'A Spell of Trouble' (Jinty, 1980).
Trini Tinturé was a Spanish comic artist with a long career working for European girls' magazines, lasting from the 1950s through the 2010s. In her home country, she started out drawing romance and fairy tale comic stories for publishers like Hispano Americana, Marco and Bruguera, before beginning an extensive production for publishers of girls' magazines in the UK (DC Thomson, IPC), The Netherlands (VNU, Holco) and Germany (Bastei Verlag). Through the Creaciones Editoriales agency, Tinturé drew many melodramatic comic serials, often with magical elements, for the British magazines June, Judy and Jinty. Among her other UK work were the picture story feature 'Curly' (1968-1980s) in Twinkle and 'Oh, Tinker!' (1969-1972) in June and School Friend, about an unfortunate fairy. For most of the 1980s, Tinturé worked almost exclusively for the German publisher Bastei on the 'Biggi' comic (1983-1989). The final three decades of her career were spent drawing for a Dutch audience through comics like 'Micky' (1991-2002), 'Siska' (1997-2003) and short stories for Tina, as well as illustrations and the 'Liefde in de Lucht' (2006-2010s) feature in Penny. In her home country, Trini Tinturé was best-known for the comic series 'Emma es Encantadora' ("Emma is Charming", 1981-2010s), a collaboration with scriptwriter Andreu Martin.
Early life and career
Trinidad Tinturé Navarro was born in 1935 in Lleida, a city in the west of Catalonia. Raised during the Spanish Civil War, her family of six lived on the income of her carpenter father. Already as a child, she often helped her father in his workshop after school hours, fascinated by his craft. Supported by her mother, she developed her own artistic skills, making drawings on the backs of electricity bills, calendar leaves, rationing cards and other pieces of paper she found in the house. At age 20, her self-taught artistic skills were recognized in her hometown when he was awarded the first medal for artistic drawing by the local Círculo de Bellas Artes. From an early age, Trini Tinturé realized she didn't want to become a housewife like her mother. Luck was on her side in 1957, when she was able to move in with her great-aunt in Barcelona, where she pursued a career working for publishing houses and advertising agencies. After a while, Tinturé discovered that advertising didn't work for her, and she focused fully on comic art.
Coleccion Piluchi #3 - 'El Perfume de la Felicidad' (17 January 1958).
Spanish comic books
Starting in the second half of the 1950s, Tinturé's artwork appeared in many of the Barcelonese fairy tale and romance comic books aimed at teenage girls. Initially working for smaller publishing houses like Hispano Americana de Ediciones and Editorial Marco, she filled issues of the landscape-format comic book collections Mercedes (1956-1957), Mary Luz (1957-1958) and Piluchi (1958-1959), as well as many issues of 17 Años magazine (1959-1961). By 1960, Tinturé was hired by the leading publishing house Bruguera, where she illustrated issues of the romantic Sissi Juvenil comic book, as well as its supplements and spin-offs (1960-1961). In addition, she illustrated the 'La Dicha Perdida' issue of the Collecion Celia (1969). Between 1970 and 1977, Tinturé drew installments in the Bruguera collections 'Joyas Literarias Juveniles' and 'Joyas Literarias Infantiles', making comic book adaptations of literature and popular fairy tales, including 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'Heidi'.
Joyas Literarias Juveniles #138 (1975)- 'Alicia en el Pais de las Maravillas' ('Alice in Wonderland').
Creaciones Editoriales
Not long after joining Bruguera, Tinturé shifted her focus from Spanish comic books to working for the international market. Until well into the 2010s, she was affiliated with the Creaciones Editoriales agency, originally owned by Bruguera, but later managed from London by Luis and Isabel Llorente. As part of Creaciones' extensive creator team for girls-oriented comic stories, Tinturé had a decades-long career working for publishers in the UK, Germany and The Netherlands. The stories she produced were also syndicated to publishers from other countries, so by detour they eventually also ended up in the 1970s and 1980s magazines of Bruguera in Barcelona. Most of the time, this kind of international agency work was done anonymously, so much of Tinturé's work is still left for comic historians to identify.
