Saint Febronia, like Salomé, is a voluntary martyr to the cause of her beliefs, which lead her to mutilate herself on the altars of her gods. The saint and the princess are two capricious girls, victims of the same deformed religious education, of bloody sects that lead them to be executioners of themselves, dreaming of offending their bloodthirsty god with the blood of their own bodies. Febronia does not defend her virginity from the attacks of the lascivious tyrant. The mystical masochist uses the desires and sadism of the emperor to obtain a death that will lead her into the arms of the beloved god who awaits the reward for her supreme sacrifice.

Nazario describes the gestation of Vírgenes y Mártires (Virgins and Martyrs): ‘The idea of making a comic about the saint’s martyrdom occurred to me when I was leafing through the pages of a martyrology in several volumes that I found in the Encantes market. The martyrdom of this saint surpassed by far the torments suffered by any other martyr who appeared in those pages. There, violent stories from the hagiography were mixed with descriptions of crimes committed by journalists writing for crime magazines. I took pleasure in carrying her martyrdom to a bloody climax in which not even the sadomasochistic paraphernalia was missing, with Hercules-like executioners tearing off masks and richly decorated leather belts. The ecstatic finale of the martyr, whose soul flies joyfully to throw itself into the arms of a hairy god with an Apollonian appearance, seems to compensate her for all her suffering. In the end, not even the estampita (little devotional holy card) is missing, nor the miraculous relic recalling those final pages of the story of San Reprimonio.’

This story was published in issue 80 of the magazine El Víbora.