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[May mga lokal na subtitle para sa panayam na ito] Si Tomás Hijo ay isang kilalang may-akda at artista, at sa pag-uusap na ito sa Asturias, tinalakay namin ang kanyang paglalakbay mula sa digital na sining patungo sa mga sinaunang teknik, ang pagtatrabaho kay Guillermo del Toro at ang uniberso ni Tolkien, ang Legends of Salamanca, at isang payo para sa mga umuusbong na artista na naglalakbay sa bagong mundo na puno ng AI.
"Hello, Gamereactor friends! This is another one of those rare occasions when we’re going to conduct an interview in Spanish because we’re here with a prominent artist whom I’ve been eager to meet. We’ve been following your artwork, your stories, and well, to me, you’re one of the top fantasy illustrators out there right right now. And of course, we’re going to provide subtitles for our international colleagues so they can follow your work, which I believe is also international scope. We’ll also touch on your work in film, which we’ll discuss a little later, I think it has to transcend borders, even though we’re in Spain, even though we’re in Asturias, even though we’re in Avilés, at Celsius 232."
"So thank you very much. The first thing I wanted to ask you about is the poster. This This year’s poster is totally your style. Tell us a little more about this goddess, about what is coming out of her, these children, this sort of... Well, it’s a little creepy, if you’ll pardon the expression, but of course it’s your signature engraving style. What can you tell me about this poster? Well, it’s a little creepy, as you say, and in fact I’ve tried to tone it down as much as possible—the level of eeriness the poster has—and what I wanted to convey. Well, first of all, it was a huge honor that I to design the poster for Celsius because it’s by far my favorite festival; I always have a great time whenever I come here—all my friends are here, people I work with but don’t see throughout the year, and in a way, what I tried to do was capture what the spirit of Celsius meant to me. And I’ve been going through quite a few drafts—I made quite a few sketches—and in the end, I came to the conclusion that, for me, the Celsius is a tribute to storytelling. So what I tried to do was go as far back as possible in that concept to try to find the storyteller—the ancestral, primal storyteller. And I thought of the Sphinx—the Sphinx who posed riddles; I also thought of the sirens, who lured their voices, well, I tried a little to look into all the mythology that was related to the word and to stories, and in the end I decided to create a Sphinx—a Sphinx that is, in a way, the mother of all storytellers, of all storytellers, and who uses a series of masks to embody the different characters. And that’s the concept behind the poster, and well, as you say, it’s an engraving—it’s in the exhibition; there’s an exhibition of prints right now here at the festival, and you can see the original there. It’s a linoleum print, and in a way—well, it’s a bit like the spirit of the work I do, which is trying to tell stories through through images. Sometimes also through words, and in a way, I’ve managed, I think, to blend a series of things that I was very interested in bringing together and which I think I’ve managed to do—well, with some success. And besides, the creepy vibe isn’t out of place, because one of the main themes of Celsius is, of course, horror. I wanted to ask—before we get into the art specifically, your engravings—I wanted to ask you about The Legends of Salamanca, about the myth of the Cave of Salamanca, this legend, this rumor, that the devil is there teaching people the dark arts. It’s something we touched on recently with the work of our friend and colleague Ángel Luis Sucasas, who are developing a game called Toymaker, How did you want to convey this? You’re primarily an artist, but in your role as author, how did you want to convey these myths and legends? How did you want to make sure that much a wider audience—since it’s also been translated—to learn about these legends from Salamanca? That’s right. Well, this is the first illustrated book I ever created. At the time, I was mainly illustrating schoolbooks, children’s books, and young adult books at the time, and I decided to create a book with a different focus; I wrote it myself, and it all stems from my grandfather, who was an excellent storyteller and a person who had lived in Salamanca his whole life, and who told me a thousand stories—some that had to do with legends, others that were just simple jokes, but I was fascination with all that, and again, I think the art of storytelling, the one I was telling you about earlier, comes from my interest in those stories my grandfather—that’s where it all began. So I wrote that book in 2002, if I’m not mistaken, the first edition came out. And there are tons of legends from Salamanca—of course, it’s an ancient city with a rich tradition—and you mentioned the cave, the cave in Salamanca—more than just a legend, it’s a body of legends in and of itself, and in some way, I think it really captures the essence of that city, the city of Salamanca, which is, above all, a university city—a city that, at least in theory, has been dedicated to learning for a very long time—since the 12th century, since the thirteenth century. And so, what La Cueva de Salamanca tells us is that there is a Salamanca on top—the one we see—which is the university city of Salamanca, the academic one—and, especially in those years, the clerical one as well. But beneath Salamanca, there’s a network of tunnels accessed through a cave—which is a sacristy of a ruined church, where the other side—the dark side—is taught. In other words, upstairs is all the enlightened knowledge—law, theology, all that sort of things. Downstairs is demonology, necromancy. And so there was a group of students who would gather in that cave to study all those dark arts. And the legend goes—well, it’s very long and has many versions—that well, there were seven students who gathered there for seven years; tuition was free, and the devil was the teacher, right? In some versions, he’s a sexton—well, you know, it varies. And for each of those seven-year classes free education, the price was that one of the students paid with his soul and with his eternal servitude to the devil for that education. And then the story continues with a marquis, the Marquis of Villena, who was studying in the cave and who eventually manages, through his tricks and magical arts, to defeat the devil himself. So, well, as I said, it’s sort of the city’s dark side—the dark side of Salamanca is recounted in that legendary body of lore known as the Cave of Salamanca. And that can be quite an interesting fantasy these days, in every case. Later we’ll touch on the topic of teaching, the university scene, which also interest me, but let’s talk about your technique, shall we? You mentioned, well, sort of that old-fashioned flavor, the classic flavor. Your approach is quite medieval—what do you think it brings to the table besides that dark or old-fashioned touch? For you, focusing on engraving is a bit like the physicality, the durability. What do you think this technique brings to the table and makes your work completely different or distinctive? I’m committed to engraving, and others."
