José Cabrero Arnal was fascinated by comics since his youth. He began his career in 'Guerrall en El Pais de Los Insectos', 'Paco Zumba' and 'Castrilla Detective' in Pocholo. For this magazine, he created the dog 'Top', the precursor of 'Pif le Chien', in 1935. Arnal was also a fighter in the Spanish republican army in 1939. He was a political refugee in France and was sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp by the nazis during World War II.
Back from this hell, he began a collaboration with L'Humanité, the newspaper of the French Communist Party in 1946. For the weekly supplement of the magazine, he developed 'Clopinet', 'Canard Oscar', 'Becdor' and 'Boudegomme et Zéphirin'. In 1948, he launched the famous 'Pif le Chien' strip.
From 1946, he was also present in the magazine Vaillant, where he started out with the series 'Placid et Muzo'. After a while, the 'Pif' comic was also featured in this magazine. It became so popular, that the magazine was eventually renamed to Le Journal de Pif.
In addition to his work for L'Humanité and Vaillant, Arnal produced 'Nouche et Nigo' in Vaillantes (1947) and 'Fifine et Fofon' in Pipolin (1957), and cooperated on the launched of the magazines Roudoudou les Belles Images and Riquiqui Les Belles Images. In 1958, Arnal became ill and had to drop his activities. He handed over his series to artists like Roger Mas and Jacques Nicolaou.
