Sanchis, Dani
Dani Sanchis (Dénia, 1976) studies Graphic Design in the School of Art and Design of Valencia (back then it was called the ‘School of Arts and Trades’). After working here and there, he launches his own studio in 2002. In October 2012 he joins the Buffalo Bill Romance project with the goal to think of the book as an object, to research about everything the text poses (which is no small task), and to try to find interesting images. He accepts, without really knowing what he is getting into: he will find out along the way. While reading Carlos Pérez’s text, he gets excited. Writer, publisher, and illustrator get to work. To begin with, they draw up a list of scenes, characters, and everything else. Dani writes his own on the island where he is spending a few days.
On his return he makes two important discoveries: that the wooden beams of his house are infested with termites and he must evacuate it ipso facto, and that he would need to live a hundred years to be able to gather even a minuscule part of all the sticker albums, comic books, and popular novels dedicated to Buffalo Bill. He even finds a foxtrot in Spanish dedicated to the hero. His investigations led him to learn a bit more about the circus shows of the 19th century, the ultraists and the creationists, with whom he shares the interest of playing with typography, and the numerous photographic portraits of Indians (Native Americans) that are now legend. For months, the project’s architects meet regularly. To find inspiration, one day they eat a cheese Eiffel Tower, and another day, a bison chop suey.
Little by little the book begins to take shape. Dani moves to a small house in Pluto (Dénia), surrounded by trees and next to the sea, and from there he sends his illustrations. He turns Huidobro’s manifest into a Wild West comic book, and for the chapters’ first page he creates handmade collages. For the first one, a Big Ben that features as its face a wall clock cut out from a 1959 Ondas magazine advertisement, while the architecture of the tower combines typographic elements extracted from issue no. 194 of Revista Popular de Conocimientos Útiles (Popular Magazine of Useful Knowledge), from 1884. Camping around this totem are Indians and cowboys rescued from shredded comic books found in the Rastro (flea market) of Valencia. What is considered rubbish by people is a wonderful treasure for a collagist.