"It started with an idea I’d had, which was to try to create an illustration that looked as if it had come straight out of the book itself. In other words, not an illustration created by a contemporary artist based on a classic text, but rather, for example, if I were to illustrate Tolkien, it would look as though those engravings could be part of the fiction itself—as if a hobbit had drawn them. You already know that Tolkien plays around with that a bit—the idea of a found manuscript, that deep down there’s a book from which all of this comes. Why not create the illustrations for that very book?
As if Sam Gamgee himself, while writing the book, had a colleague who was good at drawing and was creating the illustrations for him. So you choose the technique precisely for that quality, so that it looks like something from another time and something that emerges from the very fantasy of the text I’m illustrating. And you’re going to be asked about Tolkien, of course—you’ve done work based on Tolkien’s work, and this year there’s going to be a lot of talk about The Lord of the Rings—well, it’s the 25th anniversary of the first Peter Jackson movie, and Gollum is just around the corner; it looks like at the San Diego Comic-Con in Málaga, there’s going to be a big focus on The Lord of the Rings. You have your own work and also the Tarot."
"ways to showcase your art. Tell me a little about the differences or your sources of inspiration.
On the one hand, there are existing franchises or existing ideas—Guillermo del Toro and Tolkien; and on the other hand, the occult, the world of tarot, which is also quite trendy lately. How does that work for you? Maybe it goes really well with your style of art. What do you want to tell me about these three aspects? Well, when you get to them, it’s a somewhat parallel thing. Let’s say one thing isn’t entirely related to the other, but it makes sense how they come together. When I decided to start a personal project in engraving, I chose *The Lord of the Rings*; I chose Tolkien because it’s one of my favorite books. I’m a member of the Spanish Tolkien Society Spanish Tolkien Society; I was a huge fan of the movies; I personally know some of the film designers, so it’s a world that’s very close to my heart and very dear to me. And so I decided to create a series of personal engravings on the subject, and I made them, I developed them without taking into account that there are certain limitations regarding copyrights, which I eventually ran into, of course, once the subject had gained quite a bit of traction; there was a point when there were problems with that. And at the same time, on the hand, since I really love horror movies, I love Lovecraft, I love all these things, I also started working on a series of side projects that led me to cross paths with Guillermo del Toro. And then I had a romantic dinner in Paris, during which the idea to create the tarot deck came up, and when I created the "Del Toro" tarot deck, I have to say it worked out really well—I made it for an American publisher, and from there they started commissioning other tarot decks, and so I created some based on the worlds of Jim Henson—Labyrinth, Dark Crystal , and one of the proposals they made to me—and this was indeed a commission—was the tarot from The Lord of the Rings, so let’s just say that in the end… In the end, the convergence took place. It was a very rewarding project because, of course, it involved combining two worlds that interest me. I’ve always been very interested in tarot, but above all as a graphic artifact and a narrative artifact, not so much as the supernatural aspect of the tarot—which, as they say, I neither confirm nor deny— but what has always interested me—and I have a large collection of tarot decks—is that aspect of it—and also as a sort of silent book, a book of images that you can put together and use to tell stories. And then, well, aside from that, the tarot has traditionally been made using techniques very similar to the ones I use, with colored woodcuts, so, well, let’s say it’s all part of a sort of graphic, narrative whole that interests me a great deal. And then the whole legendary aspect—the whole aspect of theocultism, the supernatural, and so on—also interest me a lot, so, well, these are all themes—themes that interest me a great deal. They’re closely related, and in the end, some appear in the mix, others appear, but I pretty much always work with the same mix of elements. And we could go back to connecting it to the Cave of Salamanca. I’m sure they were dealing out tarot cards there tarot cards were probably handed out there. Definitely. One more little thing about Guillermo del Toro. You said you had this romantic date—that’s where the creative and artistic love came from. He, in our opinion, is a director who makes heavy use of objects as vehicles, almost as characters. Would you say that this aspect of his work is what made that collaboration perfect? Does that philosophy and approach to making art resonate with you? Can you relate it more to objects? Have you created artwork for him? Do you think this was one of the things that made it easier? I’d never thought about it, but it’s very likely, because in fact, after that collaboration, I worked on El Callejón de las Almas Perdidas (Nightmare Alley), and