The Spanish illustrator who looks out of the windows of New York in 'Only murders in the building'

A drawing discarded for her latest book and posted on social networks as a farewell was the key that opened the doors of Arconia for Laura Pérez, the New York apartment block in which

a comedy that was one of the revelations of 2021 and that this Tuesday the 28th premieres its second season on Disney +.

In reality, Pérez (Valencia, 38 years old) that image of a girl in different windows of a house in Paris that fell from his graphic novel

(Astiberri) gave him the opportunity to look at the Arconia but, in principle, only from outside.

“The image was seen on my Instagram by Lisa Golan, one of the directors of the Elastic study.

They were preparing a project for the credits of the series and it fit very well, ”she explains.

“They told me what line of work they wanted to do, which was based a bit on

1950s aesthetics and Saul Bass titles.

They presented the proposal with my color palette and my characters and they won it”, she recalls, still with a bit of surprise.

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Mysterious murder in the Arconia

Thousands of miles away, this illustrator began to lean out of the windows of The Belnord, the building on the Upper West Side that is actually the outside of the Arconia, to tell in a few seconds stories of loneliness found in elevators or hallways or that are intuited with a wall in between.

All this had to happen in a general scenario of which we all have a version in our heads: New York.

“I had been on a leisure trip but, in the end, you have it in the collective imagination, through the series and movies that we see.

You have it in a personal and fictional way, ”she assumes.

Precisely because of all this, one can look out of those windows from wherever one is.

“You can look at the windows of New York from Valencia, we can see the windows of a large part of the world and have a close-up image of something very far away and with a personal and at the same time global vision for everything we consume daily, for the imaginary.

Creatively it always inspires because, in the end, it is a representation of human loneliness and at the same time of extreme sociability”, she reflects.

Now she has put her particular contribution to that collective idea of ​​New York.

"Others will look at these titles for other projects," she predicts excitedly.

Steve Martin's character, painted by Laura Pérez for the header of 'Only murders in the building'.

Designing the

of the series was in the end what gave him the key to enter the Arconia, which inside is another building in the same neighborhood of the American city.

On its stairs, landings and apartments he entered hand in hand, never better said, with Selena Gomez, one of the protagonists of the production.

The former teen star of the Disney Channel is in the series Mabel, a young illustrator who joins two endearing and eccentric neighbors, played by Steve Martin and Martin Short, to investigate a crime that occurred in the building that they believe has been committed by one of the tenants.

All three are followers of a

of crimes and create their own while Mabel is making the portraits of the victim and neighbors / suspects.

Actually, those sketches are by Laura Pérez.

“The producer wrote to me to tell me that there was a character who was an illustrator and to tell me that they thought it coherent that the drawings I made had the same style as the credit titles.

They asked me for freehand sketches of things that Mabel was teaching.

I had to do them little by little so that their process could be seen, ”she reels.

The way Mabel paints was suggested by the Valencian illustrator.

“I told them that she was going to do them on the iPad with a brush that is exactly like a pencil and can be printed afterwards.

I told them that it could come out doing it like that in the series, because many illustrators now work that way, and that's how it comes out.

There was a creative contribution”, she acknowledges proudly.

There was also a gift from her because she sent an original of her portrait to each character.

Selena Gomez, with one of Laura Pérez's sketches in the first season of 'Only murders in the building'.

Of course, between laughs he admits that the life of an illustrator is less like the life of his alter ego than the one his countryman Paco Roca drew in his

.

“It's funny to see Mabel so dressed up, so

in her wonderful apartment when the reality of the illustrator is to be in pajamas with a ponytail or a bow.

Mabel's is what she wants, to make three drawings a day.

I spend the whole day drawing”, she assumes.

A piece of success

While preparing a novel with Guillermo del Corral (author of

on which the series

by Alejandro Amenábar is based) and a new solo job that he gives no clues about, Pérez sees the series like any other.

“I see it at home, when they put it on the platform.

In the first season I stopped working when I was going to start and I would watch it with my partner and we would see what drawings came out, ”he recalls.

He laughs as he admits that it is his partner who is actually dedicated to the opening credits.

“There was competition at home, but he was able to advise me on many things.

I was the intruder,” she points out.

One of the drawings by the illustrator Laura Pérez at the head of 'Only murders in the building'.

The success of the series (nominated for best comedy at the Golden Globes and at the Critics Choice Awards) may allow her to do more work in this field although, for now, it has already given her some new readers, but she has also contributed viewers to the series.

“I don't know what is going to happen, it is very difficult to anticipate.

The reception has been very cool.

Now when I go to a book signing, because I actually make books and magazines, people come to me with the book but who have known me from the series, and there are people who are interested in my work, because I have been doing this since 2010, and he has seen the series for that”, he affirms.

Communicating windows.

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