Superlopez

Superlópez is a series of comics starring the homonymous character created in 1973 by the Spanish cartoonist «Jan» (pseudonym of Juan López Fernández). has been in charge of its development since then, with the exception of the initial scripts —among which those written by Efepé stand out— and five albums with the appearance of El Supergrupo, created from 2013 on the occasion of the 40th anniversary and also written by Efepé. Initially created for a graphic humor monograph for the Euredit publishing house, Superlópez was Bruguera's last success —its popularity was only surpassed by Mortadelo y Filemón—, although it became detached from the editorial's own style. Later, Ediciones B took over the publication of the comics, although the series is usually criticized for having declined in quality since its first installments.

Born as a parody of Superman, it has ended up becoming a vehicle for its cartoonist to address a multitude of topics. While in the first installments the parodic component is more present, with a crazy humor, from now on the series acquires a greater depth, with the intention of creating several levels of reading or including a greater social load. It is common for comics to also deal with current affairs, as well as for them to be faithfully represented in realistic environments, the result of the observant and detailed nature of its creator and his efforts to document himself thoroughly.

In 2022, Jan announced that she would stop drawing comics of the character.

Editorial trajectory

Euredit (1973)

Antonio Martin, in 2011.

In 1973, cartoonist Juan López Fernández «Jan» was commissioned to create a very short comic book that parodied Superman. Antonio Martín, then editorial director of the comics area of the Barcelona publishing house Euredit and responsible for the commission, had to convince Jan —who did not consider himself a comedian— for him to do the job, and he did it quickly, without much faith. The work was included in the collection Humor siglo XX , dedicated to the satire of characters from American comics, literature and cinema, such as King Kong, Tarzan or Frankenstein. The comics had to be silent, printed in black and white and in a landscape format of 48 pages, so, to overcome these creative restrictions, the author resorted to all kinds of graphic resources, such as thought bubbles, kinetic signs or accentuation of expressions, with which he achieved great expressiveness in his drawings.

Jan conceived his parody of Superman in the manner of your most common average Spaniard; "in the key of a tacky marriage", because it seemed to him the closest thing to the public of the time. This character, faced with the daily difficulties that he cannot solve and that frustrate him, adopts as an escape valve the tactic of imagining that he is a superhero. The jokes corresponding to this volume, drawn with a rotring line on sheets of folio paper and with an extension of up to four vignettes, have a simple and expressive line drawing, and present —despite the limitations of the format and maintaining little connection or continuity between them— gimmicky gags about Superman, rather "domestic" silent jokes, which have minimally to do with the character later developed in the Superlópez comics from Ediciones B.

Bruguera (1974-1985)

First stage

The following year, and until 1975, Jan brought Superlópez back for a new stage at the Bruguera publishing house, by proposing the character to Rafael González, then artistic director of the publishing house. Bruguera, however, registered the character, thereby dispossessing Jan of her property. These self-contained comics were mostly one or two pages long—as was usual in the publisher's style—with many small panels; Antonio Martín commented, in his prologue to El génesis de Superlópez, that these were built on minimal arguments and banal themes, and revolved around the old and worn-out anecdotes of Bruguera humor. Jan considered this old-fashioned style, and would later remember these strips "as a collection of nonsense drawn without desire and with eyes set on the future." The cartoonist even declared to Rafael González that he saw the publisher's comics as stupid, but, Despite the deteriorated relationship between the two, he continued to collaborate thanks to the support of Miguel Pellicer —director of the Children's Department— and the approval of Francisco Bruguera —owner of the publishing house. Although the format was not to his liking, he hoped - trusting in a renewal of the company in search of surviving the crisis in which it was plunged - that it would modernize, in order to subsequently develop the character to his liking. In these circumstances, given the impositions marked by Bruguera on scripts and humor, he refused to carry them out, and part of them —delivered to the cartoonist generally on yellow typed sheets— fell to Conti, who sometimes signed them with the pseudonym Pepe, while that others were even left unsigned. Francisco Pérez Navarro, known as Efepé, also took charge of some scripts, which Jan would later define as "less silly and generally better." One delivery day, Efepé and Jan —who had not yet met in person— met in Bruguera's waiting room; After the latter commented on his fed up with the scripts provided by the publisher, Pérez Navarro proposed to do some test ones for him; the cartoonist invited him to his studio and was satisfied with the work, which led to his collaboration in the later stage of the character.

These adventures feature a more clumsy and humane married Superlopez, concerned more with his problems at the office than with his fights with supervillains. The comics were published in magazines such as Tío Vivo (2nd period), Zipi y Zape or Mortadelo Gigante, and a compilation was made of these on album no. 13 of the Olé! called El génesis de Superlópez, which also contains comics from the previous period on Euredit.

Stable collaboration with Efepé

In 1978 Rafael González retired, and he was replaced as editor by Ana María Palé. Jan, thanks to his friendship with Miguel Pellicer, resumed the character in 1979 for Bruguera, with Efepé as scriptwriter. The adventures had a more extensive format, first in divided eight-page short stories in the magazine Mortadelo Especial and later in albums Olé!, with regular publications of each adventure. compiled albums. These albums allowed the series to take off, and hardcover compilations began to be published in the Super Humor collection. From this stage on, Superlópez's comics followed a plot line with a more solid continuity between them, in some initial comics where crazy and parodic humor took on a greater role. The Efepé - Jan tandem thus created the basis to support the later adventures of the superhero.

Efepé, connoisseur of the world of superheroes, devised for The adventures of Superlópez an initial plot in which the Superman from DC Comics is parodied, with numerous references to the original. Far from dwelling on it, the following albums continued with the parody of a multitude of heroes and villains from the comic-books of American superheroes. In this way, in the following two issues (The Supergroup and All against one, one against all!) entered the scene with “The Supergroup”, a satire consisting of superhero groups, such as like the Avengers, the Fantastic 4, X-Men or the Defenders, where each member of the group constitutes a parody of American superheroes. Ricardo Aguilera and Lorenzo F. Díaz also indicate that the dramatic structure provided by Efepé is reminiscent of Goscinny from Asterix.

More than 30 years after their last collaboration, Jan and Efepé recover the Supergrupo and work together again in 2013 to publish the album Otra vez el supergrupo. After the good acceptance and a moderate success in sales, several more numbers would follow: The Supergroup and the war of the cans (2014), The Supergroup against the demolishers (2015) and The Supergroup against the executives (2016).

Jan as scriptwriter

Laughing at Superman in a Spanish key allowed Jan to discover a tool to tell his stories. With the character already defined in the previous issues, it happened that Jan was not particularly interested in the continuous criticism of superheroes, "since in Actually that was equivalent to making another one", and he preferred to work with his own ideas, more focused on the real world that surrounded him than on the typical coordinates of these. In 1980, after various personal circumstances and some delays in the delivery of the scripts by Efepé, the cartoonist decided to take charge of them and separate Superlópez from the superhero plot that began with the supergroup, starting with the fourth issue, Los Alienígenas. Thus, he tackled topics as varied as science fiction (The aliens, Pandora's box), fantasy (The lord of the pacifiers), the black series (The longest week) or the world of cinema (The great blockbuster).

