Graphic Novel: A Lupita le Gustaba Planchar
A 200 page, half-decade spanning project published in Mexico, Latin America and Spain.
Overview
In 2012, I was commissioned to adapt Laura Esquivel’s (best-selling author of Like Water for Chocolate) novel “A Lupita le Gustaba Planchar” (translated in the US as “Pierced by the Sun”) into a graphic novel format. This project, which I undertook with determination, became one of the biggest challenges of my career, spanning over six years and comprising more than 200 pages, all of which were designed, illustrated, colored, and lettered by me.
Challenges
- The biggest initial challenge was to adapt a prose novel into sequential art form when the author requested that her words remained as untouched as possible.
- Creating a sample to bring to publishers
Process
The process was…long. This project took over six years.
Character Design
When I first started working on this graphic novel, the prose novel wasn’t finished yet. So I started the first phase—character design—with a very loose outline of the story. Characters changed in appearance, in importance, and some outright disappeared. All of my initial designs were done traditionally, good ol’ pencil on paper.
Result
“This is the first graphic venture by Laura Esquivel, whose work constantly captures the history and everyday life of Mexico, and Jordi Castells, who has worked hard to ensure that the power of the original novel is not lost on the creator who gave him complete freedom to bring this project to life. The result is an extremely harmonious and dynamic visual narrative”
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