In Spain, it is increasingly difficult for us to sleep. These are the conclusions of multiple scientific studies, such as those published by the Spanish Society of Neurology in 2024, which indicated that up to 40% of the adult population suffers from insomnia symptoms, while 14% suffer from chronic insomnia. The reasons are not only medical, but related to living conditions, economic and work situation, and uncertainty about how to solve our problems. Concern with all these causes, which point to the capitalist system itself, is what motivated the painter and comic artist Ana Peñas (Valencia, 1987) in her recent work, in the wake of (Salamandra Graphic), a photo-essay and narrative that explores the lives of several people who suffer from problems resting during the night.
For Anna Peñas, the social approach has been consistent since her famous debut, We are all fine (2017), a book recounting the lives of his two grandmothers, which has so far gone through more than ten editions and won the National Comics Award. It was his second job Everything under the sun (2021), an overview of the process of gentrification and tourism in the Levant, in which a critical and activist perspective is evident that will also be present in his next project, the IVAM exhibition, in Valencia, In a house. Genealogies of home work and care (2022-2023), in collaboration with anthropologist Alba Herrero Garcés.
In her third comic book, the author keeps the spirit of protest alive and addresses the systemic causes of sleep problems that, like a silent epidemic, are affecting more and more people. It does so through the intersecting experiences of a young woman with a training contract, a middle-class family, a homeless man, racer A warehouse worker and others.
What is the origin of the project, how did you become interested in this topic and start researching it?
Two and a half years ago, I was looking for a topic for a new comic strip, after I had an exhibition at IVAM. I noticed that people were talking more and more about their sleep problems. I’ve never slept well, even though I’m not a chronic insomniac. But I know what it’s like when you don’t want the night to come and wish it was tomorrow. And I think there’s an open discussion about this, about how people are sleeping worse, how the consumption of anxiolytics is rising… It’s becoming an everyday occurrence, with people facing dramatic situations, or addicted, or dealing. I was also impressed by the re-reading The year we didn’t have a revolution either (2007) from the Todoisin group, which speaks of a very specific time, 2005, from collagein a choral manner. I wanted to do that. Immediately the temple came to me for six nights and one day to build the work.
A wide range of social classes are represented within this choir. I have shown that this problem is contingent, that it intersects with issues of class, gender, and race…
This is part of my way of seeing things. I think that sometimes culture remains caught up in the problems of the middle class, which is increasingly being destroyed. My approach has been clear from the beginning, because I interact with all kinds of people, and I have discussed these issues with people experiencing poverty. I have a friend who works with the homeless, and she tells me about the amount of pills people living on the streets take while they sleep. From all of that, I was looking for profiles for my characters.
Do you think there may be a certain bubble in creative professions? In comics, there is a lot of talk about the fragility of the people they devote themselves to, which is… independentworks at home and handles tasks. But we don’t usually see the problems of the homeless, or those who work cleaning, or on the assembly line.
I think comics rely too much on personal experience, which means that our own instability is overrepresented, while other characters are underrepresented or not even represented at all. I think culture in general suffers from this. I also think there is a certain fear of speaking about others, about what one does not know directly. I wanted to get rid of that fear, to respect and listen, of course. But I am interested in understanding others, because society ultimately consists of all of us.
in in the wake of If someone dedicated to the design appears independent…
This was the easiest character for me, of course.
There is a certain fear of talking about others, about what one does not know directly. I wanted to get rid of that fear, to respect and listen, of course.
Anna Penyas
— Cartoonist
But it exists as part of a melting pot of a series of facts that ultimately culminates in a very similar problem: lack of sleep.
I get a lot of information from the circles I move into, from very hardcore people. And also from the previous work I did regarding domestic workers and sponsoring the exhibition. In it I dared to leave a well-known area, through interviews with other people. I think I gained a certain amount of confidence, and I tried to be consistent and always be careful.
