'Aladdin and the King of Thieves'.
Carmen Pérez is a Spanish artist working for European comic productions through Studio Comicup in Barcelona. Since the early 1990s, she has been one of the most productive artists for European Disney licensees, such as Hachette in France and VNU/Sanoma/DPG in the Netherlands. For Sanoma, she also provided art for series like 'Nick en Simon' (2011-2013), 'Emme's Dierenwereld' (2014-2016) and 'Tina' (2013-2018) in the girls' magazine Tina.
'Minnie Mouse' gag from Le Journal de Mickey #2318 (1996).
Early Disney comics
Living outside of Barcelona, Carmen Pérez joined Studio Comicup in the early 1990s. Initially, she specialized in the "mice universe", and characters originating from Disney feature films. For the French magazine Le Journal de Mickey, she illustrated 'Pluto' and 'Mickey Mouse' stories, and many gag pages with 'Minnie Mouse', written by Dominique Nicolli. For the Dutch Donald Duck weekly, she drew short stories and gags with characters like 'Goofy' and/or 'Clarabella Cow', but also a lot of 'Aladdin' stories (written by Frank Jonker), as well as the 1996 'Aladdin' back cover gag series (written by Evert Geradts). Perez had first showcased her expertise in drawing 'Aladdin' in the mid-1990s, when she drew the graphic novel adaptations of the films 'The Return of Jafar' and 'Aladdin and the King of Thieves' for Disney Europe. Every now and then, Perez has additionally worked for Egmont, the Danish publisher of Disney comics.
Comic story starring Dutch talk show host Ivo Niehe ("I. Vanille"), published in Troskompas.
Dutch Disney comics
Highly productive, Carmen Perez generally provides rough layouts, which are then cleaned by Tony Fernández and finished by one of the Comicup inkers. In the 2010s, Perez became one of the most requested artists by the Dutch editors for stories with 'Donald Duck' and his family. This has not only included longer adventure stories and gags for the weekly, but also for spin-off publications like Donald Duck Junior, Katrien and specials, as well as non-Disney magazines like TV guide Troskompas. Other Disney characters that have come from her drawing pen for the Dutch production include 'The Little Mermaid', 'The Big Bad Wolf', 'Basil from Baker Street', 'Peter Pan' and 'Pinokkio'.
Since 2015, she has illustrated several crowded posters, featuring characters from Donald Duck magazine portraying famous Dutch sayings and Olympic sports. In 2021, Carmen succeeded Tony Cronstam as the artist of the daily 'Donald Duck' gag strip, written by Hugo Sauer and produced by the Dutch licensee DPG Media for the newspaper AD. Produced in monthly batches of 30 strips, she alternates on the artwork with her Comicup colleague (and former protégé) Jordi Alfonso.
Olympic poster from Donald Duck #13, 2016.
Tina
Besides Disney, the Dutch publisher Sanoma has also used Carmen's skills in the girls' magazine Tina. From 2011 to 2013, she did artwork and lay-outs for the comics feature based on Dutch singers 'Nick en Simon', sometimes with finished artwork by Sergio Garrido or Rafa Ruiz. She has also alternated with Rafa Ruiz on the artwork of the series 'Emme's Dierenwereld' by writer Lucienne van Ek (2014-2016). In 2013, she became the artist of Tina's new title comic, which was developed, plotted and at first also sketched by Dutch artist Jan Vriends. By 2016, as her workload for Duck increased, she handed over art duties of this strip to her son, Ruben Montoya. Carmen Perez however continued to make sketch style illustrations with this mascot character for Tina's editorial pages. In 2018, she also drew the weekly cartoon/comic strip on Tina's mail page, from plots by Bas Schuddeboom.
Other non-Disney work by Carmen Perez has included the pencil drawings for a series of interactive picture books starring 'Tom & Jerry' by Benjamin Bird for Capstone Young Readers (2014).
The first 'Emme' story from Tina #23 of 2014.