María Hesse takes her art to the peak of its splendor to confront fear
One of the best comics of 2024 according to Babelia
“Such a beautiful, visceral, authentic book! [...] Thank you for this book [que] defines us so much as women today. [...] Illustrations that don’t let go and at the same time protect you from your fears.”
Susana Santaolalla, RNE, Libros de Arena
“One of the illustrators with the most personality in Spain right now.”
Más de uno (Onda Cero)
What is the origin of our fears and how can we exorcise them?
In this book, visceral and stunningly beautiful, María Hesse confronts her own fears: those that have accompanied her throughout her life, like so many other women. Thus, with an incredibly visual and allegorical language, anxiety, manipulation, precariousness, change, loneliness, madness, motherhood, old age, and death parade through these pages in a book that mixes autofiction, comic elements, and literary, poetic, and musical references.
In El miedo, María Hesse renews her narrative and artistic style to create her most mature work.
Critics have said:
“A work of redemption that exorcises wounds through sincere, unpretentious prose and drawings full of vibrant color and sensuality. An emotional chromatic and semantic work that spreads hope. [...] Hesse has developed a recognizable style through vibrant tones and curvilinear, watery strokes. An effect contributed not only by her technique but also by a highly sensitive and feminist plastic vocabulary.”
María Ovelar, SMODA (El País)
“María Hesse takes her unmistakable style to the limit in El miedo.”
Álvaro Pons, El País-Babelia
“María Hesse, naked in body and soul.”
Pablo R. Roces, El Mundo
“An unmistakable style that seeks to fuse the synthetic with the organic.”
Javier Rubio Nomblot, ABC Cultural
“It is precisely there, expressing universal emotions from her own experiences, that the illustrator is most honest, most courageous. [...] In her book [los miedos] appear like quicksand, because believing they have been overcome is the most dangerous point. One can sink at any moment. The goal of El miedo is not that; the goal is to go through it.”
Celia Fraile Gil, ABC
“A book to read, to reread, to enjoy, to touch, and to savor. [...] A delicacy.”
Jacobo Buceta, Hoy por Hoy (Cadena SER)
“[Hesse] Displays all the mastery and beauty she is capable of. It’s a book about fears, but one that will delight our eyes.”
Óscar López, RTVE, Página Dos
“Drawing not as an escapist horizon and mere entertainment, but as a reflection of realities and a source of revelations.”
Javier Ors, La Razón
“Her most personal book, where she mixes brushstrokes of her life with a fictional story [...]. With her particular symbolic and sensitive style.”
Marina Estévez, El Adelantado de Segovia
“A work that exorcises wounds through a plastic vocabulary and an honest, vibrant lexicon.”
María Ovelar, SModa
“A reflection of the literary and artistic quality of this author and illustrator, who here reaches a much more palpable, empathetic, and sensitive maturity. This is a book not only to enjoy. It is a mirror in which everyone can see themselves reflected.”
Román Aday, VEIN
