Don Bosco
Juan Manuel Cicuendez was born in the Spanish village of La Puebla de Almoradiel in Toledo. He broke of his technical studies in Madrid to pursue a career in arts. He began his comics career in Spain with a contribution to Clarín magazine when he was 17 years old. He then drew for the Tres Amigos magazines and the several collections published by the publishing firm Ferma in Barcelona.
In 1963 he commenced working for Spirou through the World's Press agency. For this Belgian magazine, he created dozens of 'Belles Histoires de l'Oncle Paul' with scenarist Octave Joly until 1980. It was during this period that Cicuendeze developed his talent for drawing historical events. In the late 1970s and early 1980s his work also appeared in Tintin, including the series 'Le Chevalier Noir' and 'Les Mercenaires du Ciel', both from scripts by Yves Duval. In addition to the French-language market, Cicuendez also worked for British publishers on titles like Hotspur and Eagle from 1965.
Les Mercenaires du Ciel
During the 1970s he also remained active in Spain. He produced serials like 'La Estempida del Oro' and 'Los Mayas' in El Acordeon and Piñón, respectively. 'Los Mayas' was later also published abroad, including Spirou magazines and a publication in Turkey. Due to the decline of the comic book market, Cicuendez started to focus on illustration work in the 1980s. New comic book work included the western series 'Tim Taylor' for the Semic Press Rodeo pockets in 1987.
In the 1990s, he began a new phase in his artistic work and career (from there onwards he signed his work with Cic), working on mostly aeronautical themes. Among his publicationes were the monographic volumes 'Guerra aérea sobre el Marruecos español (1913-1927)', 'En busca de la aventura aérea (1926-1936)' and 'Nuestros pioneros (...-1913)'. He made short stories for the magazine Aeroplano, and made a series of illustrations for the Spanish Air Force magazine Aeronáutica y Astronáutica between 1995 and 1997.
He also continued his work on historical comics, with 'Castilla-La Mancha, una Aventura', a 100-page comic written by Angel Flores and Antonio Perera about the history, art and architecture of the Spanish region of Castilla-La Mancha. In the new millenium, Cicuéndez has created a comics about the lives of the famous Catholics Don Bosco (2001) and Eugenio de Mazenod (2007). His Mazenod book has also been published in German, Russian, Czech and Polish. His book 'El Chatarrero de Dios' was published in 2002. Juan-Manuel Cicuendez passed away suddenly in Septemer 2013.
Tim Taylor