Jesus Blasco

Jesús Blasco Monterde (Barcelona, November 3, 1919 - October 21, 1995) was a Spanish cartoonist, creator of series such as Cuto (1935) and, in collaboration with his brothers Adriano and Alejandro, Arpa de Acero (1962). He is considered one of the greats of classic Spanish comics, especially in its realistic aspect, although his work for the British market was also very important.

Biography

Childhood and youth (1919-1940)

Jesús Blasco Monterde was born in the Barcelona district of Sarriá-San Gervasio, causing his father's astonishment when he was three or four years old when he drew the Tibidabo watchtower with a piece of plaster. His father, who would give him a blackboard to practice on, would not hesitate to encourage his hobby. Already at school age, he read TBO, Pocholo and especially Mickey, where he discovered American authors such as Floyd Gottfredson and Alex Raymond. He also became fond of cinema, then silent, which he considered more related than sound to comics.

On April 27, 1935, when he was only fifteen years old, he won first prize for drawing in a contest sponsored precisely by Mickey magazine, which led to its publication. That year he also began to collaborate professionally with two of the main comic magazines of the time, the aforementioned Pocholo and Boliche , along with artists such as Ricard Opisso. In the pages of the latter his character Cuto appeared for the first time as part of the gang of the series "Cuto, Gurripato y Camarilla", which He dedicated himself to doing "mischief to the neighborhood policeman", and to whom he now gave the traits of his brother Alejandro. His brothers Pili, Alejandro and Adriano would also become cartoonists.

He was called up at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, and fought in the Republican army as part of the so-called Quinta del biberón. At the end of the confrontation, he was imprisoned in a concentration camp in France. There he drew for the guards in exchange for food and became distressed by rumors about the entry of Moroccan troops into Barcelona, fearing that they had murdered his family (to whom he has always been very close, although he never married). It would be precisely his father who in 1940 would take him from the countryside and return him to his hometown, where he would live almost the entire rest of his life.

Jobs for Consuelo Gil

Back in the family home, located at number 9 on a street on Verdi Street, he found work as artistic director of the Plaza publishing house, and as a cover artist for the Molino and Clíper publishing houses. The editor Consuelo Gil called him to collaborate in her weekly, Chicos , in which Blasco would publish his most important works. He recovered Cuto, making him the most emblematic adventurous child in Spanish comics (compared by some commentators to Tintin, with whom he also shares a taste for baggy pants). He drew several adventures about the character in the pages of Chicos, but the most notable ones are Tragedy in the East (1945) and In the dominions of the Sioux (1946).

For the magazine Mis Chicas, also edited by Consuelo Gil, she created another endearing character, Anita Diminuta (1941), and published the comic strip Los tres inseparables(1943).

He made several war comics, set in the Second World War, such as La Escuadrilla de la Muerte (1941) or Episodios de Guerra (1948), the latter already in collaboration with his brothers Adriano and Alejandro. Some of his creations at this time, both in the field of realistic and humorous comics, were: Chispita (1946), Kul -Hebra (1949), Tontone y Cia, Jim the Terrible, Smiley O'Hara (1950), Lex Tarron and Joe Bazooka. Finally, he also invented entire pages for the Spanish edition of Flash Gordon, which did not respect the original.

Common work for the foreign market

In 1957 the three brothers set up a studio in a three-story house in a residential area next to the Vallcarca bridge. From there, they produced for the British agency Fleetway Publications Ltd. and magazines such as Bimbo e Bimba, Ici Paris, Playhour, Ranger, Sun, and Valiant that offered them better prospects than the rickety Spanish comics industry, creating series such as Rob Riley, numerous Western comics, such as Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp i>, Buffalo Bill, Shot Basky and Blackbow, adventure series such as Moctezuma's Daughter, Edward and the Jumblies, The Indestructible Man, The Slave of the Screamer, Phantom of the Forest and Miss Tarantula, or the children's story "Edward and the Jumblies" for Teddy Bear magazine, which would last 10 years. As Salvador Vázquez de Parga explains,

The participation of those who have had in the foreign work signed by Jesus Blasco can never be ascertained, but without a doubt, his function has gone beyond that of simple helpers of his brother in whose hands they left the direction and coordination of the team; his curriculum That's how he lets him guess.

