Jose Cabrero Arnal

José Cabrero Arnal, better known as C. Arnal (Castilsabás, Huesca, September 6, 1909-Antibes, France, September 7, 1982), was a Spanish cartoonist and caricaturist who settled in France.

Biography

Childhood and youth

Although he was born in Castilsabás, his paternal family was originally from Abiego, a town also in Huesca where the Cabrero family had been documented since the 18th century, as evidenced by the infanzion writ of 1741. His parents, Emeterio Cabrero Mur and Leonor Arnal Puértolas, They moved to live in Barcelona to improve their economy and during his youth in Barcelona, José Cabrero was a cabinetmaker and calculating machine repairer. He published his first graphic works in magazines such as "Algo", and "Pocholo", creating in the latter series such celebrated series as War in the Country of Insects or Top Dog's Extraordinary Trips. He also published political cartoons in the satirical magazine & # 34; L & # 39; Esquella de la Torratxa & # 34;, and erotic humor in the magazine & # 34; Papitu & # 34; where he used the signature & # 34; Cea & # 34;.

The war (1936-1945)

In 1936, after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, he enlisted in the Republican militias and had to go into exile in France at the end of the war. In France he enlisted in the 109th Maginot Line Foreign Workers Company (CTE: militarized units that provided auxiliary services to the French army and were composed mainly of Spanish Republican exiles).

On June 26, 1940, during the German invasion, he was taken prisoner and on January 27, 1941, he entered the Mauthausen concentration camp, like many other Republican exiles. From there, number 6299 would not leave until the end of the war, in May 1945; 35 years and 39 kilos.

Stay in France

In 1946 he published the first comics of Placid and Muzo, an anthropomorphic fox and bear, in the weekly Vaillant. He was a regular contributor to L & # 39; Humanité , the newspaper of the French Communist Party. In this latest publication, his most famous character, the dog Pif, appeared for the first time in 1948, and two years later he drew his inseparable companion, the cat Hercule, turning both in protagonists of his series Pif y Hércules.

Pif gave its name in April 1969 to a magazine, Pif Gadget, very successful during the 70s, in which other French and European cartoonists published and which survived the death of its creator.

Work