Joan Cornellà Says He's Not the Grotesque Characters He Draws

How do you come up with all these crazy illustrations? The source of inspiration is comics, underground ones. I grew up reading stories by [American cartoonist] Daniel Clowes and these comic book artists that are well-known in the comic world, but not in the mainstream world. People see my work as mainstream now, but I think it has its own roots and they are not mainstream.

How did you start drawing? I like comics. When I was a kid, I drew sketches every day. When I started studying in fine art, I was more involved in conceptual art. When I stopped studying fine art, that’s when I began to become a professional artist. I started in comics eight years ago, when I was 28. It was just a four-page comic, it was a real mess—but I liked it. [Then] I did a 60-page comic in Spanish. It was a lot of work and I didn’t have the time: That’s why I started doing single pages after that. I started posting and sharing them on Facebook. This way of spreading my own work is easier than in print.

Are you what you draw? I hope not. I just prefer my artwork to speak for itself, and I’m not the kind of artist who likes to be in the middle of his own artwork. I hope I’m not that kind of psycho I’m always depicting in my pages!

So you’re not a psychopath? I’m not sure, I can’t tell you. That’s a question a lot of people have asked me. I think there’s a distance between what I’m doing and what I think I really am. But maybe somebody can think that I’m really a psychopath. Maybe, I don’t know.

Do you have a favorite comic? There’s one, I call it “Gangsta Grandma.” I prefer not to name my work, but I just call it that. It was one my first, and I like it. 

All you works are very dark deep, but you present them in all these bright colors. Why the contrast? Because when you present it that way, it’s easier to have a bigger audience. You can treat themes like that as a funny thing, that’s all.