From The aliens series numbers are made exclusively by Jan.

In The aliens there was also a substantial change in the aesthetics of the character, due to its initial condition as a parody: Superlópez's suit resembled that of Superman, in such a way that the anagram of the original caused problems between DC Comics and Bruguera. The American publisher, which distributed Superman in Spain also through Bruguera, claimed that Superlópez was plagiarized and, although there were no legal problems, DC Comics exerted pressure that prevented the character from being published in other countries. such as France or Belgium, as well as pressured Bruguera to stop using the Supergroup. The issue of the logo caused Jan, however, indifference and, after reaching a compromise between the publishers, the S was finally modified for another with a much simpler line —although the author affirms that he did not do it because it was easier and faster to draw—, which is the one used since then. Despite the fact that this change was made during the adventure of The aliens, on the cover of All against one, one against all! Superlópez already appeared with the new logo.

Between 1981 and 1983 the rate of publication of the collection slowed down, because the publishing house Bruguera asked its cartoonists for new characters with which to relaunch its children's magazine Pulgarcito. Jan continued, despite of this, devising Superlópez comics for Bruguera until the publishing house went bankrupt, which caused The Great Super Production to be half-published in the new magazine Superlópez i>.

Editions B (1987-2022)

Jan at the exhibition of the Barcelona Comic Hall dedicated to his work, in 2003.

The bankruptcy of the publisher forced Jan to stop creating new superhero adventures until 1987, when Ediciones B finally took over Bruguera's funds and licenses, and with it the rights to Superlópez. At the same time, the new publisher created another publication with the Superlópez masthead that was maintained for 4 years. In 1990 the character briefly joined the magazine Yo y Yo to end up in Mortadelo the following year. The serial publication of the character's adventures finally ceased in 1996, with a single edited chapter of El infierno. in its collections Fans (formerly Olé!), Súper Humor and Magos del Humor. On the other hand, In 2013, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the creation of the character, Jan collaborated again with Efepé to make the album Otra vez el supergrupo, where the supergroup made an appearance again.

In addition, Superlópez has been published in other magazines or publications such as the collection Gran Festival Del Cómic by Ediciones Bruch, the supplement Gente Menuda of the ABC newspaper, El Periódico de Catalunya or the newspaper El Mundo. During this period of Ediciones B, it is necessary to highlight the decrease in the number of pages of each album, due to editorial imperatives: from the 62 pages that El dios del bit consists of, it goes to 48 of the following albums. Because of this format limitation, Jan had to change the rhythm and complexity of his stories. Compared to his time at Bruguera, the author has expressed feeling more freedom, professionalism, and confidence in his dealings with Ediciones B.

In 2022 Jan announced that the comic strip Geek Dreams would be the last one he would draw of the character. He is not opposed to another cartoonist being able to continue the adventures of the superhero, although he affirms that this depends more on editorial than of him.

Comics and publishing

Since the birth of the character, with the publication in 1973 of the landscape volume Superlópez by Euredit, the series has been published in various formats and collections, first serially in magazines and later and mainly in album format. Below is a list of the adventures of Superlópez ordered by their first publication date in Spanish:

To the left, albums from the collection Fans Superlópez; to the right, tomos compilations in hard cover of the collection Super Humor Superlopez.

In 1979 the adventures of Superlópez began to be published in chapters in Bruguera's Mortadelo Especial magazine. Pandora's Box is published in its part in Mortadelo, while La gran superproducción is not published in its entirety in the new magazine Superlópez, of which only three issues were published from March to May 1985. Later, Ediciones B began to include, since 1987, the adventures of the character in a new publication with the header Superlópez, which disappeared in 1990. Superlópez then became part of the cast of characters in Yo y Yo and, in 1991, in Mortadelo, alternating between his Extra and Super editions until 1996 when, as soon as the serialization of Hell began, the Ediciones B comics magazines ceased to be published. Likewise, the short story El Phantasma de la Teleuve was published in 1981 in the special number of Mortadelo 25º Aniversario on TVE, and the series Los Gemelos Superlópez for Zipi and Zape.

On the other hand, starting in 1980, Bruguera had begun to publish the adventures of Superlópez in albums in the Olé! collection, which would later become the longest and most popular edition of the adventures of the character. The next stage of the collection continued in 1987, with the publication by Ediciones B of volumes with formats of different sizes and covers with and without relief. The different editions maintained the basic characteristics of a softcover publication with 64 pages and sale, mainly, in newsstands. In 2002 the Olé! collection was replaced by the Fans, thus separating itself from the joint presentation with Mortadelo and Filemón. The new 48-page adventures were published under the new collection and, at the same time, some old issues were reissued, maintaining the numbering and characteristics of the latest Olé! (soft cover, 29x21cm, cover without relief, 64 pages) until 2010, the year in which Fans stopped publishing.

In addition, in 1981 Bruguera published number 6 of Oye Mira, dedicated to comic book superheroes and containing various material from Superlópez, such as some redrawn jokes from 1973, or information about the character that later it would be compiled in 25 years of Superlópez. The magazine was accompanied by a musical cassette, produced by Belter, which included a song dedicated to Superlópez and performed by Regaliz.

Comparison of the loins of different editions of Superlópez in format Super Humorin chronological order.

Bruguera, in 1982 and under the collection Super Humor Superlópez, also published a volume that compiled the first five adventures of the character. It was an edition in hardcover volumes with a red spine, although some copies were published with a green spine. Ediciones B resumed the collection, reissuing the first volume of Bruguera and maintaining the same initial format of five adventures and a red spine. As of the fifth issue, coinciding with the change in format of the Olé! collection, the dimensions of the volumes of the Super Humor collection were increased, and later they were returned to reissue the first three volumes under this same format. From the eighth volume the number of adventures included was reduced to four, and in the thirteenth installment, only three.

In 1988 Ediciones Bruch published several volumes with compilations of the adventures of the series, as part of the Gran Festival Del Cómic collection, which also included other volumes with works by Francisco Ibáñez such as Pepe Gotera and Otilio. Despite the quality binding, comics such as The Aliens and Pandora's Box were left unfinished.

Between 1989 and 1990 Ediciones B also released an edition of the first adventures of Superlópez —with scripts by Efepé— in a collection of albums of various characters called Magos del Humor, although most of them corresponded to deliveries of Mortadelo and Filemón. The albums came in hardcover, 48 pages and under the same joint numbering, and to adapt the adventures to the characteristics of the collection, some stories from The Adventures of Superlópez, El supergroup was split into two albums, and All Against One, One Against All! never appeared in its entirety. Later, in 2002, Superlópez returned to the collection with El Caserón Fantasma and, in 2010, after the end of the Fans collection, it became the only launch format of individual adventures.

