Carlos Areces Presents Comic Series at Andorra's Museu del Còmic

Carlos Areces, the Spanish comedian and actor known for his roles in the *Torrente* film series, will present his comic series *Ocurrió cerca de tu casa* at Andorra's Museu del Còmic in La Massana on 28 March.

The event, organised by local comic enthusiast Joan Pieras, brings a touch of the *Torrente* universe to Les Fontetes—home to the museum—amid the latest film's box-office success across Spain, including Andorra. Areces plays Pelayo, a key advisor to the NOX party leader in *Torrente Presidente*, where the titular character vies for a populist candidacy in fictional Spanish elections.

Areces appears not as an actor but as a cartoonist. His series, published in *El Jueves* since 2006, features single-page strips with six interconnected vignettes exploring everyday themes like teenagers, angels, corruption, pregnancies, ghosts, neighbours, and more—up to around 50 topics. The humour is surprisingly clean, evoking classics like *La Codorniz*, with examples including a snail telling a screw, "I hope you have Vaseline," or a flatmate's grim discovery of a vibrator misplaced near a designer juicer.

This marks a shift from Areces' earlier, scatological works such as *Chechu se caga de miedo* and *Vamos a contar cosas cochinas*. His career spans TV sketches (*Muchachada Nui*, *La hora chanante*), films (*Spanish Movie*, *Balada triste de sombrero*), series (*La que se avecina*, *Muertos, S.L.*), and music with the punk-gore duo Ojete Calor. Areces views scatology as "the quintessence of humour, the most elemental and effective form."

The visit stems from his passion for collecting comics, particularly Francisco Ibáñez's *Mortadelo y Filemón*. A few years ago, Areces sought original Ibáñez drawings from a Massana Còmic volume marking the museum's 10th anniversary, sparking a connection with Pieras. Areces also contributed an article, "Tu saps l'embalum que fan 20.000 pàgines," to Pieras' anthology *Els meus herois del segle XX*, lamenting a missed chance to film a documentary on Ibáñez, who dismissed his life as simply "drawing, drawing, and drawing."

Visitors can view an original inked cover from Mortadelo's 1959 debut in *Pulgarcito*, one of the museum's highlights.