| Juan Díaz Canales | |
|---|---|
 Juan Diaz Canales atLucca Comics & Games 2015 | |
| Born | Madrid, Spain |
| Area | Writer |
Notable works | Blacksad |
| Awards | Full list |
Juan Díaz Canales is a Spanishcomics artist and ananimatedfilm director, known as the co-creator ofBlacksad.
At an early age, Juan Díaz Canales became interested in comics and their creation, which progressed and broadened out to include animated films. At the age of 18, he entered a school for animation. In 1996 he founded, together with three other artists, a company calledTridente Animation. Through this, he has worked with European and American companies, providing plots and scripts for comics and animation films, as well as directing animated television series and animation movies.
During this period he metJuanjo Guarnido, with whom Canales decided to create comics based around a private investigator, Blacksad. After contacting several editors, Guarnido and Canales finally signed on with French publisherDargaud, and in November 2000,Quelque part entre les ombres (Somewhere within the Shadows) was published.[1] It was a great success with both critics and the public, and was awarded the Prix de la Découverte at the Sierre International Comics Festival and the "Avenir" Prize at theLys-lez-Lannoy Festival, inSwitzerland and France respectively. In March 2003 the second albumArctic-Nation, was released. It was once again a great success, winning theAngoulêmeAudience Award and theFestival Prize for Artwork in 2004. The third instalment of theBlacksad series,Âme Rouge (Red Soul), was published in 2005. In 2006 it was awarded the AngoulêmePrize for a Series.[2]
In 2015, he and artistRubén Pellejero were chosen byPatrizia Zanotti, in charge of the copyrights toHugo Pratt'sCorto Maltese series, to publish a new album.[3]
