Quico, were you the progre?
Many saw Narcís Serra there.
It looked like it, it’s true.
It was a funny portrait of my readers, of my environment.
What amused him the most?
That the progre was starting to make money and he felt bad.
And how did you solve it, poor thing?
He didn’t buy a yacht: he rehabilitated a farmhouse… Eating well was no longer greed: it was culture… And so.
solved
It was easy to be progres: beard, corduroy and anti-Francoism.
And what is Quico, the progre, doing today?
It is a Quico jubilata. My generation has done well.
Why does he say that?
We had modest expectations and we met them. My grandchildren aspire to be rich and famous…and they will be thwarted!
What expectations did you have?
To draw.
What seven are you for?
An only child and no TV in the 1950s, my only excitement was the comic every Wednesday: ¡El Jabato! Then Tintín, Pulgarcito, Tio Vivo, DDT… But my father placed me in Banc Ibéric.
Banker!
Lump. I was 14 years old and my destiny was to retire there.
And why wasn’t it like that?
A colleague had a friend in Bruguera and I started bringing them drawings… They didn’t publish a single one.
Need!
I used it for rehearsal. I was 22 years old when Tom published my first drawing in Mata Ratos magazine. And soon I also published on Por Favor . He was happy!
And the bank?
The publisher José Ilario proposed that I draw in his magazines and replace Perich in the summer. “I’m leaving the bank!”, I told my wife, just married.
Has he talked about Perich, Jaume Perich?
Perich: a god for me.
what was he like
Grumpy humorist, the smartest guy, the greatest genius of the modern era. An alchemist of ideas: he distilled and synthesized them masterfully.
Reminds me of a vignette from Perich.
We see a wall with the graffiti “Torna el fascisme” and a man looks at it and says: “Ah, but he was gone?”
Are you still here?
I see it in all those groups that are offended… by a drawing.
Are they intolerant?
It’s bigotry to ask for a joke to be scrapped…instead of making another one.
We haven’t learned anything!
We laugh at everything, the end of the world! The left used to be festive and celebrate life, while today it is angry and scolding us.
Being outraged is okay.
But if we obey the most susceptible and the defenders of certain “holy causes”, the humor will die. I choose to be tolerant and laugh.
Is Thursday laughing at everyone?
“Make a Pulgarcito for adults”, Ilario instructed me. I was inspired by Charlie Hebdo: they continue…
Despite the jihadist slaughter…
In the next issue they published a fight between a cartoonist and a jihadist: “I forgive you”. And they laugh at everything… despite having to live in a bunker.
A sanctuary of freedom!
I admire them, more than ever.
Millions of people have also admired El Jueves over the course of 46 years…
Santiago Segura, Buenafuente, Wyoming, Resines, Almudena Grandes, Saza… have confessed to me that they are fans of the magazine. With quite a bit of talent, a lot of hard work and a bit of luck, we made something extraordinary.
Sarsuela must not have liked it so much…
The Royal House asked us for a caricature of a lanky Prince Felip, by the cartoonist Ventura, on a fold-out… They have it.
He also drew Forges on it…
It made me laugh. He invented language. It was wild: calling his wife a “vacaburra”, painting all French people as gay…
And Oscar.
He saw what you didn’t until he caricatured it.
You saw God: he satirized him in El Dios.
He wasn’t so omnipotent… But the longest-lived character is Martínez el facha, from Kim, from number zero: 46 years!
Mention others.
Professor Cojonciano, Grunts in the desert, Makinavaja, Puta Mili…
What is the profile of the reader of El Jueves?
All different with one common trait: the desire to feel hooligan for a while.
And one day you left…
I wanted my time to draw calmly: today I draw the strip of La Vanguardia: I had never drawn so happily.
