Josep Toutain

'Sylvia Millones'.

Josep Toutain was a Spanish comic writer, artist, agent and publisher, and one of the key figures in Spanish comic history. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, he started out as an artist, working on comic serials like 'El Héroe de Saipan', 'Un Chico de Arkansas' and 'Sylvia Millones'. In 1953, he was founder and maintainer of the international agency Selecciones Illustradas and, from 1973 on, head of the publishing house Toutain Editor. Nicknamed "The Sheriff of Comics", the charismatic Toutain helped many Spanish artists find their way in the international comic industry, was a pioneer in the market of Spanish comic agencies and an avid promoter for the recognition of comics in the Spanish culture.

Early life and career
Josep Toutain Vila was born in 1932 in Barcelona. His father was a French businessman, who introduced the Basque pelota ball game in Catalonia. He made his fortune during the Second Republic, working as a pelotari manager and betting intermediary at the Frontón Colón sports center. During his childhood, Toutain developed a keen interest in comics, and was particularly fascinated by the American adventure comics of Milton Caniff. At age fourteen, he sent a western strip called 'Smiky el Sheriff' to the legendary children's comic magazine TBO, which ran it in one of their issues.

First issue of the 'Victor Denis' series (1950).

In a style resembling that of Caniff and his contemporary Frank Robbins, Toutain began his professional career as an illustrator at age seventeen. He first appeared in Pocholo magazine of the Hispano Americana publishing house, for which he produced the 'Jimmy' feature (1949). He was subsequently present in the Editorial Cliper magazines El Coyote (drawing the Caniff-like serial 'El Héroe de Saipán', 1950) and Aventurero (with the crime series 'Polito, Chico Moderno'). He also contributed to Cliper's girls' magazine Estrelita (1950) and to Historietas, a magazine edited by F. Goñi, for which he drew the 'Dave Ward' feature. Besides magazines, Toutain also drew issues of adventure comic book series like 'Víctor Denís, Agente del FBI' of Ediciones Toray (1950), 'Hazañas de Guerra' of De Haro (1951) and 'Héroes Bíblicos' of Ediciones Domingo Savio (1956).

Particularly his work on the exotic comic serial 'El Héroe de Saipán', caught the attention of Francisco de La Fuente, the manager of Histograf, the first Spanish comics syndicate. For Histograf, Toutain first drew the western series 'Un Chico de Arkansas' (1952), before creating his main comic series 'Sylvia Millones' (1953-1955). Appearing in the supplement A Todo Color of the newspaper La Prensa, Sylvia Millones was the first female protagonist in a Spanish adventure/detective comic.

'Sylvia Millones'. 

Selecciones Ilustradas
In the early 1950s, the Spanish comic industry was at a low point. Censorship, low prices and a lack of jobs were rampant, so many artists sought refuge abroad. Inspired by the success and more financially rewarding work that his friend Francisco Hidalgo did in Paris, Josep Toutain decided to start his own agency. Launched in 1953 in collaboration with Antonio Ayné Arnau of Ediciones Toray, Toutain's company Selecciones Ilustradas (S.I.) initially met with little success. At the time, Spanish media were used to hiring artists directly on their staff, and were not interested in commissioning freelance artists. So instead, Toutain headed for France, where the comic industry blossomed and S.I. received its first assignments. In 1954, Toutain was back in Spain, where Selecciones Ilustradas was established as a stand-alone company, operating from their own offices in the center of Barcelona.

The international market proved a goldmine for the Spanish comic industry. Page rates were higher, meaning more money coming into the country, and the comics were not subjected to the censorship of the Franco regime. To keep local artists active, several other art agencies were launched in Barcelona and other cities to provide artwork to foreign publishers. In Toutain's wake, several other agencies followed, the most important being Creaciones Editoriales of Editorial Bruguera, and Bardon Art, a joint venture of Jordi Macabich and Barry Coker. The 1970s and 1980s brought Francesc Bargadà's Studio Recreo, Rafael Martinez and Norma Kohnke's Norma, José Canovas' Studio Comicup and Peter Wiechmann and Pepe Ferré's Comicon, among several smaller ventures.

