Francisco Ibáñez

Francisco Ibáñez Talavera is one of the most popular Spanish comics artists, and best know 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 started out drawing for the magazine DDT. In 1958, Pulgarcito magazine published his 'Mortadelo y Filemón, Agencia de Información'. 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 - translations followed in Germany, Denmark, Finland, Portugal, Italy, Holland and Belgium.

While continuing to work on his hit series, Ibáñez created several new series. Also for Pulgarcito, he came up with 'La Familia Trapisonda' in 1958. In the magazine Tio Vivo, he began the series '13, Rue del Percebe' (1961), 'Rompetechos' (1964) and 'Pepe Gotera y Otilio' (1966). He continued his collaboration with DDT with the series 'El Botones Sacarino', in fact a direct copy of André Franquin's 'Gaston Lagaffe'. Other creations are 'Tete Cohete' and 'Don Pedrito'.

Ibáñez quit Bruguera in 1985 and joined Grijalbo. There, he created new characters for the magazine Guai!, like 'Chicha, Tato y Clodoveo' and '7, Rebolling Street'. In 1988, he joined Ediciones B., the publishing house that inherited the rights to Ibáñez's series from Bruguera.