[Review] Brian the Brain Integral

Brian the Brain, the boy with a brain so prodigious that it emerges from his skull, was born from the pencil ofMiguel Angel Martinin 1990 inKrazy Comics. The fact that it was only published in one year was probably due to format limitations. Krazy Comics was a magazine about comics, not comics, so the few that appeared in it were short. In any case, since 1991, our cerebral character would appear in much more favorable terrain:Makoki, an underground comic magazine from Ediciones la Cúpula, which specialized in the disturbing and unpleasant themes that the series touched on. Unfortunately, the end of this would come in 1993, in a dark time in which Spanish comic magazines closed one after another.

The end ofMakokiIt meant a stop in the production of new material about the series, but not its complete oblivion, since in 1995 it finally had its first compilation volume. It was not until 2011 when Brian The Brain returned with the graphic novelMotorLab Monqiand, in 2014,Out of My Brain, both from the King Lear publishing house. These reduced, to a large extent, the level of crude, grotesque and eschatological content, but maintaining, or even increasing, its dramatic load.

In the following decade, 2022 was an interesting year for Miguel Ángel Martin's masterpiece. On one hand,an animated series was announcedwhich, unfortunately, has every appearance of coming to nothing. On the other hand, the publisherKingdom of Cordelia published a comprehensive tome, which is the one I will review below.

As its name indicatesBrian The BrainComprehensivebrings together in a single volume the entire editorial career of the aforementioned series, from his comics of only one page in length (which would soon be expanded to two) to his two graphic novels. This translates intoa considerable thick book of about 450 pages. Its cover also has thecloth covered spine, which gives it a serious and classic appearance that reminds me (within the distance) of the three volumes of theBone deluxe editionin black and white that Astiberri released back in 2013.

The way the content is structured is that of acolossal graphic novel whose distinctive stages would take the form of a kind of chapters. Ones that, as is usual in the work of Miguel Ángel Martín,They have the titles in English. In this way, the aforementioned first period of short comics was brought together in a section calledBits of Life. His second stage, now with somewhat longer comics, has a place in the following,Pieces of Life, which already have proper titles. Finally,Bio Labbrings together the medium-length comic Lara II (which is, clearly, a transitional chapter) and her two graphic novels focused on her adolescence and adult life respectively.

The feeling of being in front of something bigger than a simple compilation is reinforced by theincorporation of two new small comics, one at the beginning as a prologue and another at the end as an epilogue. This seemingly insignificant detail gives a very powerful narrative charge to the reading. On a psychological level, it is much more immersive to read an entire work at once than individual volumes, and even more so if the reading of these is spaced out over time. Along these lines, the prologue and the epiloguemakes its narrative coherence and dramatic load even more solid..

I am not going to go into the argument involvedBrian The BrainComprehensive, since several years ago I dedicated an entirearticleto the character. Yes I will say, yes, thatwe are facing a hard, very hard story. A través de sus páginas, veremos cómo un niño con el cerebro a flor de piel y poderes psíquicostratará, en vano, de ser feliz y entablar conexiones con otros seres humanos. Sentiremos su tristeza, su frustración, cuando pierda a sus seres queridos por distintas razones (muchas de ellas, trágicas).

La melancolía, pues, es la nota dominante y constante de sus páginas, que trascenderá a su faceta más grotesca de las primeras etapas de la serie. Es la historia de un personaje que, por mucho que trate de alcanzar la felicidad y un mínimo atisbo de vida normal, se le escapará de entre los dedos. A esta tarea contribuye en no poca medida un dibujo que, conpersonajes de ojos almendrados, rasgos estereotipados, trazos simples y ausencia de texturas y detalles, lo dota de unaexpresividad extraordinaria, asegurándose de que el lector observe justo lo que ha de ser observado.

Las ediciones integrales tienen sus inconvenientes, como su peso y falta de manejabilidad, pero a la luz de los hechos están sus ventajas. Además, otro de los problemas que estas suelen tener, el alto precio, la que nos ocupa no lo padece, puesto queéste ronda en torno a los 25 euros. Una ganga para una edición de estas características.

Eso sí, si no habéis leído nada deBiran the Brainantes, os recomiendo encarecidamente lo siguiente:no leáis la introducción (Brian, el inocente, de Manuel Vilas). Me parece un crimen que éste contenga tantosspoilerscuando la gracia de esta serie está en toparse con los acontecimientos de la forma más genuina posible.