La Massana Còmic, two floors of comics on the town square

A comics museum in an Andorran mountain town sounds like an oddity, and it is. But there’s a logic to it. Since 1997 La Massana has held a comics festival every spring, and the museum is what stays behind between festivals, a collection and an exhibition space right in the centre.

A small, free museum with its own rules

La Massana Còmic, named after Joan Pieras, sits on Plaça de les Fontetes, the square in the middle of La Massana that also houses the tourist office. It’s run by the Andorran Association of Comics, Illustration and Animation, and its aim, according to museus.ad, is to preserve and promote the graphic and book collection it holds.

Entry is free and a visit takes 20 to 30 minutes. What you need to know is that it only opens while an exhibition is on, according to Andorra Turisme. museus.ad publishes Tuesday to Saturday hours, with afternoons only on Friday and Saturday, but the Comú’s tourism website gives a different timetable. My advice is to ask at the tourist office, a few steps away across the same square.

What’s inside?

Two things. First, the temporary exhibitions, which are the reason the museum opens at all. It began with Joies literàries by Antonio Bernal, and since then Alfonso Font, Ana Miralles, Jan, Joan Mundet, Carlos Ezquerra, Jordi Planellas, Philippe Xavier and Paco Roca, among others, have shown here. There’s also a permanent display of original artwork.

Second, the reading room, open since 1 March 2019 over two floors. It holds over a thousand items, and the collection goes back a long way, to 1904 and Little Nemo in Slumberland. Then come the Spanish classics of the 1940s to 1970s, such as El capitán Trueno, Esther y su mundo and Hazañas bélicas, Franco-Belgian favourites like Tintin, Lucky Luke and Asterix, American strips such as Prince Valiant and Flash Gordon, Marvel, manga and the 1980s magazines Cimoc and Creepy. VHS tapes, DVDs and art books complete the collection. Handy for researchers, museus.ad says the catalogue can be searched on the Andorran national libraries’ website, so you can see what’s there before you go.

The spring festival

Since 1997 La Massana has held La Massana Còmic every spring, a festival devoted to comics with author talks, screenings, workshops and a sales area. Andorra Turisme calls it a must for fans, and says that between the festival and the exhibitions the museum has become a meeting point for creators and readers. For a parish of around twelve thousand people, that’s quite a reach, and it explains why authors of Paco Roca’s standing have exhibited in a town better known for its ski gondola. The 2027 dates haven’t been published; when they are, you’ll find them in Andorra events.

Is it worth it?

If you like comics, yes, and all the more so for free. If not, it’s a decent rainy-afternoon plan with children, since the museum also runs workshops for all ages and is adapted for reduced mobility. I’d pair it with Casa Rull, a short drive away, to see two very different sides of the parish in one morning. Andorra’s other museums, and the PassMuseu, are in museums in Andorra.

Other indoor stops around the square

If the museum is shut or doesn’t take long, central La Massana has other places under a roof. The parish church of Sant Iscle i Santa Victòria, enlarged in 1622 and given its bell tower in 1802, holds several Baroque altarpieces, including the high altar with Our Lady of the Angels. And about 200 m from the gondola stands the Hostal Palanques, a granite building Andorra Turisme lists among the parish highlights because its room number 3 sheltered members of the resistance helping refugees during the Second World War. It isn’t a museum, but it’s a story few visitors know and, for me, one of the most interesting in town.

Getting there

It’s in the centre of La Massana, so national bus L7 from Andorra la Vella drops you nearby, every 15 minutes on weekdays, as do the L5 and L6, so there’s no need to plan around the timetable. If you’re here in winter to ski Pal Arinsal, the gondola also leaves from the town centre.