Although it was not possible to do this in this article, one could map similarities between panels (and even how whole anecdotes are depicted) throughout these works. Therein lies another network that could be studied in a future analysis of Galician graphic biographies of Castelao.(85)
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