Juan Rafart Roldán, who published under the name Raf, was a versatile Spanish artist of humorous comics, published mainly at the publishing house Bruguera. His most famous character is 'Sir Tim o'Theo'. He began his professional career in the 1950s with the realistic adventure series 'El Zorro', scripted by J. Llarch. He soon dropped the realistic genre, and began working in humorous comics.
caricatures of Ibáñez, Escobar and Raf
He started out in La Risa with characters like 'La Vida Aborregada de Borrego' (1952), 'Levy Berzotas' (1953), 'Sherlock Gómez' (1957), and 'Mr. Cha-cha-cha, Director de Cine' (1958). He expanded his activities, and began collaborations with the magazines Paseo Infantil ('Don Jerónimo') and Yumbo ('Canete y Canote', 'Diente Duro y Roe-Roe', 'Conchito Barbaroja'). At the publishing house Cliper (that also published Yumbo), he started the series 'Barriguete y Larguiracio', about two space travellers.
He replaced the artist Martz-Schmidt in Pinocho magazine, and became a contributor to the magazine TBO. He cancelled all his other collaborations and joined the publishing house Bruguera in 1958. He was part of what is often called the second Bruguera school, that also featured artists like Ibáñez, Segura and Sanchis. Raf created a variety of characters, such as 'Rebrutez', 'Rodolfito Mantecoso', 'Casimiro Futbolete', 'Doña Paca Cotíllez', 'Doña Lío Portapartes', 'Don Pelmazo' and 'El Capitán Aparejo'. He became a freelance artist in 1959. He began a collaboration with the British Fleetway agency, and published in UK magazines like Film Fun and Buster. He returned to Spain two years later. He rejoined TBO in 1965 with the character 'Don Jerónimo, Jefe de Ocina', which he created under the name Roldán.
From 1968, he was back at Bruguera, where he continued 'Doña Lio' and 'Don Pelmazo', and created 'Olegario', 'Doña Tecla', and 'Manolón'. It wasn't until 1971, when he created his famous 'Sir Tim O'Theo' series. Sir Tim O'Theo was an aristocrat who played detective and helped solving absurd cases for Scotland Yard and its inept chief of police.
In the 1970s, he began collaborations with the satirical magazines Matarratos, Muchas Gracias and El Jueves, where he published under the pseudonym Dino. In 1986, Raf, Ibáñez and Segura left Bruguera and joined Grijaldo publishers and the magazine Guai!.
There, Raf created 'Mirlowe', featuring a private detective and his fat assistant Violeta. When the magazine folded, Raf worked in the animation scene for a while, before joining the revived TBO magazine with the character 'Florofo'. In 1990, he also cooperated on Josep Toutain's Creepy magazine. he died of a heart attack in 1997.
