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RIP Mingote

8 April 2012

news

Liberal, charming, well-educated and exquisitely respectful, that’s how many will remember Antonio Mingote‘s artwork, but also his persona, character and image.

We finally have simultaneous translation in the senate - find the 7 differences - Mingote

The Catalan-born, Madrilian-adopted legend who died last Tuesday was considered by many the most successful cartoonist in Spain, whose contemporary history couldn’t really be understood without him. 80 years dedicated to the art of political & social satire and whose tramps, bourgeois young men and easily-shocked women have covered one of the oldest Spanish newspapers (ABC) for over 59 years.

Mingote - 1962 drawing related to the NASA expeditions — Mingote - 1962 - drawing related to the NASA expeditions

Being 13, in 1932 he published his very first drawing on the ABC-supplement Black&White, prior to joining the newspaper in 1953 for a long & fruitful relationship… he even got to draw many covers for the Madrid-based publication, something rarely seen on Spanish newspapers.

When arriving to the capital (in 1944) he quickly became friend with Rafael Azcona who introduced him to the most successful humor publication at that time: La Codorniz. And even if he had a promising career within the army, as soon as he could live from his drawings he didn’t hesitate to leave it. After collaborating with other local publications and signing with ABC he definitely made the jump in 1954.

Mingote - Translators - Dad and mom speak each their own autonomic language, how about I play to be their translator and we laugh a lot

Needless to mention the large number of awards, novels (also some graphic ones) and even a 1978 film he produced during his career, Spanish cartoonism is a little bit emptier now.

Mingote - They're taking down all Franco-related statues, hopefully we don't have to remind we were here before — Mingote - They're taking down all Franco-related statues, hopefully we don't have to remind them we were here before

Fake Science

21 February 2012

news

Fake Science is nearly 2 years old but they keep coming up with the most revealing and brightest explanations in the scientific community.

No need for weird science or a bunch of complicated and incomprehensible articles published on Nature or Science to explain why cats purr or why the famous North American elephant went extinct after the famous 60s nose-ring fashion trend, “Fake Science” provides us with our weekly dose of brainfood for all biologists, chemists and average (but curious) Joe.

And the best thing is that you don’t need to buy National Geographic or Wired anymore (cancel those subscriptions please!), FS are about to release their own hard-copy publication + a WebOS app for all of us to follow (or buy). If it wasn’t because of blogs like this one, or world would definitely be much much harder to understand. Maybe the team behind FS could start a series of cosmos-explanatory thesis in their upcoming numbers? The origin of the black holes, the string theory and those sort of trivial matters…

And what can we say about the Eisenhower era ad style…. just add them to your daily pulse reader, not a waste. Many more this way.

San Cantinflas

12 August 2011

news

The Chaplin latino… whose verbosity always exasperated the foremen and dictators of the latin world. It was a day like today Mario Moreno “Cantinflas” was born in the Mexican capital of DF. Celebrated as a touchstone of Mexican national identity the droopy-pants character is now an omnipresent image across the Mexican capital.

Cantinflas is the essence of Mexico (or has been for a long time). His “peladito” character puts voice and image to all those Mexicans who tried to survive in the streets with some craftiness and a lot of humor (“there must be something wrong with work, or rich people would already be all over it” he used to say).

He was the best example of the American (in this case Mexican) dream. From a very humble and large family (12 brothers) from the even poorer Tepito neighborhood, Mario used to work at the circus being young without telling his parents. He also tried luck with boxing and bull-fighting before becoming the international figure (with a respectable fortune) he became in the 40s & 50s.

mario_moreno_cantinflas — Fortino Mario Alfonso Moreno Reyes

So in his birth centenary you can imagine what’s like in Mexico these days…. with a just published biography and many other books about to be released…. rumors about a 3D version of his Oscar-winning “Around the world in 80 days“, another movie about his life, animated series….

He’s back from the death… and you know how Mexicans love that. Cantinflas himself, left himself a message for his own graveyard… “It looks like he’s gone, but not really”.

Most of his movies can be found on-line (youtube) and accessible via this facebook page.