Atomic sulfate

Atomic Sulfate is a comic strip by Spanish comics author Francisco Ibáñez, published in 1969, the first long story in his series Mortadelo y Filemón.

Editorial trajectory

After its serialization on January 27, 1969 in the magazine Gran Pulgarcito, 2 or 4 pages per issue, it has been compiled as follows:

• In volume #1 Ases del HumorThis year.
• In the album No. 139 of the first edition of the Olé Collection entitled Mortadelo and Philemon: The rich shoot in 1977.^{[chuckles]required]}
• In volume #1 Wizards of the Humor.
• In the album n.o 100 of the fourth edition of the Olé Collection, the third edition of Editions B in 1995.
• In volume #21 of Super Humor of Editions B, next to Street Safari, Chapeau the smirriau, The plane of Alí-gusa-no and The box of ten locks.
• In volume #1 The best stories of Mortadelo and Philemon in 2001.^{[chuckles]required]}

Synopsis

Atomic sulfate is a lotion that, according to Professor Bacterio, eliminates pests in the field. However, the lotion has just the opposite effect: it considerably enlarges the animals, which is why they represent a serious danger to humanity.

The worst of the case is that one of the vials containing that compound was stolen by agents of the Republic of Tyranny. There rules the dictator Bruteztrausen, who intends to dominate the world. Mortadelo and Filemón's mission is to go to Tyranny and recover the jar. There the border agents expel them, because Mortadelo mistakenly took some recipe books instead of passports. For this reason they must enter incognito, with the costumes of Mortadelo. They arrive in the city and manage to enter the palace, snatch the bottle from the president right under their noses, and flee, all thanks to the help of a bottle of said sulfate that they took from Spain.

Characteristics and evaluation

This comic, along with Courage and... to the bull!, are rated as the best of Mortadelo and Filemón.

Its length and the care of its script and drawings sometimes make it similar to the more classic Franco-Belgian comics, like the one in the Tintin album The Calculus Affair. and, above all, QRN in Bretzelburg by Spirou and Fantasio. This is because Ibáñez wanted to give the work a much more realistic air, based on the style of other European authors of the time (Franquin de Spirou, Peyo de Benoit Brisefer... from whom he takes the style and many of the objects, secondary characters and backgrounds), and, in which, although humor comes first, a bit of importance is always given to realism in the characters, backgrounds and chronology of the story.

Notable about the script is its careful structure, totally linear (while other works by Ibáñez used to be divided into chapters, due to their weekly edition in magazines) and a certain air of a spy film with a marked accent to James Bond or a Impossible Mission, since the situations that the detectives face are much more serious than in the rest of their comics, like when Filemón is captured by the Tiranienses, or Mortadelo and Filemón get into the taxi of a crazy follower of the dictatorship. The absurd resources that prevail in other comics are dealt with more delicately here, and the humor is much more refined, in short, like in the Spirou or Asterix comics. ^{[citation required]}

It is also notable how the effects of the blows (bumps, etc.) last longer than in other long Mortadelo and Filemón stories: Note that the two agents are beaten at a certain moment in the comic, and they keep their bumps until the same moment End of the story. It can also be seen that Filemón changes his clothes and puts on another (this time without his characteristic bow tie), which lasts until the last cartoon.

Many think that it would have been interesting for the series to maintain this characteristic style for more albums, just because perhaps its evolution would have taken other directions. In fact, the style used in the script and drawing of this comic continues to develop in the comics. following long adventures. Subsequently, the style would return to being that of the old days, reaching the division of the adventure into small chapters, thus facilitating its weekly and monthly marketing in magazines. The reason that the attention to drawing is worse in later albums is that Ibáñez complained that in the time it took him to make that comic he could have done three, and that what worried most readers was that it was fun and not "that the character has more or less wrinkles".^{[citation required]}

In other media

• It has been adapted to the full in the episode of the television series on the characters.
• In 1998 the Spanish gaming company Alcachofa Soft launched a graphical computer adventure with a homonymous name, although adapting only a few parts. It was a sales success that led to a series of adventures developed by Alcachofa and based on Mortadelo and Filemon during the following years, and which were supervised by Francisco Ibáñez himself.
• The film made with actors of flesh and blood The Great Adventure of Mortadelo and Philemon echoes the comic book in certain details: The bustling autocar of the company "El Avión", the poster Visit Tirania and Rompetechos' final speech.