He said Francisco Ibanez that his life was not like that of the rogue Gran Manuel Vázquez and other artists and cartoonists whose adventures beyond paper were enough for a biopic. Or two. But that does not mean that he was a boring guy: Mortadelo and Filemón's father radiated talent and humor. Elements that make Paris 2024, his album 222, is both the end of an era and a privileged visit to the master's drawing table. To the development of his scripts. In your way see the world through humor.
Because for Ibáñez the only way to keep his anxieties under control, which were many and very fun, was to spend his days using a pencil and typewriter. Creating new stories for his characters. Rather, for your readers. Leaving us one last story starring the TIA agents whose pages impregnated with genius – instead of ink – did not deserve to be locked in a folder. Ibáñez would not have wanted it that way.
And for sixty-five years, and with more than 12,000 pages published, the best Spanish cartoonist of all time He maintained an impeccable commitment to the fans of his clumsy and endearing super agents. Not only was he a magician of humor, but he was unwavering professionally. Him returning with each new World Cup, launching himself without a net into political news and taking each event or fashion into his world of picaresque. He cultivated a genuine fascination with comics in entire generations of lovers of his characters.
And, despite this, few or no cartoonists managed to match Ibáñez's humility. He refused to put away his pencils and his characters, and He continued drawing until the last of his days. Literally. Without losing his style, his magical touch and that effort to make each vignette have something more than a scene and dialogue. Placing a small grace happening in the background as a reward for those who reviewed his work in detail. Something that gives special nuances and a unique context to Paris 2024. The last comic from him and, in turn, the finishing touch to his rich and much-loved legacy.
Paris 24, the last Olympics of Mortadelo and Filemón
A terrorist group intends to sabotage the 2024 Olympic Games using sophisticated drones. Faced with this threat, the TIA has summoned two of its most experienced agents to avoid disaster. Mortadelo He has plenty of initiative, ingenuity and disguises: in the blink of an eye he can be anything he wants, including a giraffe, a racing car or an expert in catapults. Philemon He tries to tie Mortadelo short and, despite this, he ends up taking enormous disappointments and the occasional collateral blow. Nothing that won't be addressed three bullets later or on the next page. Because this is the world imagined by Ibáñez.
Paris 2024 He takes up that pretext scheme to sneak his characters into a big sporting event with all the usual ingredients: the super agents come on stage using a new secret entrance to the TIA headquarters (the last one they will use will be 748-J) in instead of entering through the main door and, after several complications, they end up watching some athletes parade full of clichés: the Cubans smoking huge cigars, those from Poland with popsicles of all flavors and the representatives of Spain frying a potato omelet and playing the bagpipes. All with Ibáñez's cartoonish touch.
From there, Mortadelo and Filemón will do everything possible to ensure that the Olympic Games take place relatively normally, which will lead to a succession of disasters that explode in their faces or run over them like a moving truck. Sometimes, in the most literal sense of each expression.
In fact, once again the essence of this final album by Mortadelo y Filemón is not in the story that develops in the background and that, sadly, remains unfinished, but in the course of each vignette. In how physical humor, clumsy and improvised actions between one page and another or the use of unlimited exaggeration hit the protagonists constantly. Rejoining just in time for the next joke to feel as funny or funnier than the one shown on the previous page. Always maintaining the rhythm and the picaresque at its highest point.
Making each initiative turn against him like a boomerang, leading to delirious moments that, at the very least, steal a smile or a loud laugh from the reader. Sometimes complicity and other times making them surrender to the absurdity of the occurrences or the bad luck of these protagonists. Always claiming that Ibáñez humor.
In fact, in this album the Spanish athletes already know Mortadelo and Filemón very well and, after their experiences in London, Rio and Tokyo, they try to prevent them from reaching the capital of France. Unfortunately for them, and for the organization, they manage to arrive using those surreal methods of transportation that Ibáñez loved to draw. From that point is when the chaos begins and, once again, the TIA agents must put on their sports clothes and prepare for whatever it takes to prevent disaster. Even if that means causing another major one.
A different format for one last adventure
Ibáñez did not finish Paris 2024. Of the approximately 48 pages that each new album usually offers, he gave time to write and draw 19 pages and leave number 20 on track. So the Penguin publishing house is betting on a format very similar to the also unfinished one Tintin and Alpha Art by Hergé: to collect the unaltered manuscripts and show the talent of their author as it came from his desk. Something as special as it is symbolic, and a gift for fans.