'Oh, Tinker!' (June and Schoolfriend #450, 25 October 1969).
British comics
During the 1960s and 1970s, Tinturé mainly worked for the British market. One of her early projects was the picture story 'Curly', about the countryside adventures of a blonde girl named Mary Smith and her little lamb. 'Curly' was a regular feature in Twinkle, a magazine for young girls, launched in 1968 by the Scottish publisher DC Thomson. In an autobiographical article she wrote for Bruguelandia in 1983, Tinturé said that at that point she was drawing the 'Curly' feature for twenty years, so perhaps the feature ran in another DC Thomson title prior to the launch of Twinkle. At least in Twinkle, it ran until well into the 1980s. In 1966, Tinturé also illustrated the 374th installment of the Picture Romance Library by publisher C. Arthur Pearson.
For the London-based publisher Fleetway/IPC, Tinturé was a regular presence in the merged magazine June and School Friend, first with the adventure serial 'Orphans of Italy' (1968), and then with the feature 'Oh, Tinker!' (1969-1972), about a hard-trying but hapless fairy, described as "the fairy with the mixed-up magic". During the 1970s and 1980s, she drew a great many notable teenage drama serials for the IPC girls' magazines Judy, Debbie, Tammy and, especially, Jinty. The Jinty resource and fan blog describes Tinturé's drawing style as suitable for both exciting stories and humor, with her sharp lines particularly efficient for drawing mean girls with mad eyes and evil grins. One of her first known adventure serials was 'Milly on the Move', published in Judy in 1964. Later serials of the decade include 'Jumping Julie and the Harlequins' (Judy, 1969), 'And Mother Came Too' (Judy, 1966) and 'Jumping Julie' (Judy, 1968).
'The Slave of Form 3B' (1976).
Among Tinturé's best-remembered Jinty serials were 'The Slave of Form 3B' (1976), about Tania, a shy and gullible new pupil of Waverly Boarding School, who is led to believe that she is hypnotized by her manipulative and bossy classmate Stacey. A similar mean girl was main character Jean Crawley in 'Creepy Crawley' (1977), who tries to use a magical Egyptian scarab brooch to reclaim her title as St. Bridget's star pupil from newcomer Mandy Collier. Tinturé showcased her more comical side with 'The Zodiac Prince' (1978), in which a happy-go-lucky alien man uses astral powers to help Earth people out. 'A Spell of Trouble' (1980) was another Trinturé story in which the supernatural plays an important role, as it stars the popular Carrie who is, unbeknownst to her classmates, a witch. Among Tinturé's many other Jinty serials were 'Prisoners of Paradise Island' (1974), 'Cinderella Smith' (1975), 'Too Old to Cry!' (1975), 'Sisters at War!' (1976), 'The Mystery of Martine' (1976-1977), 'Battle of the Wills' (1977), 'The Disappearing Dolphin' (1979), 'The Perfect Princess' (1980), 'Food for Fagin' (1981) and 'Freda's Fortune' (1981).
In 2022, Rebellion collected 'A Spell of Trouble' and 'Creepy Crawley' in a Halloween-themed comic book, with restored art and a new cover illustration by Tinturé.
'Emma es Encantadora'.
Emma es Encantadora
During her British period, Tinturé developed a talent for drawing girls' comics with magical elements. In the early 1980s, she came up with the idea to create a similar comic series for the Spanish market. Working with scriptwriter Andreu Martín Farrero and later Francisco Pérez Navarro, she created a feature about a modern teenage witch, 'Emma es Encantadora' ("Emma is Charming", 1981-1983). The series debuted on 14 December 1981 in Bruguera's Lily magazine, and ran until the publishing house closed its doors in 1983. The 'Emma' stories also appeared in Greece, and were later reprinted by Bruguera in some of its other titles, like the Famosas Novelas Serie Azul. Between 2006 and 2008, publisher Glénat España collected 'Emma es Encantadora' in two volumes.
