One of the works that I loved reading this summer of 2013 has been the Paco Roca comic, The Winter of the Cartoonist, by Astiberri publishing house. It is a work in hardcover, in bullet format and with a price of 16 euros.
The book is fascinating because it portrays how was the life of comic artists in the Spain of the 50s. At that time it was not called comic, it was more something like comics, which takes the name of TBO, a specialized magazine. The Editorial Bruguera it was the one that had the greatest references of works for the young and not so young with such famous people as Zipi and Zape, Mortadelo and Filemón, Carpanta, Doña Urraca, The Gilda sisters, Gordito filling and El Capitan Trueno and El Jabato by Víctor Mora .
I was amazed at comic setting. Paco Roca's work is spectacular because there is not a single vignette that does not show or does not have that flavor of the Spain of the 50s that we have seen in many Berlanga or Bardem films.
The work, as you can read in the essential blog of Bullets and Snacks, tells the odyssey of five great cartoonists: Carlos Conti, Guillermo Cifré, Josep Escobar, Eugenio Giner and José Peñarroya who in 1957 decided to leave the almighty Editorial Bruguera and create your own magazine with the name of Uncle Live. There's also many more high quality authors and especially the comic is very respectful presenting other people who were part of the publishing house. Tremendously fascinating is Rafael Gonzalez, who managed the writing with an iron hand, red pencil and enormous talent to extract from each author his best work.
Also in the work the first very prolific Ibáñez appears and attentive to the recommendations of the editor in chief to start building Mortadelo and Filemón, an information agency. And it is that at that time Bruguera's magazines sold a million copies a week and his characters marked several generations, me among them, because although Bruguera Publishing House was out of circulation in the mid-80s, it still gave me time to grow up reading many of those cartoons and snacks.
And as they were very close to the time they lived in there were many stories that for me began to stop having interest. For example, Carpanta, the Gilda Sisters, Doña Urraca or even many stories of Zipi and Zape never caught my attention. I do believe that Ibáñez knew how to adapt better to the times and kept Mortadelo and Filemón always fresh and fun. Also a comic like 13 Rué del Percebe still has a lot of pull on television and of course El Jabato or Captain Thunder also have a tour. Although these works, like those of El Guerrero del Antifaz also from that time, allowed to serve as a metaphor for a Spain that clearly no longer exists and is therefore difficult for the new generations to understand the adventures of those titans fighting infidels, malandrines, pirates or Romans.
In today's times it seems to me that talent and the production of authors like those must be sought in other sectors, maybe in video games, in comics and especially on the Internet where there is a world market to publicize quality work through blogs. We may have to meet them in 50 years when someone, like Paco Roca has done with these authors, is encouraged to write the history of talent, creation and entrepreneurship in Spain.
