The majority of public libraries on the islands did not have the complete work available.

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Institute of Balearic Studies

The Institute of Balearic Studies (IEB) has acquired several copies of the comic collection Balears, abans i ara from the publishing house Dolmen, to distribute them to most of the libraries of the Balearic Islands, since they did not have this work or did not have it complete.

Balears, abans i ara is a collection of ten volumes, aimed at all audiences, which portrays the history of the archipelago in comics. The subtitles of the volumes reflect the different changes that our islands have gone through: First settlers; The Talayotic culture; The Punics; The Roman conquest; Vandals and Byzantines; The Islamic period; The conquest of James I; The Crown of Mallorca; The Revolt Forana and Germania, and Bandits, pirates and chuetas. The 16th and 17th centuries.

The director of the IEB, Llorenç Perelló, recalls that “the IEB has historically collaborated in the publication of this work” and stresses “the need to facilitate the access of the Balearic population to material such as this, which, as well as being an artistic object, reviews pleasantly but also rigorously the different historical events of our community”.

Vicente García, from Dolmen Edicions, has valued this initiative as “the first step in the penetration of this work into Balearic culture”. “Our aim is for this work to be present in every home on the islands”.

Each volume of the collection, in addition to the cartoons, includes an appendix with texts of a purely historical nature, illustrated with maps, photographs and, above all, drawings. The work also includes an extensive chronology and a selected bibliography.

The reader is introduced to this exciting account of the history of the Balearic Islands by the cartoonist Quim Bou in the first nine volumes, and by the cartoonist Sergio Melià and the scriptwriter Enric Pujadas in the tenth volume. Some of the most prestigious island historians, such as Antoni Marimon, Manel Calvo and Bartomeu Salvà, among others, are the advisors of the work and, together with the cartoonist Vicenç Sastre, the authors of the historical appendices.

The last volume of the work, Bandoleros, piratas y chuetas. Siglos XVI y XVII, was published recently, in September. The bandits, who were hired by the different noble factions to fight against each other; the chuetas, controlled and persecuted by the Inquisition, and the pirates, who destroyed towns as important as Maó and Ciutadella and attacked numerous coastal places, are the main characters in this book.