In fact, the treatment that each page of the comic receives is something unusual within the Magos del Humor collection: on the right you can see the pencil pages, uninked and with stains and smudges. Just as Ibáñez left them. On the left, each of the dialogues that will appear in each vignette, perfectly organized and with their corresponding screams and onomatopoeias. Immortalizing the creative process of the comic master.
There are truly special details within this process that are capable of bringing a smile to those who are passionate about comics and aspiring artists: Ibáñez not only used traditional paper and pencil instead of modern digital methods, but I kept writing the scripts with a typewriter and making corrections and own notes on those pages.
Without technology, but with the experience of a lifetime. It is amazing to see how at 87 years old he still gave lessons in ease and self-confidence When creating scenes, the dynamism of his drawings with that touch of explicit smoke in his expressions or blows. And how he knew how to organize each vignette so that the dialogues or the enormous onomatopoeias could enter without hindering the main elements and those that he continued to distribute in those free corners that he took advantage of by inserting small characters or an extra touch of absurd humor.
The edition is completed with three truly significant additional texts: The editorial opens by remembering the joy and humor with which Ibáñez arrived with his manuscripts and how this latest adventure of Mortadelo and Filemón was proposed. Arturo Pérez-Reverte With his words he crowns the career and legacy of the cartoonist on behalf of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language, recognizing his incalculable influence on entire generations.
Finally, Jordi Canyissa Also a cartoonist and comics authority, he closes the album by giving special value to the scans of the manuscripts and focusing on the work. Little by little reaching a conclusion that never occurred to many readers: despite the fact that many jokes and situations were left forever in the pipeline, Paris 2024 It is and will be the last mission of Mortadelo and Filemón de Ibáñez.
VidaExtra's opinion
There is a lot of Ibáñez in each of the pages of Paris 2024. Of his genuine humble character, of his characters' outbursts in the face of the unexpected and of his ability to find the funny side of every catastrophe. Something that he always managed to embody in his children of pencil and ink like Rompetechos, the bellboy Sacarino or the terribly funny Mortadelo and Filemón. Conquering generations of readers with jokes that never go out of style. A legacy of more than half a century that crystallizes in an unfinished album, yes, but even more special and emotional for fans of TIA agents and those from whom this duo of super agents managed to steal a laugh.
Although the story fades when it reaches page 20, which is shown as a set of ideas and scribbles that revealed the author's intentions, the last comic by Mortadelo and Filemón It doesn't leave that feeling of goodbye. Rather, Francisco Ibáñez's characters still have one last mission to solve. That the genius, the master of Spanish comics, continues to draw and laugh as he finds how to make those situations that he has told us dozens, hundreds of times more fun. Making our readers enjoy them as if we came across them for the first time.
As a comic, as an album with a beginning and an end, the truth is that Paris 2024 does not need to be finished. The grand finale will most likely show Mortadelo dressed as an Eskimo fishing in the arctic trying to go unnoticed, with Filemón on the other side of the rope; or that both end up running desperately for their lives, pursued by all the athletes of the Olympic Games. It's even possible that they end up tied to a huge bomb or chained to a medieval torture machine and that's it. In fact, perhaps Ibáñez had something different in mind, but he did not need to propose it or draw it to leave that feeling of satisfaction when reaching the last page.
In other words: we are left without seeing how the last Olympic Games drawn by Francisco Ibáñez ended. But it is not a humorous comic, nor is it the typical album with a European format and drawing style. Is much more. Mortadelo and Filemón: Paris 2024 is the tribute to the best Spanish comic book author of all time. The opportunity to see a lifetime dedicated to comics shown through his way of drawing and creating stories. Pages without ink, but overflowing with dedication, talent and that kind of humor that penetrates the reader and that today is part of the DNA and way of being of entire generations. And it will continue to be so for many more years.
In VidaExtra | Ibáñez's comics were so good that Mortadelo and Filemón got him to play the genre that I can't stand
Paris 2024 (Magos del Humor 222) (Classic Bruguera)
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Card of Mortadelo and Filemón: Paris 2024 (2024)
- ISBN-10 : 840242970X
- ISBN-13 : 978-8402429704
- Editorial: Classic Witchcraft (Penguin Books)
- Authors: Francisco Ibanez
- Number of pages: 48 pages
- Size: 21.3 x 0.9 x 29.6cm
- Collection: Wizards of Humor 222