When his agency was established, Josep Toutain gradually dropped his own activities as an artist. His only further efforts as a comic creator was writing the scripts for 'Los Grandes Mitos del Oeste' for José Ortiz (published in Blue Jeans, 1978) and the writing and art of 'El Cómic Vico' in Comix Internacional in 1985. Among the earliest artists involved with Selecciones Ilustradas (S.I.) were Juan Abellán, Josep M. Miralles, Rafael Lopez Espi and Florenci Clavé. The team was quickly expanded with a new generation of artists, often fresh out of art school, and some still in their teens. Selecciones Ilustradas eventually became the most prominent agency of the country, and was known for having the best artists, with Jorge Longarón and Pepe González becoming the main graphical references for the rest of the team. In 1982, Carlos Giménez chronicled the working circumstances at the time in the autobiographical comic series 'Los Profesionales', in which Toutain had a starring role.

'El Heroé de Saipan'.

Selecciones Ilustradas: clients
After doing its first international assignments for the French market, the Selecciones team provided mostly anonymous artwork to the many British comic magazines of the Amalgamated Press, DC Thomson and other publishing houses. Starting in 1956, it became their core activity, and at one point, the S.I. artists dominated the British romance books, such as Marilyn, Roxy, Valentine, Love Story, True Life, Famous Romance, Mirabelle and Boyfriend. The artists had to work with British scripts, without keeping authorial rights or return of originals. During the 1960s, Toutain's team increasingly began to draw war and adventure comics for the United Kingdom, which greatly expanded their artistic range. Until the early 1970s, the main client remained the British publisher Fleetway, for which artists like Carlos Freixas, García Pizarro, Enrique Badía Romero and Carlos Prunés provided much artwork.

When his partnership with Ayné ended in 1963, Toutain continued on his own. A new partner was eventually found in Guillermo Hierro Bosch (1941-2015), who became Toutain's right-hand man. Hierro traveled throughout Europe to acquire new clients like the Scandinavian Semic Press, which mainly produced comic books with licensed characters. Hierro eventually founded a division of Semic Press in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The German market also showed interest in Toutain's artists, although mainly for color illustration assignments. Many artists finetuned their coloring techniques for these assignments, such as Fernando Fernandez, Enric Torres, José María Miralles and Felix Mas. Eventually, the work of Toutain's artists was published in Britain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, France, Italy, Portugal, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, Australia and even India.

Jorge Filstrup (A.K.A. José Toutain) in 'Los Profesionales' by Carlo Gimenez.

Warren magazines
Things really moved forward when Toutain began an association with James Warren, the publisher of horror magazines like Eerie, Creepy and Vampirella. In the USA, comic fandom had changed the scene, leading to a revival of horror comics in the tradition of EC Comics and readers who were interested in the creators of the comics they read. During the first half of the 1970s, the Selecciones artists dominated the pages of the Warren magazines: Esteban Maroto, Jaime Brocal, Rafael Aura León, Santiago Martin Salvador, Luis García, Fernando Fernández, José González, Josep Bea, Isidre Monés, Manuel Sanjulián, and Enrich Torres. The Valencian artists Luis Bermejo, José Ortiz and Leopoldo Sanchez joined the team in 1974. As they were credited as writers and artists of the stories, this group consisted of the first Spanish artists whose names became well-known abroad. Other publishers like Dell commissioned Selecciones artists to make cover illustrations. Warren's main competitor Skywald Publishing also attracted Toutain and his artists for its magazines.

'1984' and 'Ilustracion + Comix Internacional'.

