Cristina Durán Costell

Cristina Durán Costell (born 1970, Valencia) is an illustrator and cartoonist.[1] She graduated in the faculty of Fine Arts of Valencia with speciality in Drawing.[2] While she studied she created the fanzine No Aparcar Llamo GRUA with Miguel Ángel Giner, Robin and Alberto Botella. Later, in 1993 these four people created the company LaGRUAestudio, focused on the illustration of books and advertisements, comic and animation.[2] She worked to reactivate the Asociación Profesional de Ilustradores de Valencia (APIV) 1997 and she was its president between the years 2006 and 2009. She also has been member of the Board of directors of the Federación de Asociaciones de Ilustradores Profesionales (FADIP) and of the founding board of the European Illustrators Forum (EIF).[3]

Her first graphic novel with Miguel Ángel Giner named Una posibilidad entre mil was published the year 2009 by Ediciones Sins Entido. In September 2011 an expanded third edition was published, including a prologue written by Eduard Punset.[4] Durán and Giner Bou narrated their daughter Laia's first three years which mainly took place in hospitals and rehabilitation centers.[5] The same year, Boja per tu, a comic edited by the Ministry of Health, Social Politics and Equality was published.[6][7] In 2012, the graphic novel La máquina de Efrén was published. It is the second part of the story and describes the adoption of their second son.[8][9] She also wrote short comic stories such as Usted está aquí, Arròs negre and Cómic. She also teaches in the Master in design and illustration at the faculty of Fine Arts of Valencia.[9] The last comic published is El bote de mermelada, included in the project Viñetas de vida by Oxfam, along with work from ten Spanish authors.[10][11]