The Lighthouse

by Paco Roca

Overview

Francisco, a wounded, despairing sixteen-year-old Republican guard in the Spanish Civil War, is trying to flee to freedom by crossing the French border. In his escape, he encounters an old remote lighthouse, far from the warring factions. He is granted shelter by Telmo, the aging operator of the lighthouse. As Francisco recuperates, Telmo’s tales of epic adventurers who sailed the lost seas and discovered worlds unknown reignite the spark of life in the young soldier. By one of the most brilliant new talents in comic art in Spain, author of the world-wide bestseller Wrinkles.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681120560
Publisher:	N B M Publishing Company
Publication date:	02/01/2017
Pages:	64
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Paco Roca is the pseudonym for Francisco Martinez Roca, a Spanish cartoonist. One of Spain’s most promising talents, he is best known internationally for his bestselling graphic novel Wrinkles (Norton, June 2016), which was adapted as an animated feature film in Spain, nominated for an Oscar and a Goya award. Aside from cartooning, Roca also works as an illustrator for advertisements.

Editorial Reviews

01/30/2017
At the start of this graphic novel set in the Spanish civil war, Francisco, a young Republican soldier, is separated from his unit and fleeing Franco’s men. After reaching an old lighthouse on the ocean, he collapses from his wounds and wakes to finds himself rescued and tended to by the lighthouse keeper, Telmo, a burly old spinner of tales. While Francisco recovers at his surprise seaside sanctuary, Telmo builds a fantastical boat in order to take a journey to an even more fantastical-sounding island. Soon, even the prematurely cynical Francisco starts falling for Telmo’s tales of mythic adventures and imagines that anything is possible. Like a lighter kind of Guillermo del Toro story in which the fantasy elements—neatly delivered here in Roca’s sharp, duotone style—play a counterpoint to the black-and-white harshness of the war, Roca’s slim and affecting novel expertly channels its characters’ desires for a grander and more forgiving world. But, like his earlier Wrinkles, this story knows that yearning for escape doesn’t make it happen. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"Roca’s affecting novel expertly channels its characters’ desires for a grander and more forgiving world." —Publishers Weekly


"Light, airy,and restorative." —Ray Olson, Booklist

From the Publisher