European Comic Art Volume 15 Number 2, Autumn 2022, 56–79 © The Author(s) doi:10.3167/eca.2022.150204 ISSN 1754-3797 (Print), ISSN 1754-3800 (Online) The Poetry of Snails The Shown, the Intervened and the Signified in Duelo de caracoles (2010) by Sonia Pulido and Pere Joan Benjamin Fraser Abstract The graphic novel Duelo de caracoles [Duel of snails] (2010) by Sonia Pulido (images) and Pere Joan (script) recounts a meal of snails shared by friends, a simple premise upon which Pulido overlays complex layouts that elevate the snail to the conceptual level of metaphor, symbol and allegory. A brief analy- sis of Estudios psicológicos [Psychological studies], a single-page comic fea- turing snails by Apel·les Mestres i Oñós, outlines basic principles of layout and the representation of subjectivity/interiority that inform subsequent discussion. Pulido and Pere Joan’s comic privileges Thierry Groensteen’s cat- egories of the shown, the intervened and the signifed. Pulido’s poetic mode of composition captures the polyphony of group dynamics, occasioning mul- tiple interpretations of the page within and beyond the inter-iconic space. Keywords: Apel·les Mestres i Oñós, Iberian comic, narration, Pere Joan, Sonia Pulido, Thierry Groensteen While Pere Joan (Palma, b. 1956) was the subject of a scholarly mono- graph published in 2019, the artist who has been called ‘la inconfun- dible y vanguardista Sonia Pulido’ [the incomparable and avant-garde Sonia Pulido] is deserving of greater attention for her complex comics storytelling. 1 Sonia Pulido Flores (Barcelona, b. 1973) has amassed quite 1 Benjamin Fraser, The Art of Pere Joan: Space, Landscape and Comics Form (Austin: Uni- versity of Texas Press, 2019); Josune Muñoz, ‘Breve historia del cómic femenino espa- ñol: autoras, obras y prejuicios’ [A brief history of Spanish women’s comics: Authors, works and prejudices], in Actas del I Coloquio Hispano-Ruso sobre Mujer y Literatura, ed. Rosana Murias (San Petersburgo: Universidad Pedagógica Estatal Herzen, 2015), 123–142.