On the other hand, the ABC newspaper reissued in the 3rd season (1989-1999) of its supplement Gente Menuda many of the adventures of the character, with a publication rate of two pages per issue, also using several covers of the Superlópez magazine. From 1989 to 1990, the Periódico de Catalunya included some adventures with the same publication rate in its Sunday comics supplement. Other editions were made to sell them as a promotion together with newspapers such as Las Provincias or La Verdad (with staple format and 48 pages), and El Mundo (in 2005 and 2006, in paperback edition). In 2009, RBA dedicated the eleventh volume to him within its collectible Clásicos Del Humor.

Editions in other languages

In the publication of Super Meier in Germany, Ibáñez was mistakenly attributed as author.

Starting with the edition of Los alienígenas, the exclamation marks of the onomatopoeia were removed to facilitate translation into other languages so that only the text of the speech bubbles had to be modified. However, only twelve issues were translated into Germany under the name Super-Meier between 1980 and 1986, one issue in Denmark (printed in Belgium) under the title Superdan and in Norway under the title Superegon. the borders is due to the pressure exerted by DC Comics; Bruguera did not give in regarding Spain and Germany, but in the other countries it had to be left, and the American publisher managed to avoid its publication in French in countries like France or Belgium. In the magazine Superlópez n.º 37 of Ediciones B, in addition, a Swedish edition with the name of Super Nilsson is indicated. In 1988, some of Superlópez's adventures in Greece were also published in the magazine αγόρι. Jan, in any case, has not been very interested in publishing in other languages outside the borders, because it cannot control the translation of the texts. With the publication of the first issue in Germany, the mistake was even made of indicating Francisco Ibáñez as the author instead, and when they were informed of the error, the German publisher rectified it by presenting Jan as the author who emerged from the Ibáñez study.

There are also editions in Catalan of the first issues with the name "Super Llopis" in the Mestres de l'humor collection, which the Generalitat of Catalonia undertook to subsidize. In 2005 the Comú of Canillo, in Andorra, ordered and distributed among its inhabitants a limited edition of 1000 copies of “Les Muntanyes Voladores”. It is a Catalan translation of The Flying Mountains, this time respecting the character's original name, Superlópez.

In Galician, published in 2010 by the publisher Cerditos de Guinea, Pandora's Box was published, translated as “A caixa da Pandora”.

Elaboration of the comics

Themes

Jan prefers to define himself as a storyteller rather than as a humorist, and for the realization of each story he starts from a message to convey; he does not want to always do the same, because when they are repeated they lose content.Thus, each one is different in its elaboration, seeking to develop a particular idea focused on the world that surrounds the author. He does not want to feel constrained by the protagonist's superhero status, which often goes to the background, since he considers the superhero environment more typical of North American culture. In this way, the important thing is not that Superlópez claims anything or resolve injustices, it is the meaning of the stories that interests the author. Contrary to the crazy humor of the initial issues, he tries to dig deeper to create several levels of reading for his comics, he is not attracted to "entertain for the sake of entertainment"., and tries to address the wide spectrum of readers that the series has. An illustrative example is the adventure Pandora's Box, where the youngest reader will be able to see a fun story about monsters, but someone more educated will be able to notice allusions to Greek, Aztec, Hindu and Egyptian myths, as well as as references to parapsychology or ufology. This willingness to provide multiple readings was received, however, with skepticism by the Bruguera publishing house, influenced by its own subculture. However, by including literary aspects or travel in his comics, Jan It does not intend to educate readers or supplant other arts, but to introduce real elements to give more dimension to the stories. The influence of literary works such as Alice in Wonderland is also very present. by Lewis Carroll, Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, or other authors such as H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, Stanisław Lem or Boris Vian; Jan defines these referents as belonging to literary surrealism.

Choice of themes

It depends on every moment, on the barbarities you read in the newspaper or in other media about our savage civilization... The themes are out there. They're very changing, like seasons... I look at life.

Jan

Cerditos de mazapán in a showcase in Camprodón, like those who gave the album a name The pigs of Camprodón.

About the plots, Antoni Guiral wrote that they were "enriched by the personal and cultural concerns of their creator, which address current issues or develop Jan's great capacity for fantastic storytelling". He is used to being inspired by any idea he finds in his environment, as a result of observing some element that catches his attention or from his own experience. Often, the cartoonist uses a wide variety of sources, from the media, such as current news from newspapers, newscasts or television documentaries; to art, history or literature. Certain adventures are found for example, inspired by works of literature: this is the case of The Lord of the Pacifiers, influenced by The Lord of the Rings; Hell, based on titles such as The Divine Comedy, El Diablo Cojuelo or Fausto; To the Center of the Earth, inspired by Journey to the Center of the Earth; La brújula esdrújula, based on the trilogy of La Materia Oscura; You, robot..., inspired by the works of Isaac Asimov; The nonexistent library, based on the work of Borges, etc. Omaetxebarria and Pascual have also indicated the presence of literary references such as Pinocchio, The Tin Soldier , as well as allusions to Disney. Other adventures are equally inspired by themes from various fields, such as Pandora's Box, which deals with various mythologies; The wonder of the robot, which explores philosophy; The Yellow House, based on the life and work of Van Gogh; and even some ideas have also come from less conventional sources, such as Count Arnau's treasure or The little pigs of Camprodón, which respectively arose from tourist brochures or little pigs from marzipan.

The desire for observation also leads him to repeatedly represent everyday environments: scenarios such as the office, the subway, traffic jams in the city, the soccer field, the Horta neighborhood (where Jan lived for a while) become commonplace. time), El Masnou, etc. Jan has also recognized himself as a maniacal observer of people, environments or urban fashions, and has stated on some occasion that he is interested in "issues that make noise, such as elections". This intention contemplating the world that surrounds us can also be seen in the diversity of current issues and cultural references that the collection addresses; Examples of this are the work Los cabecicubos, written during the Transition as a surreal portrait of it, or other more conjunctural issues such as Osama Bin Laden, caricatured as Bin Ladillen in We the Papinos; digital television in The god of the bit; or Monster Chapapote, an allusion to the crisis caused by the oil tanker Prestige.

Documentation

As long as I start a story, I first document myself and reuse material of all kinds. Vázquez told me that he was crazy because the others tended to simplify his drawing and I always complicated my life.

Jan

With a usual background of ideas to choose and develop, when the cartoonist finally chooses a topic, he tries to document himself as well as possible, investigate and soak up enough information. This phase, in which she studies the subject, gathers documentation material and writes the script, usually takes about a month. As an example, for the realization of Pandora's Box Jan extensively documented herself on various mythologies of humanity and parapsychology. He liked these studies so much that on some occasion he has expressed that he considers this album the best he has made, because it came out more rounded at that stage. With Pandora's Box he also finished outlining his way of writing scripts

Jan was also very satisfied with the realization of Hell, whose starting point is due, according to the author himself, to a declaration by the pope that hell really existed. The cartoonist then dedicated himself to studying Dante's The Divine Comedy and other classics such as El Diablo Cojuelo by Luis Vélez de Guevara and Goethe's Faust. You can see the parallelism between the hell that Superlópez must go through in his story and the one described in The Divine Comedy. Other of his favorite albums are Tirannosaurus Sect or Los ladrones de ozono, while El supercrack , which was not created out of the author's interest, is considered by him to be the worst he has ever done. This adventure, which revolves around football, was also another intense example of documentation, because Jan does not like this sport and hardly knew it; Therefore, he had to study a large number of books about his history, rules and techniques, and went to the Camp Nou, where he took photos of the stadium and the museum.

