Francisco Ibáñez, creator of Mortadelo y Filemón, has passed away today at the age of 87, according to Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial. His drawings and funny stories about him have entertained several generations of Spaniards. Ibáñez, attached to the so-called Bruguera school, was also the creator of the botched Pepe Gotera and Otilo and the blind Rompetechos that he did not see no cake.
Born in Barcelona in 1936, Ibáñez studied to become a commercial expert and worked in a bank, but from a very young age he had a passion for drawing and consumed comics and comics. He was also a fan of American comedy films. So he started drawing when he was only 11 years old and managed to publish some of his cartoons when he was in his twenties. He soon saw that his hobby and his professional future were compatible. He left the bank and, in the late 1950s, joined Bruguera’s ranks.
Bruguera published in those times weekly comics that included serialized comics. The children of the 60s and 70s left their savings in those magazines and, if they were lucky, they managed to get their parents to take them to the kiosk on Sundays and buy them the new issue of Pulgarcito, Tío vivo or El DTT, the comics where Ibáñez drew Mortadelo and Filemon.
And not only Mortadelo and Filemón, the clumsiest secret agents in history, but also other equally likeable characters such as the saccharine bellboy, a rather lazy young man who tends to get into trouble, who works as an assistant in a newspaper, or Pepe Gotera and Otilio (home bots), a couple of workers whose intention was to fix small breakdowns, but invariably ended up causing major disasters such as fires, floods or explosions.
Also in the 60s, Ibáñez gave life to 13, Rue del Percebe, a super crazy neighborhood, which used to be published on the back cover of those graphic magazines so in demand by young people of the time. The chaotic characters and situations of that neighborhood served many years later as the seed for the successful television series Aquí no hay quien viva and La que se avecina.
Starting in the 1970s, the cartoonist devoted himself exclusively to Mortadelo and Filemón, his most successful characters. And he began to publish his comics in complete volumes, which fans bought along with the adventures of Tintin or those of Asterix and Obelix, the great comics of the time. Atomic Sulfate, The Inventions of Professor Bacterio or Los Hooligans are the titles of some of those comic strips that were successful all over the world, were translated into several languages, turned into animated television series and made into movies.
In 1985, Ibáñez left Bruguera to join Grijalbo and had to leave his famous characters behind as he lacked the copyright that the publisher retained. A legislative change allowed him to recover Mortadelo and Filemón, the clumsy TIA spies, at the end of the 80s.
The cartoonist, who had been married to Remedios Solera since 1966, was the father of two daughters. Next Monday at 12:30 pm there will be a farewell ceremony open to the public at the Sancho de Ávila funeral home in Barcelona.
