Croquette & Empanada: A Love Story by Ana Oncina

The book doesn't say so, but I'm pretty sure this is a collection of semi-autobiographical stories, by a Spanish cartoonist, about her life with her French boyfriend in some big city in Spain. The American edition is published by Andrews McMeel, the most strongly middle-America publisher of comics-format books, and I wonder if they thought their audience would be less likely to buy a book if they knew it was about "foreigners."

Now I'll actually check to see if any of that was true....

Croquette & Empanada is the first of a series by Ana Oncina, who is indeed Spanish - there were two numbered sequels immediately after this first book in 2014, plus a Christmas-themed book and one about a trip to Japan. None of the other C&E books have been translated into English since this first one was in 2019, but I see two later standalone Oncina books are available here from a romance-themed Tokyopop imprint.

Nothing I can find online says anything any more detailed than that C&E was inspired by Oncina and her boyfriend at the time, so I have no idea if "Croquette" meant he was French, or from another part of Spain, or just that it was his favorite food. And I am assuming that means there was a specific "him" to inspire the character at one point, but not any more than that.

And that tracks. This is a collection of short comics about the two characters - she's an empanada; he's a croquette - starting with their first date but immediately turning into the story of their domestic life together. It's mostly non-specific: Oncina mentions Spain a few times, mostly in the context of a trip to Berlin, but not a particular city. The stories are about their domestic life - living together, small squabbles, getting pets and caring for them, shopping together, and that kind of thing. They love each other, but each have their own foibles - it's a book about youngish people learning to live with another person, who you might love but also does weird things that sometimes surprise you and/or are annoying. It's probably all loosely based on Oncina's real life, but I'll guess "loosely" is pretty loose.

One quirky aspect is that C&E live in a world of mostly normal people - there are a few other anthropomorphic characters, like annoying Garlic at a party and Greek Yogurt in a Berlin hostel, but the vast majority of the background people and secondary characters are drawn as humans with dot eyes, in a similar cartoony style to the main characters.

This is fun, and I can see how it would be popular in Spain, running to five books. It's not actually generic, but it's a lot like many other similar books by other young creators (mostly women, the ones I can think of) and doesn't have as many really distinctive or quirky aspects as some other examples. Well, except for the way Oncina draws her characters - that's unique.