In The Treasure of Ciuacoatl Jan carried out detailed documentation on Mexican culture.

This taste for detail is a constant in all the author's work, and examples of this procedure can be continually found in his scripts for Superlópez. It should be noted that Jan has been totally deaf since he was approximately six years old; this handicap has helped him, in addition to being self-taught, to be a great observer and very detailed. In this way, the author has dedicated himself on occasions to studying the ways of speaking of urban tribes or of the countries he visits. A paradigmatic case of this effort occurred in the album El tesoro del Ciuacoatl, set in Mexico, where he had to investigate the way of speaking local; In order to characterize the characters well, he wrote down all kinds of phrases that he found in Mexican newspapers, billboards, street signs, graffiti, popular brochures, or just asking questions.

Likewise, we can mention other classic titles where the author thoroughly documented himself, such as To the Center of the Earth, based on Jules Verne's novel, or more recent adventures such as The courtyard of your home is private, where the action is transferred to the time of the Carlist wars.

As has been indicated, Jan not only takes care when it comes to documenting the topics that he narrates in each comic, but he also tries to realistically detail the landscape and environment present in his drawings:

When I have a resolved script, I get nervous, it gives me to revolve magazines, books, cut newspapers, sink into my little clip file and, finally, I take my camera and take a tour of the city photographing everything susceptible to serve as the scene of the comic I'm going to do.

Jan

An example of this is the adventure The Little Pigs of Camprodón, where, after visiting Camprodón —a town in the north of Catalonia—, the cartoonist thought of creating a comic set in that environment. He went there to carry out the script on the spot and took hundreds of photographs. Later he also relied on newspaper clippings to make a representation of the Modelo prison, which was left without being photographed.

Renault 5 similar to the model used by López in Petroleum.

Realism is applied in the same way to other objects present on the stage, such as means of transportation. Jan tends to look at scale models of cars, motorcycles and other vehicles, bought in model airplane stores, to appropriately set each adventure. In Los Little Pigs... he used five models of cars and three of motorcycles for this purpose. Likewise, this concern is reflected in the way the characters dress. As the cartoonist himself explains:

For my part I prefer the environmental documentation, and a bit of clothing; you can't dress up the current people like twenty years ago... I've been looking at how my characters' wardrobe has changed and I wonder how I'm going to dress them in the next comic book.

Jan

New technologies, and especially the Internet, helped Jan simplify her search for documentation, allowing her to do without going through bookstores and carrying packages of books.

Script development

Chapter structure

The distribution into chapters imposed by the serial publication of the first albums brought Jan to a stage where he adapted this system in different ways, with a particular style in the structure of each one of the comics. He used a division of the chapters by days into The longest week , in which the total formed a complete week; on other occasions, the chapters constituted states of mind, aspects of the personality, phases of a process or simply an advance in the plot. Omaetxebarria and Pascual have commented that this division progressively made the stage the most lucid in terms of scripts. At this time, the repetitive joke already present with Efepé was also improved, and habitual repetitive structures with identical beginnings and endings or vignettes in positions already seen, as well as abrupt endings in just two pages, were shown.

Realistic environments

As soon as you place the action at a certain time or place it is logical that you seek to specify it in the drawings, and it is not enough for the character to pass by a red telephone booth and say "I am in London". I try to see that it is in London and if the reader comes to recognize environments that he himself has seen, so much better... it is more credible.

Jan

Jan moved to Camprodón to perform the script The pigs of Camprodón on the ground, and made hundreds of photographs.

As already mentioned, Jan used to faithfully set the scene for the adventures of Superlópez. She seeks to be coherent and convincing, and for the reader to recognize the environments, since they have more life that way.However, this does not mean that she takes reality as a model, but that she sets the scene by developing the themes in a surreal way. In this way, although the current Spain is reflected in the themes, the characters and the treatment of the stories rarely have anything to do with it.

This pretension for detail has led him to make some albums where the reliable representation in the cartoons of scenarios of the areas where the comics take place stands out, such as the aforementioned Los Cerditos de Camprodón. The trip thus becomes the narrative formula on which some comics are based, with Superlópez led through each scenario, and usually constitutes a pretext as a trigger for the action. The cartoonist has always been interested in knowing what they were like in the scenarios that he represented in his comics came true, therefore, to carry out most of these types of adventures, he used to personally visit the place where the story was going to take place and take a large number of photographs (from 600 to 800) to all the objects or enclaves that could be drawn. To do this, he carried a heavy equipment with two cameras and numerous film rolls, although digital photography has improved this aspect.

The Cathedral of Alexander Nevski, represented in Bulgarian perlip.

The first story that initiates this characteristic imprint of certain volumes of the collection is Bulgar Journey, set in Bulgaria, where Jan explicitly wanted it to look like a tourist trip. To do so, he set out to draw the Sofia's environments, from picturesque yellow trams to old alleys of wooden houses in Plovdiv and Veliko or the archaeological remains of the Roman theater in Plovdiv. This tourist atmosphere, however, earned the cartoonist criticism that he was making tourist catalogues. instead of comics.

For the realization of To the Center of the Earth Jan also sought a reliable recreation of the atmosphere of Jules Verne's book, for which he studied both illustrations and descriptions of the route and speleology books, geology and mineralogy. For his part, for the views of London, Paris, the Netherlands, Hamburg, etc., he relied on photographs from books, magazines, postcards and the like.

Photo of a torii in Nara, Japan, represented in a vineyard The dragon's strip cleared.

Likewise, the illustrator traveled to Arles, with the script already prepared, to document the environment of the painter Van Gogh when he set up the Maison Jaune together with Gauguin and thus illustrate his volume The Yellow House. In the same case is El castillo de arena, for which Jan traveled to Tunisia with an already established script. In other exponents of this type of album, however, the author worked on the ideas of the scripts during the realization of the same trips, as for example in The band of the Disheveled Dragon, whose plot takes place in Japan; or The Treasure of Ciuacoatl, in Mexico.

This classification also includes The Flying Mountains, which covers the length of the Principality of Andorra and is inspired by the story of Boris I of Andorra. Not surprisingly, this latest adventure also has a Edition translated into Catalan on the occasion of the 2005 edition of the La Massana Cómic contest. Also worth mentioning are works such as A camel boarded the tram in Grenoble... or Hotel Panic.

