‘Fellow Travellers’ in Spanish Visual Print Cultures of the Transition: The Case of Trocha. Cuadernos Mensuales del Colectivo de la Historieta (1977–1978)

Abstract

Abstract This article focuses on the self-managed publication TROCHA. Cuadernos Mensuales del Colectivo de la Historieta, the work of a collective of twenty-six comics professionals who came together to give voice and visibility to the profession and to propagate a type of comic that was adult, responsible and critical. Through an examination of the publication’s history, its members and its contents, the article maps the networks and creative alliances coalescing around TROCHA in order to trace the interconnectedness of the collective with contemporaneous visual print media. It also examines the ways in which contributors to TROCHA, aligned to left-wing ideologies, engaged with the ‘here and now’ of the Spanish Transition to Democracy in a critical—albeit ephemeral—form. The individual case study serves to explore broader zones of production encouraged by collective experience and by shared cultural practices, with a view to shedding light upon a visual culture of the Left.