On Friday 8 April, the family of the cartoonist Francisco Martín Morales donated his personal archive of cartoons to the University of Granada.
There are more than 15,000 originals, including pieces from its beginnings in 1966 until August 2010, when a domestic accident (1) (2) forced him to stop his publishing routine.
Some biographical information and about the donated work. SourceUGR University of Granada
First period: From DDT to Ideal (1966-1975)
The archive begins with the first collaborations he published as a professional in the second half of the sixties, in historical newspapers such as DDT and Can-Can, which are of great value as a testimony of his apprenticeship. After moving to Madrid, Martínmorales (that is how he began to sign himself at that time, joining his surnames) collaborated with late-Francoist newspapers such as Arriba ( 1967), Mundo Diario, Mundo and El Alcázar (1966) when he still belonged to the PESA group. Fewer originals have survived from this early period, although they are very significant.
In 1967 he began his fruitful daily collaboration with Ideal de Granada, which intensified in the seventies and which brought him great recognition and gave him access to other national publications. This collaboration lasted fifteen years, from 1967 to 1982. From 1969 he also published in Asturias Semanal.
Some 1,500 originals are preserved.
Second period: The beginning of the Transition (1975-1982)
Once settled in Madrid, Martínmorales aligned himself with the media and the new humour magazines that took advantage of the collapse of the dictatorship and its prohibitions to demand democratic freedoms. Along with other members of his generation such as Perich, Máximo, Andrés Rábago, Peridis and Forges, he published in new editions such as Por favor ( from 1976 to 1978), El Jueves (from 1977 to 2000); he collaborated in the last and brief period of La Codorniz, which began and ended in 1978, and, in particular, in Interviú, whose editorial staff he joined after leaving in 1976 and where he remained until 2010. In 1978 he began his relationship with El Periódico de Cataluña, which lasted until 1993.
Some 3,000 originals are preserved.
Third period: The Constitution is approved (1982-1996)
In the years prior to the approval of the Constitution, Martínmorales was the victim of dozens of complaints for his drawings that explored the limits of tolerance of the survivors of Franco's regime and the judges. Although the amnesty of 1977 cancelled all the lawsuits he had brought against him for testing freedom of expression, Martínmorales had to appear in dozens of civil and military trials. He collaborated in El País and continued the work he had already started in the magazine "Revista específicamente de humor". After the closure of La Codorniz, he expanded his collaborations with other Grupo Zeta magazines. He began to draw larger format drawings and at the same time tried out other techniques such as watercolour in publications such as Interviú and the weekly Tiempo, where he worked until 1993. After interrupting his collaboration with Ideal, he sent his drawings to Diario de Granada, the first newspaper to appear in the city after the end of the dictatorship. The collaboration lasted from 1982 until the closure of the newspaper in 1986.
This is his most prolific period, coinciding with the victory of the PSOE in 1982. In 1987, he began to publish his large-format cartoons in Panorama.
He joined El Periódico de Cataluña in 1978: the relationship lasted until 1993.
He has been drawing for El Faro de Motril since the early nineties.
Some 6,000 originals are preserved.
Fourth period: ABC, Estrella digital, La Clave... (1996 to 2010)
The collaborations of the last period include the strips in Abc, where Martínmorales lived for years with another master of humour, Antonio Mingote, the drawings in Interviú and in Estrella digital. In 1997 he was awarded the Mingote prize. His daily collaborations in the final stage try out other techniques, such as digital drawing. He also contributed to José Luis Balbín's magazine La Clave (from 2001 to 2008)
Some 5,000 originals are preserved.
Related:
