They are lThe most famous characters in the history of Spanish comics And his indisputable supervants, and yet to enter his very extensive work is a real odyssey. Between apocryphal authorsthousands and thousands of published pages, different formats and editorial misadventures that included, in their day, A magazine with Mortadelo and Filemón on the cover that could not name themtracing misadventures these icons demand time and patience. Luckily, things are changing.
We all know the long stories of Mortadelo and Filemón, The albums that were published from the master ‘Atomic sulfate’. For many years, until the mid -1990s, the stories of the agents were divided between these periodic appearance albums and short stories (very often made by without accrediting cartoonists) on the other hand, which were published in Bruguera’s magazines. That, the brief and self -clusive history, was in fact the only format of Mortadelo and Filemón, between its creation in 1958 and its first album in 1969: short stories, costumbristas, and where all the paraphernalia of parody of the stories of spies did not exist.
This first decade of the characters of the characters immerses us in an era different from the usual for Mortadelo and Filemón, which at that time starred in stories with the subtitle Information Agency. For them, names with useful use were considered, such as “Mr. Chloro and Mr. Yesca, detective agency”, “ocarino and pernal, special agents” and “sequin and trust, fine detectives”. As seen, the reference to the detectives was the order of the day, because they were a parody of Sherlock Holmes and Watson. In his first adventures, Philemon even had a pipe (and in a specific story he wore the coat and cap characteristic of the Baker Street detective).
Who already looked uniquely similar to the current one was Mortadelo, but with a curious difference: then I already changed appearance, but I took the costumes of a bombin. This is an idea that, apparently, invented the distinguished Manuel Vázquez, creator of Anacleto, as he declared in an interview. He also had an sleepy gesture that would end up losing over the years. Both would end up softening their aggressive initial features, such as the Aguileña Filemón nose.
Finally saved
The edition of the short stories of Mortadelo and Filemón has always been immersed in chaos: meaningless selections, mixing apocryphal authors with originals from Ibáñez (although in this first decade, the unique author was him), from different eras and without context of any kind. Penguin Random House seems to have realized the treasure that he hosted in his catalog when he bought the rights of The entire Bruguera background And, after a couple of years with more or less compilations to use, it has begun to edit characters such as Anacleto, Saccharine, Superlópez Or, finally, Mortadelo and Filemón, chronologically.
In that context we get the volume ‘The first 200 cases of Mortadelo and Filemon‘, A compilation that, for the first time, collects the first three years of the characters Without skipping a story. An Tebeíl archeology event that is accompanied by abundant texts that contextualize the proposal, at the hands of two experts such as Antoni Guiral and Jordi Canyssà. In this volume we can see not only how Mortadelo and Filemón were almost seventy years ago, but how Ibáñez’s humor was at the time: welcoming the Bruguera humor codes of a page, with ambiguities and gags bathed in a much more domestic style and of gentle costumbrista criticism.
We have had the opportunity to talk to Guiral and Canysssà about this great edition, and we have asked them about what must have been a hard review and documentation work. Guiral tells us that “although there was information about when Ibáñez began to publish in Bruguera and what was the first published cartoon of Mortadelo and Filemón, we have started from scratch. That is, we have reviewed all the publications of Bruguera since 1957 to verify, really, what was the first Ibáñez joke published, which was the first signed and what was the first cartoon of the published series.”
Canysssà continues to say that “it has been necessary to restore those pages to clean the drawing line as much as possible, because we must take into account that at the time they were published with low quality paper and with many printing deficiencies.” In that sense, says Guiral, “The main inconveniences have been to locate all Bruguera magazines and try to make reproductions the most faithful to the originals without losing quality. There is no public entity that has all this material, unfortunately, so we have had to resort to our collections and those of some private collectors. “
Canysssà adds that “it would have been ideal to be able to scan some of these pages from the originals, but, unfortunately, or they were lost, or destroyed, or are locked in a warehouse without being consulted. In ‘The first 200 cases …’ we could locate and scan a single original of this era. We reproduce it in the book and it is a real jewel.
Without a doubt, the most interesting thing about this compilation is that Open the door to more systematic editions of the classics of our comic. Guiral acknowledges that “if it were for us, we would continue to collect all mortadelo and philasemón in chronological order. Everything will depend on whether this first volume works commercially speaking.” Canysssà concludes that “the public’s support is the key. Many pages are missing, many comics until they reach the long adventures of Mortadelo and Filemón that are so popular and that they constantly reissue.
Header | Penguin Random House
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