Frankenstein. And in both cases, my role was to—it wasn’t to design characters or sets, but to design props—that is, to design objects. And in Nightmare Alley, I created the tarot deck used in the film, and in Frankenstein, those little educational cards that the blind man uses to teach the girl to read. So it is indeed possible that objects have that value, because, of course, my engravings—which were the first thing he encountered—have that value, because they aren’t simply an image printed on paper, but rather they have volume, they have a quality to the special paper—in other words, they also have an object-based value. And that was probably one of the factors that interested him—that tangible quality that engravings possess. Very physical as well, as we’ve said. And the last point—you’ve mentioned several times that at the university, of course, it’s something that is very much a part of life in Salamanca; you can feel it in the streets. You’re also a a professor, and you’ve also mentioned your transition from digital arts or digital digital arts and digital tools to a much more traditional way of making art. Of course, the elephant in the room is the guide. What is the key to teaching students of the new generations, who today are interested in creating art, to reinforce the idea of personal authorship, so they don’t fall into using tools they’ve picked up from other artists that might cloud their vision to create something of their own and new. I don’t know if what you’re doing is steering them more toward those so that their brains and neurons activate those processes that, as best—if you don’t just pick it up and start recording, you won’t develop muscle memory—or is there some secret to keeping them stimulated too, because, well, writers, artists, journalists—we’re all a bit like voice actors, a bit threatened by the fact that a machine can do this right now. So, what’s the key?
How do you approach it? How do you motivate them? How do you get them there? Well, I had the opportunity to leave college right then, because I haven’t been a professor for a few years now. And it was right before the AI boom. Now I imagine the person who’s taking my place right now, and how they’re doing it. Well, I think the key to all of this—I don’t really like to get into predictions or grand because it’s such a massive phenomenon that I think it’s impossible to know either what’s going to happen or what’s happening right now. But what I do believe—and what worries me most of all, thinking about college students or people who are just starting out now, is how you’re going to take on the difficult, rocky, and steep path that learning to do these things entails. And that from that path, from what emerge is a unique vision, a personal vision, and a vision that is truly created by you, not by a machine that you give instructions to. On the other hand, of course, there’s a very easy path, which is to type a prompt into a machine and get something that, deep down, is nothing more than a reworking and pastiche of a whole bunch of previous things. So, I don’t know, what I’d try to do is encourage that aspect—that aspect of saying, “At the end of the road there’s a huge reward,” and I’m no longer talking about economic terms, or professional ones, or anything of that sort— it’s that when you do something, you’re truly doing it yourself, and that’s coming from from a specific human being, from a person, with their flaws, with their virtues, and as a colleague said this morning during a talk we’ve been giving, where she she was also asking herself this question, and she told me something very funny. You can make four doodles in Paint on your computer, but make them yourself—they’ll be worth more than anything you create with AI. Because in the end, that’s a good thing—it’ll be part part of an infinite mass of images that are already emerging every day. And I have the impression that when I see a book cover made with artificial intelligence... There’s a lot of it in books. I’m already starting to see a lot in books. It seems to me like I’m looking at a YouTube thumbnail or a meme, and so, of course, that forms part of a visual spectrum that I think already discredits the book itself."
"So I’d tell all these kids to persevere, to hang in there, and also to the publishers and other professionals—well, to try to keep this going because if otherwise, I think that, well, in the end everything is going to end up as a sort of indistinguishable pulp. The authenticity gets lost. You reminded me—last year we interviewed Tanino Liberatore, the comic artist from Naples, and he told us—and I liked this—that best response from the AI was his: what happens in the end is that you take away the pleasure. And many more."
"It creates the designs with the AI, and then you draw them yourself. And I say, sure, but I’m just doing what I prefer to do. And the thing is, I really enjoy doing that.
So, well, if someday AI lets me, I don’t know, take a shortcut on the boring parts—like doing the invoices, you know? Or filing tax returns, then I think I’ll look at it more favorably, but of course, don’t take away the —which is why I got into this in the first place, right? Because I enjoy it. That’s the best way to wrap things up. Thank you very much, Tomás. May your art and your words continue to "
