María Medem’s beautiful new comic is written to the rhythm of flamenco

María Medem’s new book Land of Mirrors started life as a singular spread in a zine that never actually saw the light of day. In these two pages the artist “explored a feeling that was something similar to being alone in the world… It stuck with me, and I wanted to develop it more,” she tells It’s Nice That.

At the same time, María was also a bit obsessed with her houseplants, determined to help them grow and spending a lot of time looking after them — a phase we’ve all likely been through at some point. On top of this, “I was also talking with an old friend back then, which led to a lot of feelings of nostalgia,” says María. “I’m not a very nostalgic person and understanding how that feeling really works was the starting point of this book.” So it might have been this leaf-dusting, heart-opening period of her life that got it all started but “every person, animal and sound I stumbled upon while I was writing and drawing influenced me and all of them helped me to make this story”, she says.

So how did all of this translate into the comics narrative? In Land of Mirrors, María’s lonely protagonist Antonia is the sole occupant of a deserted town. There’s a flower that she visits each day, which she begins to orient her whole life around (sound familiar?). When a new character comes into the comic’s pages, a traveller from the land of mirrors, Antonia has to decide if “the possibility of friendship and being part of a new community is worth the risk of leaving the flower she knows and loves behind”.

As is the case with all of the illustrator’s publications, María shaped the start of the project by writing – the comics text is heavily influenced by flamenco lyrics; music present in the illustrator’s day-to-day, and something that left its mark on the rhythm of her narrative. The entire publication then took María three years to illustrate. “I tried to draw one or two pages a day”, she says, “I started turning those words into images. I always try to use as few words as possible, if something can be said with images I try to do it that way”, she shares.

Bathed in saturated colours, the book is a welcome respite from reality, as we sink into the illustrator’s enchanting gradients and soft hues, following her incredible line work into a new fantasy world. Considering her expert use of colour, it’s hard to imagine that when the artist first started making fanzines and illustrations following her fine art studies, she was actually quite afraid of it. In fact she practically worked in black-and-white, gradually “adding one colour in at a time”, she says. “Now my way of working with colours has much to do with memory, as they aren’t realistic colours. When I colour a scene I try to remember a certain landscape or place where I’ve been that has the same atmosphere that I want that scene to have.”

In a similar feat to María’s previous book Echos, published by Fidèle Editions, Land of Mirrors is a testament to the illustrator’s detailed attention to the creation of atmosphere through colour. In terms of its narrative however, María aimed to do quite the opposite of another past project of hers, Cenit, published by Apa-Apa: “In Cenit, I tried to create a story that was somehow uncomfortable and with a lot of estrangement. Land of Mirrors has estrangement, but I wanted to approach it in a completely different way, to try to think of different possibilities for ways of living,” she explains. Overall, the fantasy world of the comic facilitates “a heartfelt meditation on loneliness, friendship, and the transformative power of love”.

Land of Mirrors is published by Drawn and Quarterly, out tomorrow 4 February 2025 and available for pre-order now.