Toutain Editor
Meanwhile, the comic market in Spain had re-established itself. Especially after the fall of the Franco regime in 1975, the censorships were lifted and Spain became a breeding ground for a new wave of comic magazines, aimed at a mature readership, with more experimental and artistic content. During the early 1970s, Selecciones Ilustradas had already been producing fotonovelas by Corín Tellado for Editorial Rollán. In 1973, Toutain launched his own publishing imprint Toutain-Editor, which became instrumental in the Spanish comic culture of the 1970s and 1980s. During the Spanish adult comics boom, Toutain launched several influential magazines, starting with the science fiction magazine 1984 (1979-1992). 1984 also received a French edition and was in 1984 renamed to Zona 84. Toutain launched a Spanish edition of Creepy, which contained mostly material from the Warren magazines, as well as the influential 'Torpedo' comic by Jordi Bernet. Comix Internacional (1980-1986) had a more artistic approach to comics, and also ran work by American creators such as Will Eisner, Richard Corben, Howard Chaykin, Archie Goodwin and John Severin. Thriller (1984) contained dark pulp, and Totem el Comix (1987-1991) printed erotic work by José María Beroy, Guido Crepax, Magnus and Milo Manara.

'Totem' and 'Historia de los Comics'.

Historia de los Comics
Toutain-Editor additionally released comic books collecting the work of several internationally renowned authors, such as Will Eisner, Jordi Bernet, Dick Matena, Luis Garcia & Victor Mora, Luis Bermejo & Nicola Cuti and Horacio Altuna & Carlos Trillo, as well as monographs about Richard Corben, Esteban Maroto and Victor de la Fuente. One of the more remarkable Toutain publications was 'Historia de los Comics', a series of 48 magazines covering the history of comics worldwide. Edited by Javier Coma, several international comics connoisseurs did contributions, including Bill Blackbeard, Maurice Horn, Michael Barrier, Ron Goulart, Richard Marschall and Dennis O'Neil from the United States, Lambiek's Kees Kousemaker from the Netherlands, Denis Gifford, Mary Cadogan and Alan Vince from the UK, Henri Filippini, Claude Moliterni and André Leborgne from France, Salvador Vazquez de Parga and Roman Gubern from Spain, Franco Fossati and Claudio Bertieri from Italy, Oscar Steinberg and Rosalva De Valdes from Argentina, Vasco Granja from Portugal, Alvaro de Moya from Brazil and Ervin Rustemagic from Yugoslavia.

After Warren Publishing went bankrupt in 1983, several of the artists left, marking the end for Selecciones Ilustradas as an agency. So Toutain opened Catalan Communications in New York with Bernd Metz and Herb Spiers. This company mainly focused on English-language translations of European graphic novels, presented in a series of high-quality trade paperbacks. Until 1991, it published work by Juan Giménez, Hermann, Matthias Schultheiss, François Boucq, Vittorio Giardino, François Bourgeon, Milo Manara, Marc Michetz, Gine, Jordi Bernet, Enki Bilal, Magnus, José Ortiz and others.

Toutain also had a small role in 'El otro Necronomicón' by Brocal Remohi and Antonio Segura.

Final years and death
The Spanish comics market declined once again in the 1990s, and most of Toutain's magazines disappeared. Toutain Editor closed its doors in 1993, but Selecciones Ilustradas continued, but by now had changed its dedication to illustrations. Marcel Miralles has continued to supervise new productions that mainly focus on licensed properties like Disney. New artists involved were José Canovas, Josep M. Cardona, Isidre Monés, Francesc Mateu, González Vicente, Segundo García and Bernardo Serrat.

During the 1990s, health problems withheld Josep Toutain from further developing the new artistic projects he had in mind. He passed away from lung cancer in 1997. He will be remembered as a true promoter of Spanish comic artists, not only for their skilled craftsmanship, but also for their artistic value. In his honor, the Josep Toutain Award for "Best New Talent" is awarded every year at the Salón Internacional del Cómic in Barcelona.

Josep Toutain. 

toutaincomix.wordpress.com

Among the many talented comic artists and illustrators who have worked for Selecciones Ilustradas are: