The origins of the Spanish cartoon, 1857-1906

Abstract

This paper discusses the evolution of the comics in Spain during the 19th century. It’s accepted that comic medium was born in the 1830s and this article offers a research about the primitive comics in Spain and its slowing development in Spanish satiric magazines, highlighting its milestones. The text proposses a frame of reference to understand the born of the genuine comic magazines in the dawn of the 20th century, and reveals the situation of the Spanish producers of comics, which has not become aware of their work in the new medium until the end of the century. We identify thar the first Spanish cartoonists and comic makers were Landaluze, Mariani, Asenjo and those grouped under the pseudonym SEM. Their works were aimed at an adult consumer in those days. And we state that the name for the medium was “historieta” since 1875; is precisely that relevant works of historieta began to appear from that year. Authors like Pellicer, Cilla, Apelles Mestres, Mecáchis or Xaudaró opened the way to a creative landscape where the specific comics magazines, called “tebeos” in Spain, finally born, now clearly intended at an audience child.