In 1961, editor Trewor Newton went to find Jesus at the Ritz to propose that he take charge of the future superhero series Steel Claw., which would become a success.

He was also the consulting artist for How to Draw Comics (Parramón Ediciones, S. A., 1966).

Since 1968 the three brothers have made works in the French-speaking world, such as the western Los guerrilleros, with scripts by Miguel Cussó, or a comic adaptation of the Bible, Une Bible en Bande Dessinée, for Dargaud publishing house, a commissioned work that allowed him to pay his bills. For the Italian market they also made an adaptation of The Book of Wonders by Marco Polo, which Bruguera published in Spain in its collection Literary Jewels.

In '69, he was in Argentina.

Recognition and death

In 1982 he was awarded the "Yellow Kid" from the Lucca Comics Fair (Italy), one of the most important awards that a cartoonist can receive, and with the French honorary decoration of the Order of Arts and Letters. He did not participate in the boom of adult comics in Spain, although he would have liked to, since the Spanish magazines did not pay enough to maintain the work team he formed with his brothers. He did, however, sign the manifestos "In the face of an attempt to degrade the cultural meaning of comics" (1983) and "Manifesto against the Tintin and Hergé exhibition" (1984).

He began, with scripts by Víctor Mora, a new stage of El Capitán Trueno, which had a short life due to the closure of Bruguera in 1986. In the same year he began to collaborate with the Italian publisher Bonelli, for which he has made six stories of Tex, the most popular character of the fumetti, and one of Zona X until 1994. In 1987 he undertook another collaboration with Mora, the series Tallafero. He served as a teacher at Escola Joso from the late 1980s until his death. He died in 1995, the same day as another great Spanish cartoonist, Manuel Vázquez Gallego.

Style and influences

Blasco began developing a caricature style (cartoon), feeling fascinated by authors such as Floyd Gottfredson and Elzie Crisler Segar, although as he himself comments, "the editors were asking me for other things".in such a way that in the end his greatest graphic influence has been the also American Milton Caniff, although his primitive love for caricature can still be observed in details of the design of the protagonist of Cuto as his absence of eyelids.

Thought

Jesús Blasco considered that every cartoonist must cultivate the spirit of observation, and the desire to experiment, in addition to tirelessly studying his craft. He was more in favor, for example, of natural notes than of photography as a documentation resource. For this author, the only "trick" To master the craft, it consists of

have drawn much to be able to illustrate and draw safely, without the concern of the stroke, of the bulk of the line, of this or that reserve, and can be dedicated to perfecting the construction and expression of each figure or body.

He believes that things have to be done sweating, in such a way that if an artist "reflects what he sees with all the strength of his soul, with passion put into what he does, he can be considered a man on his way to building his freedom." He also felt like a citizen of the world, recognizing that & # 34; the English have always treated me like an Englishman... & # 34;, that is, very well, just like the Argentines.

Legacy

Blasco's work is unique in the context of post-war Spanish comics. His stage in Chicos marks one of the peaks of Spanish comics of the last century. His mastery of drawing and narrative means that he can be compared without complexes to his admired great masters of North American comics, such as Alex Raymond or Harold Foster. Unfortunately, due to the pettiness of the Spanish comics industry, on many occasions he had to access to commissioned works that, although magnificently executed, did not allow him to fully develop his extraordinary artistic gifts. Even today his work is almost unfindable, with the exception of some facsimile editions of Cuto's albums, made by publishers for collectors.

Prizes

• To the best professional work, at the Club Amigos de la Historieta Awards 1977.

Other activities

Jesús Blasco is also the author of about two hundred paintings and some sculptures, most of them about women, although he never exposed them to the public, because, in his own words, he was not interested in "entering the commercial wheel that regulates this type of art, reserving the freedom to "paint what I want, for me".