Francisco Ibañez Mortadelo y Filemon Clever & Smart 1959

Francisco Ibáñez Talavera is one of the most popular Spanish comic artists, and best known for his series 'Mortadelo y Filemón'. After having studied accountancy and a merchant banking, he got a job at the Banco Español de Crédito. His true passion was comics however, and he began to draw for the periodicals El Chicolino, La Risa, and Paseo Infantil. He was 21 years old when he decided to pursue a professional career in comics and quit his job at the bank. He joined the publishing house Bruguera, where he soon established himself as one of the key artists. After some first publications in DDT, he started his famous 'Mortadelo y Filemón, Agencia de Información' in Pulgarcito in 1958. This comic was a great hit for its absurd humor and dynamic style, and eventually got its own magazine, Mortadelo, in 1970. Mortadelo's popularity is not restricted to Spain - translated publications followed in Germany, Denmark, Finland, Portugal, Italy, Holland and Belgium. While continuing to work on his hit series, Ibáñez created several new series. In 1994 he received the Grand Prize during the Salón Internacional del Cómic de Barcelona for his entire oeuvre, and in 2001 he was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts. Text (c) Lambiek