However, despite the fact that the author likes to discover new places, he has given up on carrying out this type of travel to document himself where he cannot go unnoticed, mainly because he understands that tourist behavior is harmful to countries that they receive it.

Social criticism

Each story is inspired by a specific social problem although it is not always clearly shown, and it depends on the present day... It's about readers thinking a little.

Jan

I look at life, what happens on this round boat where we all sail, and I'd like to contribute to the fact that many realize that we're spoiling it... if it's not already.

Jan

Since his takeover of the scripts, Jan tries to center his album themes around social reality in a surreal way. comics with more critical social content, in the style of Spirou, which did not fit the Bruguera model. Paradoxically, Spirou's comics were bought from agencies in the Bruguera magazines themselves. Over time, this greater social burden has gradually gained strength in the albums, where each reader can draw different conclusions and different readings. Through the use of Superlópez as a means to mention, raise or remember different problems, each adventure becomes an invitation to reflect on a topic and a reflection of reality from an ironic and critical perspective. The fantastic setting of some albums also helps to keep distance from reality. Jan has spoken, for example, of her intention when making El gran botellón: «I point out how an attitude of young people is exploited, with the consequent logical reaction that leads to the extreme of its prohibition, a symptom of social failure».

Thus, each story rests on a background of social criticism, but without claiming to provide solutions at the same time. He does not try to instruct or take sides, "but hoping that the reader may end up taking his own. " The author tries not to raise closed truths since, according to him, "every truth has many faces, like precious stones."

They're regular anti-drug messages on the albums.

Among the most frequently criticized topics are explicit references against the use of tobacco or drugs, with messages such as "don't smoke and read", "don't smoke, get up early in the morning", "if they offer you chocolate Say that... oranges!", "Street closed to traffic" or signs with crossed-out syringes. To better understand the purpose of this campaign, it should be noted that the audience that the author is trying to reach with these drawings are mainly children Therefore, although the cartoonist himself was a smoker until 1990 (and even occasionally smokes a pipe), he is against the use of tobacco or other harmful substances in children. On other occasions, it has been done allusion to the theme of the bulls.

As a mention of some albums where different themes are dealt with, we can cite Los cabecicubos, a surrealist portrait of the Transition; A camel boarded the tram..., where drug trafficking is fought; El gran botellón, on the consumption of alcohol and designer drugs among young people; The ghost house, which highlights the trafficking and exploitation of children in the Third World; Behind the blind..., about exploitation in workshops; or Hipotecarión, which reflects the housing bubble and its entire framework.

Drawing

The changes in the drawing are explained simply because I want to do it more and more. [...] There are also the desire to experience, which is another way to do better: to create you have to seek, prove, and if you need to fail you fail. I've always avoided doing the same exactly the same. As for the palette, it depends on the printing methods that were changing more often than people believe.

Jan

Once the script is outlined, the drawing process can take the author between three and four months, although this has changed with the series over the years. Although the methods of reproduction and printing used have varied over time, Jan has always worked with pencil and ink, and continues to draw and ink as she did 40 years ago. Even so, some of the materials she used regularly have been discontinued. As an example, he has had to change his nib several times. In the 1980s, the cartoonist commented on his working method: as a first step, he created a small sketch of between 4 and 10 centimeters high to view the entire page. Next, he would transfer that idea to a larger page, sketching with red pencil, where he also wrote the text of the bubbles to calculate their space. Sometimes he used other materials, such as green, blue, soft black pencils, and even a pen or marker. After this, the page was used as a model to draw, on a cardboard placed on top of the sketch, the final version with a hard lead pencil. Finally, in the inking process, the draftsman perfected the drawing made in pencil. More recently, Jan has mentioned that he sketches with a 2B pencil on large sheets, which are then traced with a fine-tipped pencil, to finish with a nib inking.

General view of the exhibition of the Barcelona Comic Hall dedicated to the work of Jan, in 2003.

Since his time at Bruguera, the cartoonist wanted to achieve an evolution in the format. The man from Leon has a very personal style of drawing, and he never liked the Bruguera school, but at the beginning he was forced to adhere to the editorial style; In this regard, he has come to comment that he suffered pressure, for example, to cut his nose. He was, in his own words, "a rebel who was put on a corset". Little by little, and thanks to the gradual replacement of managers, the drawing gradually adopted the form with which its creator felt most comfortable, from the traditional Bruguera comic strips with small cartoons and jokes of one or two pages, to reaching a format with larger cartoons similar to the Franco-Belgian model of the time., as in Spirou. The cartoonist has commented that, in search of what he wanted to do and learn how to do, already in The Aliens he filled the cartoons happily, which was not well received by the publisher. According to Antoni Guiral, when Jan arrived at Bruguera "he broke all the schemes of the publisher's soft line, contributing [...] a fresh graphic design full of nuances, with a lively and very particular line". Omaetxebarria and Pascual have also indicated that "his style is revealed as personal and non-transferable, and stands out especially from the rest of the publisher's comics, both in line, color, composition...»

Jan defends that drawing must be continually modernized, which has led him to experiment with the presentation of the cartoons and their distribution as a narrative function. It can be seen how in the first issues the cartoons are actually smaller, while in the most recent these are larger, with a greater amount both in detail and in general shots. You can also see other progressive changes, such as the way the characters dress, the protagonist's gray hair, or the style of the bubbles with increasingly simple arrows. Another characteristic element of the drawing of the cartoons is the use of bent corners, as an indication of a temporal lapse. Likewise, as a trick to attract the reader's attention, elements are regularly included on the pages. like flies or shorties.

Many have praised Jan's ability as a draftsman, and the author himself confesses his determination to try to draw better and better. Omaetxebarria and Pascual have even compared him to Will Eisner, and have highlighted his "outstanding command of the drawing and expression, determined staging with unusual framings that contribute to the development of the action, characters that act in a theatrical way, text-image combination that works as a coherent whole, use of the page with a planning of the panels that influences in the rhythm of reading and pauses in the story...".

Coloring

Liquid watercolor set.

The coloring process has also varied throughout the albums: since the first Jan eschewed Bruguera's habitual practice of giving color by indication, with a use of color in which he rejects flat tones, and with which it evolves jointly with drawing, also approaching the European model. The cartoonist himself commented: «In fact I was almost the only one who did not accept that the engraver or mechanical lettering put the color on me, which orthographically speaking was horrible, they began by suppressing the accents claiming that the capital letters were not accentuated, and I was not okay."

In some installments of the series, its creator used the direct color technique, that is, the application of colors on the same original drawing. For this, Jan used liquid watercolors so as not to cover the ink line, as would happen with the use of gouache or normal watercolors, which are opaque; for the completion of the details she used markers and colored pencils. Albums such as Al centro de la Tierra and Los petisos carambanales, as well as covers, were colored with this method. Jan, however, has not always been in charge of giving color: in the adventures of the Efepé stage, Cristina Brunet, the cartoonist's niece, was in charge of this task; in other cases the blue guideline was used: after recording the original, in black and white, some copies are printed in light blue and these are the ones that are colored. The wonder of the robot, Bulgarian journey or Pandora's box are some of the albums painted with this technique. The printing techniques also involved other changes; as an example, Jan had to repaint all the albums when going to the scanner system to make photolithographs.

