'Două Loturi' (2023).
Valentin Ionescu is a Romanian illustrator and comic creator, known for creating the character of 'Jimmy McBacon' (2019- ) and a comic book adaptation of the short story 'Două Loturi' by I. L. Caragiale (2023).
Early life and influences
Valentin Ionescu was born in 1990 in Bucharest. Although he studied at the Nicolae Tonitza High School of Fine Arts, he regards himself as a self-taught artist. His teachers saw in him a construction technician, and he was sent to the Elie Radu Technological High School instead. In his professional life, Ionescu has maintained an interest in both art and craft projects. In addition, he loves nature and likes to meditate, which, in his own words, has opened his "third eye" and has given him a more relaxed view of the world. Among his artistic influences are Mad Magazine and the American cartoonist/caricaturist Tom Richmond.
'Jimmy McBacon'.
Comic creator
In 2019, Ionescu made his debut as a comic creator with a short story starring his character 'Jimmy McBacon', an anthropomorphic pig with borderline personality disorder, depression, sociopathic tendencies and anger issues. The character has also been made available as a 3D figurine. In the same year, he contributed an 8-page story to the comic anthology 'Istorii din '89', published by the Brasov County History Museum. Since then, his work has been featured in several other comic anthologies and catalogs, for instance 'Dracula în Benzi Desenate' ("Dracula in Comics", 2024), also published by Brasov County History Museum. In 2024, Ionescu was the first Romanian comic book artist to be featured at the Comic N' Play festival in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Două Loturi
In 2023, Ionescu and publisher Editura Grafic released Ionescu's comic adaptation of the short story 'Două Loturi' ("Two Lots") by the satirical Romanian author and playwright Ion Luca Caragiale (1852-1912). According to a 2024 interview by Ema Cojocaru for www.editura-art.ro, the idea of adapting this particular story came from Mad Magazine and a dream in which the artist encountered Caragiale's literary character Nenea Iancu ("Uncle Iancu"), who told him that all of the author's works had been adapted into comics, but that 'Două loturi' was reserved for him. For his adaptation, Ionescu kept most of the original story, about a clerk who loses his winning lottery ticket, but he also used much of the atmosphere from the 1957 movie adaptation. In the background, he subtly added characters from other Caragiale works.
Valentin Ionescu.