Biggi - 'Ankunft im Glück'.
Biggi
Around the same time that her 'Emma' comic came to an end, Tinturé was contracted by the German publisher Bastei Verlag to produce the title comic for their Biggi comic book series. When Biggi was launched in 1982, the comic book was a translation of the British 'Patty's World' series by Tinturé's Creaciones colleague Purita Campos. But since Biggi ran a full story every week, the title ran out of source material within the year. Bastei then offered Purita Campos an exclusive contract to produce new material directly for them, which she declined. They turned to Trini Tinturé, who didn't want to continue the Campos series, but instead transformed 'Biggi' into a completely new comic series, starring a German girl who grows up in California. For a period of five years, Tinturé was responsible for a weekly 18-page story as well as a color cover illustration. To safeguard this production, a team of additional artists was brought in to produce the artwork, including fellow Spaniards Rodrigo Rodrígue Comos and Joan Boix and the Turk Suat Yalaz. Most of the stories were written by Peter Mennigen. Despite the obvious deviation from the Purita Campos original, the new Biggi proved to be another hit, and lasted until 1989.
Micky - 'Bonje om Binkie' (2002).
Dutch comics: Tina
From 1989 on, the Dutch girls' weekly Tina began serializing the German 'Biggi' comics under the title 'Kelly in Californië' (1989-1991). Through her agent Creaciones Editoriales, Tinturé was then asked to work directly for this Dutch magazine, at the time published by VNU and later Sanoma. Still in 1989, she began her regular collaboration with the Dutch Tina magazine, starting with the diving adventures of 'Marina' (1989-1992), the daughter of a marine biologist, written by M.S. Goodall. From scripts by Conny Möricke, Tinturé drew over thirty serials about the romantic tribulations of 'Micky' (1991-2002). Between 1996 and 2003, she also drew the gag strip about the everyday life of 'Siska', written by Sven van der Hart and later Maaike Hartjes (the feature was reprinted in 2008-2010 under the title 'Isa'). With writer Val Bonsall, she also made four serials with the character 'Roos' (2001), not to be confused with the Jan Vriends character of the same name, launched six years later. By her own request, Tinturé was mostly assigned to stand-alone short stories with no fixed deadline, allowing her to work at her own pace. Between 1993 and 2007, she drew about 80 of these stories, varying in length from three to ten pages, and based on scripts by various Dutch and English scriptwriters.
'Liefde in de lucht!' (Penny #8, 2012).
Dutch comics: Penny
During the 1990s, Tinturé also began working for Penny, a horse-themed magazine for girls, published by Holco Publications. For a couple of years, she made painted illustrations and some funny stories about ponies and horses. Between 2006 and the late 2010s, she had a regular feature in the magazine called 'Liefde in the Lucht!' ("Love is in the Air"), written by Sabra Kemner. A series about three sisters and their mother who inherit a farm with stables and horses, the stories combine humor with romanticism, adventure and sometimes tragedy. The feature was also collected in book format by Holco.
Recognition
In 2015, Tinturé's work was included in an exhibition at the 33 Salón Internacional del Cómic in Barcelona about the female comic artists active during the Franco regime. Four years later, the Barcelona International Comic Fair awarded Tinturé the Honorary Prize of the Women Comic Artists Guild. At age 87, Tinturé was honored with the Grand Prize at the 2023 Barcelona International Comic Fair.
Later life
When most of her comic book assignments dried out, Tinturé dedicated herself to shorter projects, such as postcards for children. She was also available for commissions, such as portraits and drawings for invitations, cards or celebration menus. In old age, she even took to social media to publish her portrait sketches on Instagram, the most recent post being from 29 March 2023. Trini Tinturé died in her hometown Barcelona on 17 January 2024, at the age of 88.
Trini Tinturé.