In search of the best result, the cartoonist tries to keep up to date with color systems. For this reason, when the Macintosh reached 200 MHz speed, Jan decided to use the technique of computer coloring, specifically from the publication of El Dios del bit. Since then, he has not used watercolors except to exhibit an original, and has started to use the computer to label, assemble the pages, add color and engrave for the printing. This change was not, however, in search of greater comfort or to reduce working time, since the cartoonist claims to spend a similar time finishing his pages. Although his concept of color by computer is that of painting With this exactly the same as you would with brushes and watercolors, using this tool in more recent comics influences the drawing styles used and helps add more detail to some panels, as well as giving you more control over the colors. result 2. After the scan, he uses devices such as a graphics tablet and image editing programs to finally give the color.

Universe of Superlópez

Characters

Juan Lopez/Superlopez

Superlópez was born on the planet Chitón under the name of Jo-Con-Él and, after sneaking into a rocket, he arrived on Earth as a baby. You can notice the similarities with the story of Superman, who was born on Krypton and was called Kal-El. After landing, the child is adopted by the López family —an elderly couple living in Lérida— under the name of Juan López Fernández. To name the character, Jan was looking for a name that would be the paradigm of a very current average personality, and which he finally found in his own. López grows up trying to lead a common life while striving to control his superpowers and fight evil. Already in his maturity, the character begins to work as an ordinary accountant in an office, in Barcelona. Subjected to the pressure of his boss and the whims of his girlfriend Luisa Lanas, he fulfills himself and evades the daily routine by acting as a superhero under Superlópez's alter ego, often futilely trying to understand what is going on around him and slamming his way forward until solving problems fortunately.

Letra S similar to that used by Superlópez in her suit from The aliens.

López, an office worker with a gray life and a fan of the Parchelona FC soccer team, is a representative of the average Spaniard. Regarding this, in number 6 of the collectible series Oye Mira published by Bruguera in 1981, Jan explained: «Superlópez is a vulgar and ordinary superhero with all the powers, superpowers and extra powers that the López men dream of. possess as a counterpart to their daily frustrations. He is the same López, Gómez, Rodríguez, from the grocery store, from the tobacconist's, from the office, from the hairdresser's, etc... In short, we are all Superlópez ».

For his part, Superlópez's appearance is peculiar: he has a mustache and black hair (although gray was added over time) and he wears a blue suit, similar to pajamas, that covers him completely except for his head and legs. hands. On his chest is a large yellow S and, like Superman, he wears a red cape and black briefs over his pants. Likewise, the protagonist has Villa Soledad, in the style of the Fortress of Solitude of the DC Comics superhero, a house located in the Arctic and used as a place of retirement. At first, the character hides his secret identity under glasses, just like Clark Kent, but in Pandora's Box they break and he stops using them. It is coincidental if one observes the parallelism of Luisa Lanas with Lois Lane (Superman's girlfriend) and Jaime González with Jimmy Olsen (Clark Kent's partner), as well as with the character of the boss, without a definite name, and Perry White.

Superlópez has a great diversity of superpowers, typical of his condition as an alien, although in The Aliens he seems to lose them if he is not wearing his suit: he cannot fly and crashes twice against the sidewalk. Specifically, some of his superpowers are super strength, flight, super speed, X-ray vision, super sight, super hearing, and super blow, which increase the angrier he is. bullets do seem to hurt him— and he's practically invulnerable, except for chiktonite, which causes him an allergy. cuffs in the shape of horns. On the other hand, the suit itself seems to have some other interesting properties, such as impermeability —it protects the codex in The Treasure of Ciuacoatl— and incombustibility, such and as can be seen when comparing it with the false layers of Hell.

Side Characters

• Jaime González Lidenbrock: He is a coworker of Luisa and Juan. With curly blond hair and a big nose curved downwards, Jaime performs in the early comics a role of chivato and vil character, which denies López. Later, the character evolves and loses that malevolent character until he becomes a good friend of Superlópez and co-star of many of the adventures. His great-grandfather was Professor Axel Lidenbrock, protagonist of the novel Travel to the center of the Earth.

• Luisa Lanas: Also co-worker, girlfriend of Juan and friend of Jaime. It has a strong and dominant character and, contrary to Lois Lane, it does not support the superhero superhero character of Superlopez, which he calls "supermediacy" — in clear contrast to Superman's "super-man of steel" appeal, pelages or useless. It is altiva, silly and unbearable, and it does not like Superlópez because, in the words of Jan, it pretends that the performances of this are "puro afán de protagonismo".

• The boss: The head of the company — which suffers during the series numerous occupation changes — where Juan, Jaime and Luisa work. He's a bald character, with glasses and obese, who usually wears a suit and smokes. Take a special starring in some numbers The scalps, Bulgarian perlip, The Treasure of Ciuacoatl, The dragon's strip cleared or Hellwhere he even tries to sell his soul to get the success of his company.

• Inspector Hólmez: Inspector of police admirer of Inspector Dan, wears indefectably a gabardina and beige hat. Not very warned, excessively bureaucratic and unefficient, it usually finds Superlópez in the exits in which it intervenes. Its typical phrases are "Sarge, take note" and "suspect, suspect", and are usually shown asking for peanuts. During the epidemic of the scalps, the population resistance in the sewers was concentrated in the G.U.A. (Guerrilla Urbana Anticabecicuba).

• Martha Hólmez: Daughter of Inspector Hólmez, is an intelligent and idealistic girl who first appears in The scalps under the role of a bank robber. Later, Superlópez convinces him to change the hobby to collect the boots for the illustration. At first he lives in a house with his crazy grandmother, and in successive adventures he forms a family with Boy Humitsec.

• Boy Humitsec: Makes its appearance The pigs of CamprodónLike a teenager who dominates computer science. It's from A camel went up... when he gains more prominence, after meeting Martha.

• Escariano Avieso: this bald and disturbing inventor, invariably uniformed with white coat and black glasses, makes his first appearance in «Longest week». Of evil intentions, it is very despoiled and disorganized, to the point that as footwear always wear a shoe on one foot and a slipper on the other. In spite of this, their many creations—usually based on the scarolitropic-gmnésic circuits of their invention and crime-oriented— give more than one gutter to Superlópez, although the practical application of their inventions is often unprofitable. Has been associated with other antagonists sometime Trap., Refuller D'Abastos or Nasty.com.

• Al Trapone and his band: Trapone is a gangster, head of a gang of criminals usually formed by characters whose name or mote refers to its appearance, as Carasucia, Carapincho, Shortcut or Pistoletamong others. He's always on illegal business and sometimes he's associated with the teacher. Escariano Avieso or Refuller D'Abastos.

