Francisco Ibáñez Talavera (1936-2023) was a leading figure in the world of comics and graphic humour in our country.

He developed an innate artistic talent from a very early age, constantly drawing characters for cartoon strips at that time, such as Roberto Alcázar y Pedrín and El guerrero del antifaz. At the age of 16 he published the first comic strip in the magazine Nicolás, by Editorial Cliper. In the 50s he combined work with different magazines, such as Lilliput, La Risa and Paseo Infantil, with a job at the Banc Espanyol de Crèdit, until he was contracted by a big publishing company, Bruguera, in 1957.

At the company, based in the neighbourhood of El Coll, Ibáñez worked with other great cartoonists such as Peñarroya and Escobar. During a career spanning more than sixty years, Ibáñez created an infinite number of unforgettable characters, such as the nine tenants at 13, Rue del Percebe, the botched-job men Pepe Gotera i l’Otilio and the scallywags Chicha, Tato i Clodoveo.

But the missions of the TIA secret agents Mortadel·lo i Filemó are perhaps the most widely known works, with 220 books published about these two detectives. The latest in the series, Mortadelo y Filemón. Mundial de Baloncesto 2023, was published this summer.