‘Barbecho’ by David Sancho, alumni of the Master in Illustration and Comic, wins the Fnac-Salamandra Graphic award

David Sancho, student of last year’s class of the Master in Illustration and Comic, has won the XVII edition of the International Award of Graphic Novel Fnac-Salamandra Graphic with his master final project Barbecho. The jury decided to award him unanimously for “his brilliant approximation to the disappearing rural Spain with a story that combines past and present from an elegant, narrative maturity and of blunt chromatics graphic treatment.”

‘Barbecho’ tells Emilio’s story, the last villager of a small town that dedicates to farm his lands and to follow the same routine that his dad and grandparent did. After a discovery, the main character faces a mysterious vanishing of his town’s houses and invites us to travel through the last century of rural Spain, full of traditions and people already forgotten. With his graphic novel, David Sancho tries to dig into the issue of depopulation in rural areas and its consequences, a theme that he also addressed in his previous project Ara (2022), together with the playwright Ana Torres.

The International Award of Graphic Novel Fnac-Salamandra Graphic was created in 2008 with the aim of promoting and encouraging the literary production in the comic area, and nowadays is a referent in the graphic novel scene. Apart from winning this award’s last edition, ‘Barbecho’ was also awarded in Elisava Master Awards’ last edition, that Elisava celebrates annually to recognize the best Master Final Projects.