• Refuller D’abastos: Jorobado, swindler, corrupt and bald, we can see him in his first appearance as Minister of Tontecarlo in In the country of the games, the nut is the king. He later became independent of other businesses such as drug trafficking, and established relations with Trap., Escariano Avieso or Nasty.com. Lady Spider He was part of his band.

• Lady Spider: This evil and manipulative redhead has a whole trilogy dedicated to it. He was in the band. Refuller D'Abastos until he settled on his own. It subsequently decided to mount a florist to temporarily withdraw from crime. He's got a murderous caniche named Shark, and a son called Nasty.com, expert computer cracker, child prodigy, egocentric and vain.

• General Sintacha: Army General, appears for the first time in The alienswhere he must be repeatedly admitted to a mental sanatorium. Play a featured role The scalpsand later intervenes in other adventures as Ozone thieves or The Fair of Death.

Other characters

In the adventures of Superlópez the author has introduced many foreign characters: Jan, for years, drew die-cut books and others about Heidi, Marco, Mortadelo, etc. to survive. For this reason it is common to see in some cartoons of the comics — like an individual from the city or printed on T-shirts or posters— to these characters, as well as others such as Anacleto, Pafman and even Pulgarcito, a character of Jan himself. In Monster Chapapote Mister Chapapote appears X, a character by Athos and Enrique Carlos, who have the intellectual property of a character from Jan: Pun Tarrota.

In addition, Jan has represented himself anecdotally in the cartoons, and he even co-starred in the cartoon The Phantom of the Prado Museum, included in the same album as Cachabolik Blues Rock. Mention his appearance on a poster as a rock singer in Cachabolik Blues Rock, his attendance in Los Petisos Carambanales at the wedding of Juan and Luisa, or his explanations about Superlópez in 25 years of Superlópez.

Recurring elements and gags

«A coffee with milk and a croissant», characteristic expression of the series.

The author likes to create his own clichés, as well as he has a tendency to avoid other people's clichés, and this gives the series a multitude of particular elements. You can find common situations, present throughout many comics, that help to configure and provide identity to the universe of Superlópez, a personal universe of Jan which he has called his "particular magical world", and what is common to the reader. Some of them are:

• When he gets up every morning, sleepy, Lopez gets confused when he wants to order breakfast or a metro ticket. Typical are the morning phrases «a coffee with milk and a croissant» in front of a locker or «a ticket back and forth to...» before the bar of some bar.

• Congestion and urban traffic is usually parodyed, as can be seen for example in the resource used to draw vehicles that circulate—and park—over others. Buses don't get rid of parody either, and even Lopez gets to lose his pants when he gets off an oversaturated bus, at the beginning of The scalps. Inverossible and absurd routes, both in buses and in signals, are also very common. Some examples are El Masnou-Bangkok, El Masnou-Pekín, or Tokyo-Sevilla.

• López, alter ego of Superlópez, occupies his time during his working hours in the realization of a lot of birds, getting these on many occasions to abound in his office. The sketch artist interprets this as an anti-bureaucratic sign of the character, rather than a feature of vagancy.

• It is usual to include an initial phrase on the first page of each comic, which alludes to the topic that develops in each adventure. This tradition began from The pandora box, published by Bruguera, although the following delivery —The Great Superproduction— it was not initially launched with this feature either. Later, Editions B included new phrases as an introduction to this and other previous comics as The aliens, The lord of the pacifiers, Longest week or The scalpstaking advantage of his reissue.

A telephone booth in Catalonia in 2011.

• To be able to make your garment changes, Superlópez uses, like Superman, telephone booths present in the public road. However, this type of glazed and isolated cabins from the outside are no longer usually found in the real world, so this resource becomes an anachronism in the most modern albums, and conflicts with the realistic and current representation of the environments that is usual in the series. To minimize this lack, we can see the protagonist make his changes in photographic cabins, roofs, portals, public bathrooms, office washbasins or fully discovered, taking advantage of moments of confusion.

• In the universe of Superlópez, as with the scenarios, a particular language is used to version the real world alternatively. Some words or characters are called in a way that reminds others. Examples of such terms are «Parchelona F.C.» (F. C. Barcelona), «Tronak el Kárbaro» (Conan el Bárbaro), «Benault» (Renault), «Brut Kanlaster» (Burt Lancaster), «Al Trapone» (Al Capone), «Lolaspaña» (Lola Flores, ‘Lola de España’), «Stupend Kong» It has been erroneously mentioned that this language is due to the author's total deafness, but in reality these words are simply invented.

There are also other terms that appear continuously in the albums, such as escarolitropic-gmnesic circuits —developed by the disturbing professor Escariano Avieso— and that apparently can be used for whatever Jan, Kloperotaraska or the word papastratos (or patastratos). The origin of the latter dates back to Jan's stage in Cuba, where he used it as a generic allusion to a company or product brand in comic texts. The use of the expression is also peculiar "cachis la mar" (and other of its variants used as "cachis en la mar", "mecachis" or "cachis"), an interjection commonly used by Superlópez that is a tribute to the cartoonist of the century XIX Mecachis.

Carambanal shorties

Correspondence table of the petiso alphabet.

The petisos carambanales are tiny beings, plump and usually yellow in color, ectoplasmic products that appear around the figure of Superlópez, originated by his supermedium energy. They have their own particular alphabet, which is associated with the Spanish alphabet. The idea of creating these creatures came to Jan after reading about parapsychology and parasciences, stories of ectoplasms and spiritualism from the time of The Return of the witches. Used as another topic for the cartoonist, they are a visual resource to capture the reader's attention, compose or frame.

They are found for the first time in To the Center of the Earth, although it is not until the adventure of Los petisos… that the origin of these beings is explained. However, some short "primitives" can be found previously, although green, on some covers of the magazine Superlópez of Ediciones B. Not all yellow shorts are the same in all their appearances: after a few first comics with a preponderance of bald shorts, their style and hairstyle varies in successive albums, and in various comics these beings adopt a certain appearance depending on the setting in which the action takes place.

Character development

Jan, the author of Superlópez, has stated on more than one occasion that, after achieving a consolidated character in the first comics, he is not so concerned with the evolution of the characters as with actually developing each new story, being for this the role of superhero a mere pretext:

I worry every time and every moment the story I'm going to do no matter how much the character evolves as necessary. I think it's more credible now, human and deeper. But for me the character is merely the excuse to tell stories. I don't look back almost ever.

Jan

At first, the goal was to win readers by parodying Superman and criticizing superheroes... Then I dedicated myself to what I really wanted to do: explain my own stories. Actually the character is just a means of expression for me. I did not intend to create another superhero precisely, even if it was to criticize them.

Jan

This can be clearly seen in the adventure of The Big Blockbuster, where the story doesn't revolve around the superhero facet of the protagonist, but rather on the ins and outs of filming a movie. However, in its more than 30 years of history, the Superlópez character has evolved naturally along with his comics. As the author himself states:

If Superlópez has evolved he will have done it with me, as I am all my characters. I'm bored to do things the same. I hate to look back. That's why I ended up drawing white slates to Superlópez. I couldn't rejuvenate him and piercing him!

