'El Jardín Maravilloso' (Mary Luz #10, 5 January 1958).
A. Pueyo was a Spanish cartoonist, known for his work for 1950s romance and humor comics by publishers like Editorial Simbolo and Editorial Marco. He was associated with Francisco Ibáñez, with whom he presumably shared the pen name PIF. He later also took over Ibáñez's comic strip 'Kokolo'.
Identity
Nothing is known about A. Pueyo's life and background, except that he was Catalonian, and presumably from Barcelona. His career path followed that of Francisco Ibáñez, the future creator of the famous 'Mortadelo y Filemón' comic series. Both started in the early 1950s at Editorial Simbolo, and then moved on working for Editorial Marco. During this period, both artists allegedly created some of their comics under the pen name "PIF". Fans have speculated that the signature could stand for "Pueyo i Francisco", or that it is abbreviation for three artists: Pueyo, Ibáñez and an unknown artist whose names starts with an F. It has been established that A. Pueyo was not the same cartoonist as the comic artist Cándido Ruiz Pueyo, Bruguera scriptwriter Jordi Pueyo or the 1980s cartoonist Alberto Pueyo (Tito).
'Don Eulelio', signed Pueyo and Pif.
Humor comics
Pueyo's cartoons and comic strips ran in the Chavales supplement of the newspaper Diario Proa (1953) and in Enric Badía Romero's Alex magazine at Editoral Simbolo (1955), where he shared a cartoon spread with Francisco Ibáñez, Enrich, Daniel Monzón and Pedro García Lorente. In 1953, Pueyo was doing humorous background features like 'Titina' in the landscape-format adventure comic book 'Luís El Piloto Americano' (Simbolo, 1953). For Simbolo's Liliput title, he created stories with the adventurous 'Don Eulalio', although this character has also been attributed to Ibáñez. Three of the four 'Don Eulalio' issues are signed by Pif, but the signature is in the same style as Pueyo's own signature, which the cartoonist used for 'Don Eulalio a la luna' (issue #14).
In the second half of the 1950s, Pueyo drew the funny animal comic about the monkey Julepe in the sole issue of Simbolo's 'El Ganso' (1955), and was a contributor to the children's weekly of Hispano Americana de Ediciones. Alongside Juan Martinez Osete, Javier Pont and Enrich, he was present in cartoons and strips in the humor magazine Pim Pam Pum of publisher Editorial Ferma (1957). By 1957, A. Pueyo was a frequent contributor to the titles of Editorial Marco. Together with Javier Pont, Kito, J. Cebrián and Mas Esparch, he took over the features of Francisco Ibáñez, when that artist moved from Editorial Marco to Bruguera. Pueyo notably worked on 'Kokolo', a humor strip about a loincloth-clad young black man in a fictional African country, who works for a bald-headed white hunter. Besides racial stereotypes, the comics are also larded with crazy situations, misinterpretations and slapstick violence.
Romance comics
In addition to humor comics, Pueyo also drew at least twelve installments in Marco's landscape-format romance comic series 'Colección Mary Luz (1957-1958). In the same realistic drawing style, he also drew stories for similar comic books by other publishers, such as the 'Colección Trovador' (Ediciones Soriano, 1957), 'Colección Camelia' (Editorial Valor, 1957) and 'Colección Tres Hadas' (Inedi Industria Editorial, 1958).
'Kokolo'.