'Apolino Taruguez' (DDT #158).
Carlos Conti Alcántara was a Spanish comic book artist and cartoonist. He is considered one of the five grandmasters of Editorial Bruguera in the 1950s; the other four artists being Guillermo Cifré, Eugenio Giner, José Peñarroya, and José Escobar. The team, along with Manuel Vázquez and Jorge, were driving forces behind Bruguera's children's magazine Pulgarcito and the humor magazine El DDT. Conti is best-known for his humorous series 'El Loco Carioco' (1949- ), 'Apolino Tarúguez, Hombre de Negocios' (1944- ), 'Mi Tío Magdaleno' (1951), 'La Vida Adormilada de Morfeo Pérez' (1952), 'Don Fisgón' (1960), 'Don Alirón' (1969) and 'El Doctor No y su Ayudante Sí' (1970).
Early life and career
Born in 1916 in Barcelona, Conti worked as an insurance agent in the 1930s. During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), he fought in the Republican army. He subsequently began his collaboration with the daily newspaper La Prensa, and also its gossip supplement ¡Hola!. Conti published in magazines like Ondas, Leyendas Infantiles, ABC and Blanco y Negro, before beginning his association with Editorial Bruguera as an editor, artist and writer of humorous articles.
'El Loco Carioco y Su Nuevo Invento'.
El Loco Carioco and other humor comics
Conti made his Bruguera debut in Pulgarcito in 1949 with the feature 'El Loco Carioco', about a lunatic who regularly escapes from his asylum. From 1951 on, the comic was also published in other Bruguera magazines, like Super Pulgarcito and El DDT. Throughout his career, Conti was a very prolific creator of gag panels, sometimes bunched in series like 'Ahí está Conti' and 'Contigrafías'.
His feature 'Apolino Tarúguez, Hombre de Negocios', about the despotic businessman and his secretary, originally appeared in the magazine Cucu in 1944, but moved over to Bruguera's new humor magazine El DDT in 1951. For this magazine, Conti also created 'Mi Tío Magdaleno' (1951) and 'La Vida Adormilada de Morfeo Pérez' (1952). The latter is considered one of the highlights of Bruguera's humor features, and deals with the exciting and surreal dreams of its otherwise rather dull protagonist. Conti also appeared in the non-Bruguera magazines TBO (Editorial Buigas) and El Coyote (Ediciones Cliper).
'La Vida Adormilada de Morfeo Perez'.
In a quest for more artistic freedom, Conti, Cifré, Escobar, Giner and Peñarroya launched and self-managed the weekly Tío Vivo in 1957, a joint venture which lasted for one year. Conti served as art director, and was succeeded by Enrich, after which he continued his classic series in the Bruguera magazines Can Can, Ven y Ven and Din Dan. Among his later creations were 'Don Fisgón' (El Campéon de las Historietas, 1960), 'Don Alirón y la Ciencia Ficción' (El DDT, 1969) and 'El Doctor No y su Ayudante Sí' (Din Dan, 1970). The latter series referenced the character Dr. No from the 'James Bond' franchise, but pitched him together with an adjudant named Sí (literally: "Yes"). Conti also served as art director of the satirical monthly Mata Ratos of Ibero Mundial de Ediciones from 1972 until 1974.
'Don Alirón y la Ciencia Ficción'.
Creaciones Editoriales
In the 1940s, Carlos Conti was also the founder of the agency Creaciones Editoriales, so he could distribute his cartoons. By the end of that decade, it was bought by Bruguera, who turned it into an international production agency, managed by José Bielsa and Francisco Ortega Coloma, among other people. Luis Llorente (1932-2018) and his wife Isabel (b. 1942) turned it into one of the leading providers of comic scripts and art for British, Scandinavian and Dutch publishers from the 1960s on. Creaciones Editoriales was dissolved in 2022.
Final years, death and legacy
Despite suffering from health problems, Conti continued to work until the very end. Among his final credits were the scripts of 'Felipe Gafe' and the first stories of the popular Spanish superhero comic 'Superlópez' for Juan López Fernández (A.K.A. Jan), both in Tio Vivo. Carlos Conti passed away at the age of 59 in 1975.
Carlos Conti was an influence on Francisco Ibañez.
'Conti Grafias' (Gran Pulgarcito #54, 1970).