'Cristina y Sus Amigas' #5, 'En Landers School'.
Manuel Cuyás Durany was born in Mataró. He took courses at the Escuela de Artes y Oficios of Maresme and was the pupil of Rafael Estrany. He started out as a painter and took part in an exhibition devoted to Edgar Allan Poe in Mataró, before turning to illustrating in the 1950s. One of his first assignments was making drawings for the signs in the Barcelona Zoo. He became an illustrator for children's and science fiction books, and in the 1960s a comic artist.
Comic strip from Pulgarcito.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Cuyás contributed to Bruguera collections like 'As de Corazones', 'Celia' and 'Capricho', and also to magazine DDT with 'Astroman' with scripts by Víctor Mora in 1973. Cuyás additionally worked for 'Historias Selección Nueva', Bruguera's series of literary adaptations.
'Tina, Coco y su Familia', advertising comic for Nestlé.
Cuyás best known series is 'Cristina y sus Amigas', which appeared in Bruguera's Pulgarcito magazine, and in the collection 'Joyas Literarias Juveniles'. The series originated as 'Landers Schools', and was created in cooperation with scriptwriter Turnes Ardanay for Mundo Juvenil in 1963 and Sissi Juvenil in 1965.
'Sandra's Search' (Bunty, 1984).
Apart from being a productive artist for publications in his home country, Cuyás also did a lot of agency work for the British market. He was a regular in girls' magazine Bunty with a great many continuing stories, running from 'Carol and Her Camera' in 1963 to the 'Polly Pimpernell' series in 1987-88. He also drew for some of the other girls' titles, including the Tina Annual 1969 (with a 'Jane Bond' story), Judy, Sally, June & School Friend, Mandy and Lindy, as well as the thriller comics 'Bullet' and 'House of Hammer'.
'The Curse of Frankenstein' (House of Hammer, 1976).