The 35th anniversary

The 35th Anniversary is a comic strip serialized in 1992 by Spanish comic artist Francisco Ibáñez belonging to the series Mortadelo y Filemón, although in In a way, the protagonist of this comic is Ibáñez himself.

Editorial trajectory

The comic was made in commemoration of the 35th anniversary of the birth of the characters, with a publicity stunt carried out by Ediciones B that was effective with newspaper articles, documentaries and tributes. The comic was originally published as a serial in the magazine Súper Mortadelo numbers 112 to 117. It was published in hard cover in number 46 of the collection "Magos del Humor" and it served to inaugurate in 1993 the new large-format collection of Super Humor with a volume that included this adventure and other classic comics by Ibáñez, both Mortadelo and Filemón (including the first comic published by them) as well as others. characters and even jokes without their own series. In 1994 it was published in No. 77 of the Olé Collection.

Synopsis

The album of this title begins with the story of Francisco Ibáñez, from his childhood until he is hired by B studios, going through the creation of all his characters. This biography is mixed with stories in which Mortadelo and Filemón coincide with the other characters of the author.

Fact and Fiction

This comic presents a cartoon version of Ibáñez's life. The author's self-caricature is different in this adventure from that which appears in other detective comics, probably due to the need to facilitate drawing in a comic in which he is essentially the protagonist. Once in Bruguera we are presented to the director, Rafael González, who is never named, but is easily identifiable. The bad relationship that Ibáñez had in reality with this person is reflected here in a comical way. For example, there is a moment when Ibáñez introduces him to a new character called "The Horrendous Quasimodo, Totally Crooked Guy", which is an obvious caricature of González, to which González responds by throwing him out of the room. with a kick This situation refers to the character of the "pres" of the Sacarino button that at first was a caricature of González, until he, angry, ordered to change the design.

The creation of characters appears with some chronological disorder, for example, the creation of 13, Rue del Percebe is named before that of La familia Trapizonde, since mention of the latter comic is used to introduce Ibáñez's own family. In the comic, Ibáñez's daughters claim to prefer Zipi y Zape to Mortadelo, something that also happened in real life.

Among the biographical anecdotes, there is also the closure of Bruguera, the purchase of Ediciones B from that publisher's fund and the attempt to continue the Mortadelo series without him.

Characters

When we are told about the creation of The Sacarino Buttons several "discarded sketches" in which Snoopy, Carpanta, Mickey Mouse, Spider-Man and Olivia appear with the bellboy suit. This could be a veiled or unconscious reference to the fact that El botón Sacarino is a mixture of Gastón Lagaffe, better known in Spain as Tomás el Lagaffe, which was created by André Franquin in 1957 and Spirou.

This comic is notable for making the author's characters reappear that had not been published for decades, such as Godofredo and Pascualino, they live on fine sports and the workers of Ande, laugh "you" with Noah's Ark.

The way in which Mortadelo and Filemón are known in this story contradicts that presented in The story of Mortadelo and Filemón (1969).

Twin Towers

The last panel of this book has a background detail of an airplane embedded in one of the Twin Towers in New York. The image is from 1992 and the book was published in 1993.

After the attacks on these buildings on September 11, 2001, several readers drew attention to the coincidence of the cartoon with the method used for the attack.

Criticism

This comic is a favorite among Agent fans and is always at the top of the list when a survey is done. Miguel Soto considers that it has an original approach but that "the conventional development of the album, however, detracts from the final result."