Another thing that is very important in all of his works in general and in this comic in particular is aesthetics. I think it goes against the grain, it’s not a “pretty” or nice aesthetic, there’s a representation of the ugly, and the characters are very real, from the street. Comics scholar Hilary Shute writes that the choice of drawing style is a political choice. Do you agree with this?
Yes, I see the same thing. It is a path I have consciously chosen since the beginning of my career. I saw that beautiful people were overrepresented, and that fat people, racist people, and older people disappeared, or were greatly underrepresented. Everything I encounter when I go out into the street disappears. My style is a way of representing what I know; I don’t even force it. I go to the supermarket and look at people’s faces, at the clothes they are wearing, at the tiredness of their dark circles. I also sometimes play ugly, of course. But I don’t think I’m distorting reality; It seems to me that the style we are talking about is more distorted.
Today, drawing styles proliferate in autobiographical or very gentle social works, drawing adults in a “cute” way. Do you think this has an impact on what is said?
I think every aesthetic has a message. They really are inseparable. I think there’s a certain aesthetic of appeal that suits a lot of people as a refuge, and it’s something that seems very legitimate to me. But I think that sometimes a certain aesthetic reflection is missing. And then there are always fashion trends, of course. I made some decisions when I studied fine art, and I saw that there was a lot of dilution in the field of painting. I immediately felt the need to get out of there.
What role does your use of collage? I had a feeling he was using it more than previous works.
Well, I would say it might be a little less collage Photography regarding Everything under the sunhe has more drawing. But by mixing different styles, the overall look can be completely different. collage. The work asked me about that because there are different characters, historical parts, imagined or dream parts… it gives this fragmented, copy-and-paste image.
I think this is consistent with the idea that the problem of lack of sleep is multi-factorial. And this, it turns out, ultimately all comes from the capitalist system.
Insomnia was the excuse to talk about this discomfort. When I started researching, I saw that there were cases that were purely medical, but that did not interest me much for this work. I wanted to talk about what keeps me up at night, which is why I needed the chorus, to talk about many topics, types of work, the burden of care, violence, and the most psychoanalytic part…
One of the problems seen in in the wake of In previous generations there were people who lived to work, but at least they lived, while young people work all day and do not have enough to live on. This appears in the story of the painter independent Or in racer.
Yes, I wanted to show the types of work done by young people, who no longer have schedules, cannot organize themselves dynamically and are in deep water all the time. But I also wanted to show more stable careers, because not all people with insomnia have unstable jobs. I’ve interviewed people who are financially well off and think about different things at night. Of course, there is a CV for each person. For example, the letter that one of the women who appears in the work writes to herself, trying to make sense of her insomnia, is a real letter, given to me by the author. Although the work focuses more on the world of work and the capitalist system.
Social networks and mobile phones also appear as disruptive elements. What role do you think it plays in insomnia and anxiety problems?
An important role, of course. For example, to build a character racera racist little boy, since I couldn’t meet any of them, I created a profile on TikTok, filtered it as much as possible to fool the algorithm and pretend to be a boy his age, and I was amazed, because all I got was bombardment, a ferocious consumption of pictures and videos of terrible messages. Then I also deal with the distortion of reality that happens on Instagram, where a lot of people try to put on a happy image and pretend like everything is okay. But, in general, just having a light on your cell phone before bed is not good for avoiding insomnia. Although I must say that networking also allowed me to obtain a lot of information, because there are people who narrate their daily lives in videos that served as documentation for me.
How did you plan to represent issues that do not have a physical reality, such as anxiety or insomnia itself?
It’s been very difficult, honestly. It’s the comic I struggled with the most graphically. You had to put a lot of thought into how to represent everything. I don’t know how ideas flow in people’s heads; Just how do I do it. Trying to translate those thoughts into images and words is not easy. It was a challenge. I needed a lot of documentation, and there were also very suggestive readings that led me to certain solutions… but it wasn’t smooth, I revised a lot. I think we have to think about how we represent things, but it’s true that I’m lucky to be able to work on time, without rushing. I can adjust deadlines and do work every two and a half years, even if I have to combine it with other jobs. But this allows me to stop at this thought.