All the fantasy worlds that fit inside one mind

Designer and illustrator Andreu Zaragoza pays tribute to the various non-realistic genres in the poster announcing the second edition of Festival 42.

Comics are one of the favourite literary domains among fantasy genres, drawing on readers' willingness to accept literary conventions that transcend reality. Which is why it's hardly surprising that, of the first fictional worlds visited by Andreu Zaragoza, many were pictorial. Nor does it come as any surprise that the creator of this year's Festival 42 poster was a lover of heavy metal and the fabulous worlds that filled the covers of the records he listened to, images straight out of myth and legend. Zaragoza was born in Granollers in 1985 and that first double encounter with distinct forms of non-realistic narratives gave him a sensitivity to the thousand faces of the fantasy genres. These influences led him to study graphic design at the Llotja de Barcelona school of art and design, planted the seed of a future illustrator that would germinate when he picked up pencil and paintbrush once again after years spent working in various studios.

It was then that he embarked on a career strongly linked to fantasy, horror and science fiction, one that led him to design the covers of numerous genre books, create space-themed album covers for psychedelic rock bands, design card games with a futuristic theme, and produce the illustrations that advertise the Fantàstik Granollers fantasy and horror film festival in his home town.

Given this background strongly grounded in non-realistic creation, the author has come up with a poster that not only summarises his own experiences in the world of horror, science fiction and mythology, but one that’s also the very essence, in image form, of the festival itself. And such an urban festival couldn't be advertised from anywhere other than the seat of a metro carriage, one of the places where the highest number of readers per square metre are to be found - with apologies to Barcelona's libraries! Someone, maybe you, is absorbed in the pages of a book, head full of fictional characters that spring from the written word, characters that enter minds, inflame souls and emerge into the outside world as dragons like those on the cover of a heavy metal album; alien ships firing at an invisible target, mermaids sailing the seas of fantasy and a terrifying, menacing hand that could be reaching out from a tomb. All are the fruit of the imagination, of inner worlds that sometimes provide refuge from an unacceptable reality. All this is reflected in an edition of Festival 42 that makes direct reference to mental health. Literary sub-genres, authors, and outstanding works of fantasy, as well as the influence of cinema and television on the genre, are very much present in a poster that shows us how many worlds on the fringes of reality can fit inside one mind. It's a sample of the work of Andreu Zaragoza, an artist who combines ink drawings with digital techniques, always with vivid colours and distinctive textures. Fantasy, made image.