I remember when I was little I loved to get naughty. And that, back in the early 70s, the treatment of any small outbreak of fever was based on burying yourself under a ton of blankets to sweat as much as possible and a good portion of Mejoral, which could be the closest thing to a movie. of terror for any pediatrician today, come on. But that had a wonderful counterpart: the days of confinement in bed were accompanied by obligation of comics. My father brought me those of the week, almost all from Bruguera, of course, and not even the highest fever would prevent the decision to start with Mortadelo. Because the adventures of Mortadelo and Filemón were the best. Not the highest quality comics or the ones with the best drawing, no, “the best”. There was nothing better than the ability of these two human disasters to make a child between the ages of 7 and 77 laugh.

More informationFrancisco Ibáñez, the creator of ‘Mortadelo y Filemón’, dies at 87

The infinite costumes of Mortadelo, the resignation of Filemón, the bad mood of the superintendent, the madness of Professor Bacterio… There was nothing like it. Well yes, each and every one of the characters that were signed by the certain F*Ibáñez: Pepe Gotera and Otilio, Sacarino, Rompetechos, the 13 of the Barnacle… They all coincided in that infinite capacity to chain gags cartoon after cartoon, with hardly any give him time to breathe and recover. And, above all, I enjoyed getting lost in those covers and cartoons where, beyond what was happening in the foreground, you had to stop for everything that was happening behind: for that cat tortured by the mouse, for a signature that took on a life of its own. and she became one more character, due to that prophetic plane crashed in the Twin Towers, which even had her comics.

It has always been said that, in that decade of the 70s, Bruguera was the queen of comics in the kiosk, but it was not true: the King of comics was Francisco Ibáñez. The monopoly of the Catalan publishing house was founded on its infinite capacity for work and on the exploitation that was made of its creations, which were multiplied to exhaustion by dozens of anonymous hands at that time, but which did not deceive us children at that time. : we would open the magazine and immediately detect if it was a «good Mortadelo», because we knew his line perfectly, no matter how much the cartoonist’s style bent to editorial demands and passed from Vázquez to Franquin with the same ease that Mortadelo became changed costume. Because whatever the line, quick and agile or baroque detail, what was important was the cascade of crazy situations, the brutal expressiveness of his drawings and a devilish rhythm that made it impossible to leave the pages.

Who wouldn’t remember The Atomic Sulfate or Valor and the bull, or the consecutive adventures of the deranged agents of the T.I.A. in the Olympics, Soccer World Cups or whatever… Look for anyone born in this country in the 60s and show them a page from Ibáñez’s comics, it doesn’t matter which series because the answer will always be the same: a smile. Because yes, the smell of the Proustian madeleine will evoke many things, but the pages of Ibáñez are branded in our memory with a burst of laughter. This country has many things to thank Ibáñez for: it can be argued whether his artistic contributions were such or such, but what is unquestionable is that the comics industry in Spain exists today thanks to him, who endured for decades with his million-dollar sales to the rest. Let’s not forget, he was possibly the European author with the most living works in the catalog in continuous reissue; the most exported, which was successful in Germany, in the United Kingdom…

Ibáñez and his characters.

His copyright claim was the one that changed the scenario of an editorial policy that systematically mistreated the author and evaded something from him as basic as the acknowledgment of authorship. His work was successfully transferred to cinema and television, both in translations of the adventures of his most famous characters and in successful series that never recognized inspiration, but were clearly indebted to his ingenuity. A Stakhanovite with a pencil to the last breath, who always drew himself that way, with a pencil in his ear and another in his hand, working non-stop, still capable of throwing sales pitches when he touched on a current issue, silencing the voices that said that it was already losing steam. And surely it is true that in these times of manga and CGI superheroes, Mortadelo’s gags were already repeated; and it is also true that many things that were contextualized in the past no longer made sense today, but all of this is in the background before the enormous importance of his figure.

Because Ibáñez has not only been important for Spanish comics, he has been important for the whole of society: the word «tebeo» comes from the name of the TBO magazine, but if we think of comics today, it comes to mind. Mind Mortadelo and Filemon. Ibáñez is the comic of this country because he achieved something within the reach of very few: becoming an icon. In a country where the reading rates have never been exactly amazing, everyone has read Mortadelo, all of us parents have bought our children an Ibáñez comic, it is part of our sentimental education, because, what for? Deny it, this country of ours has been built while reading the comics that he drew for, that’s nothing, more than 70 years. Ibáñez is dead and, without him, this country with the soul of comics dies a bit.

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