Jan, the creator of the series, in 2006.

Even so, the cartoonist tries to adapt the characters to the changes so that they remain current, since "they become great with the readers so it is necessary to evolve with them." When he created Superlópez, he basically conceived it "as a type of average Spanish, obscure office worker, and this has evolved »; but it is difficult to reflect this evolution without changing it. As already indicated, Jan pays attention to the wardrobe, although it is not based solely on that resource. For example, she introduces new, younger and more up-to-date secondary characters, as is the case with the appearance of Chico and Martha. In this way, he can continue with the evolution of the characters without putting earrings or low pants on Superlópez. On the contrary, Omaetxebarria and Pascual have assessed that in the characters "there is no evolution, neither in their way of acting nor of thinking and they go unnoticed losing interest".

The author tries to make the characters complement each other by confrontation: Jaime, Luisa and the Boss make the counterpoint to López/Superlópez, although, depending on the story in question, all the other secondary characters can replace them in that role. For On the other hand, it seeks to avoid that the characters are perceived as mere pictograms, but that they act, gesticulating like theater actors, and sometimes even address the reader directly.

In addition, Jan has stated on occasion that he is each and every one of his characters, that his stories are a reflection of his personality and that all the characters have something of him, although it must be qualified that, although he interprets the characters in his head when he writes the stories, with this he does not want to express that he is like them. Regarding this, the cartoonist has commented that some readers assume what he is like from what they read in his comics, so they may draw erroneous conclusions, such as the impression that they like soccer from reading El supercrack. For this reason, in order to avoid being attributed to him, he has tried to avoid showing what Superlópez's political ideas are. However, in addition to sharing a name, Jan assures that much of the character that he assigns to Juan López is traced of his, such as his intolerance towards impositions, although he tries to give each character his own idiosyncrasy.

The company of the protagonists has also evolved over time according to the needs of the author. Initially, López is introduced as an administrative employee of a "sinister office." Later, in Los cabecicubos, the company seems to be dedicated to advertising, and in La gran superproducción it becomes a film producer, under the name of Llauna Films, after which bankruptcy Later, it reopened under the same name, although in later albums it is known simply as Llauna S.A.

Reception and criticism

Superlopez in the International Comic Exhibition of Barcelona (2016).

Superlopez in the lounge of Barcelona (2018).

Superlópez has been one of the most popular Spanish comic characters since the 1970s, although not reaching the level obtained by Mortadelo y Filemón. About the adventures of the character, Antoni Guiral commented that "without a doubt this is one of our best humor series for all audiences" Ricardo Aguilera and Lorenzo F. Díaz stated that it is "more in line with the Valencian school" than with the Bruguera school, "despite to the occasional critical flashes of the reality that surrounds us".

Some have considered that the best period of Superlópez was the one that had Pérez Navarro writing the scripts, while others consider the first albums with Jan alone to be the golden age of the series. Although there is a certain consensus on the good quality of the first nine adventures of the series —until The great blockbuster, after which it began to publish Ediciones B—, the rest of the material receives more negative evaluations.. Eric Frattini and Óscar Palmer commented on this first stage that "in addition to practicing levels of social satire currently missing from the world of youth comics, he managed to unite a completely multigenerational audience for several years." Gorka Omaetxebarria and Félix Pascual indicated in the same sense that, from the next issue, To the Center of the Earth, appear «the first symptoms of the disease that will end the series: increasingly larger cartoons or the simplicity and simplicity of the stories progressively they join the depersonalization of the characters and the excess of morality (sometimes insulting) ». They also criticized the author's claim for social criticism, as a "naive criticism of the current ills of youth", with "moralizing messages" introduced "in an artificial and obsessive way that results in ridiculous and absurd accumulation". In Mondo Brutto, Pedro Berruezo wrote: «Superlópez was no longer the same. [...] And why are the new adventures of Superlópez so flat? Well, broadly speaking, because he takes himself seriously: they are really adventures, that is, there is action, fights, persecutions, etc. developed in a more or less comical way, but raised and developed as if it were something transcendent, that is, with the intention of exciting and surprising, but not to make people laugh. That is to say, Jan believes what she says, and that is not good for Superlópez. Curiously, the more the comics try to tell, the less things happen, basically because the panels are getting bigger, the dialogues less and the stories less substantial. And besides, they are full of unfortunate morals to walk around the house ».

For their part, Frattini and Palmer emphasized in their Basic Guide to Comics that, starting from To the Center of the Earth, the series appears to be «repetitive, lack of ingenuity [...] and increasingly focused on a merely children's audience". Stories do not exist as such, they are variations or combinations of ideas already used or, failing that, simple anecdotes or half-developed ideas. The same can be applied to characters. [...] There is no evolution, neither in their way of acting nor of thinking and they go unnoticed, losing interest for the public and apparently for the author". On the contrary, Antoni Guiral commented: "In Jan's right hands is series [...] has not lost interest or vocation of conscious entertainment for young people and adults, since it is still active today". Despite the comparison that Omaetxeberría and Pascual indicated about the quality of the work of Jan and that of Will Eisner, also added: "Unfortunately, Eisner has managed to evolve towards an intimate universe while Jan remains stranded in a repetitive scheme, lacking in imagination, giving the impression of not wanting or not knowing how to move forward."

Regarding some criticisms, Jan has mentioned that they may have some foundation, but also be the product of nostalgia. She has also commented that the nostalgics criticize her a lot for not painting with the aniline watercolors of yesteryear. the second page of the 1991 album A camel got on a tram in Grenoble and the tram is biting his leg Jan synthesized through the mouths of his characters part of the criticism that the series received, such as that the comics they ranged "from bland to shabby", away from superhero parody, or resembled tourist catalogues.

Sales of Superlópez have been declining, about which in 2011 the author commented: «the survival of the series does not depend on me, but on sales, and the truth is that they are not going well. The crisis has also kicked me and I am already in the red. My imagination does not end, but the continuity depends on the readers".

Adaptations to other media

In 2003, the animated short film Superlópez was also released, barely 3 minutes long and made by Enrique Gato, who wanted to do it as a tribute to the character.

After several failed attempts to bring the character to the big screen, director Javier Ruiz Caldera finally adapted Superlópez to the cinema in 2018, with actor Dani Rovira as the lead. on November 23, 2018.

Other projects, such as the creation of computer games or various attempts to adapt cartoons, have not been able to come to fruition. The cartoonist, who during his time in Cuba worked in the animation sector and also He has a very personal style, he is very demanding about this type of proposal; he would not like an adaptation to the small screen like the one made with the Mortadelo and Filemón series. such as T-shirts, dolls, towels and cups. On the other hand, in 2010, Superlópez was the image of the Microsoft campaign El ahorro mutant , aimed at SMEs.