Juan Diaz Canales (born in 1972 in Madrid, Spain) is a Spanish comics scenarist and an animation film director.

Biography

Very soon, Juan Diaz Canales showed interest in comics before switching to animation films. At the age of 18, he entered an animation school. In 1996 he funded, with three drawers, a company called Tridente Animation . Through this, he worked with European and American companies. He wrote the scenarios for the Blacksad comics, for animation films and directed TV series and animation movies.

While working, he met Juanjo Guarnido with who he decided to write comics. Guarnido and Canales contact several editors and finally sign on with Dargaud , a major comics editor in France. On November 1, 2000, Somewhere Within the Shadows , the first album of this serie, was published. It was a very strong success among critics and public, and won the Prix de la Découverte at the Sierre International Comics Festival and the "Avenir" Prize at the Lys-lez-Lannoy Festival, repectively in Switzerland and France. In March 2003, Artic Nation , the second album, was released. It was once again a great success, winning the Prize Awarded by the Audience and the Prize for Artwork at the 2004 Angoulême International Comics Festival. The third album of Blacksad is expected for 2005.

Bibliography

• Blacksad (Dargaud, 2000-2003)
  • Somewhere Within the Shadows (2000)
  • Artic Nation (2003)