Calling yourself the same as a celebrity always raises questions. If not, tell Francisco J. Ibáñez, who has nothing to do with the Barcelona cartoonist, who died last July at the age of 87, but there is not a day in which they do not ask him if there is no relationship between both. "Absolutely none, it is a mere coincidence, but I understand that it draws attention," he explains to La Vanguardia. To avoid confusion, at the age of 61, he uncovers the J in his name and calls himself Javier, but fate continues to unite him with the cartoonist, as he has launched an initiative to ask the Barcelona City Council to install a traffic light for Mortadelo and Philemon. The proposal has revolutionized the networks. "I love it. Hopefully it will be achieved”, applauded a user on Twitter, now baptized as platform X. “But not only for Barcelona, for the whole country”, encouraged another.
This professor from Navarra says that the idea arose this summer during his vacation in Denmark. “In the city of Aarhus there are some very nice Viking traffic lights that honor their ancestors. Seeing them I thought it would make all the sense in the world to transfer this idea to Barcelona with Ibáñez. I do not rule out that there are those who choose to cross through those traffic lights before others ”. His idea was so clear that he was encouraged with Photoshop to see what the final result would be like. Philemon, who always grumbles, “is the one who gives orders, so it would be red. And Mortadelo, the green one, walking quietly”.
The image was shared on social networks, since "I had to attach it so that people would pay attention to me", and after a few minutes it went viral. Thousands of users shared the photograph and cited some emblematic places in the Catalan capital related to the cartoonist, such as the former headquarters of the Bruguera publishing house, on Aldea street, or different points in the Sant Martí district, where the master of humor lived. There he opened the Gabriel García Márquez library a little over a year ago, which has a space dedicated to him and which celebrated the idea. "We want the traffic lights in front of the library to be regulated by Mortadelo and Filemón."
In view of the success, the maestro made the proposal official yesterday with a petition to the Barcelona City Council, which for its part recalls that a tribute is planned to the creator of Rompetechos and 13 Rue del Percebe in which it will be delivered to his relatives, to posthumously, the city's Gold Medal for Cultural Merit, a recognition that was announced last February for his "tireless and intense creative career as a benchmark in the world of humor and comedians in our country."
“First I wanted to throw the stone into the pond and see how people reacted on the networks. Once I saw the furor, I wrote to the local authorities, to whom I also launched a second idea: a traffic light tour with different characters from the cartoonist. I am sure that the people who cross those traffic lights will not avoid a smile when obeying Filemón or crossing at the same time as Mortadelo ”, agrees the promoter of the project, which is not the first time that he has claimed his namesake.
“I have taken advantage of his work in class many times and I have valued the door that was opened to reading through his comics. Comics allow the youngest to approach the language in a much more enjoyable way. They allow us to work on concepts such as onomatopoeia or discuss what would be coherent for each character to say”.
His students from the public school in Tafalla, in Navarra, dubbed "the class that is going to change the world", also wrote a letter of support for the Barcelona artist to be awarded the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature. “It is not that Ibáñez needs the Princess of Asturias. It is that the Princess of Asturias needs Ibáñez ”, they wrote. Despite good intentions, the campaign in favor of the Catalan creator, defended by public figures such as Álex de la Iglesia, Arturo Pérez Reverte or Santiago Segura, did not have an effect.
“I hope this is one of many well-deserved tributes to the great Ibáñez. His readers have been encouraged by other ideas, such as renaming a street or even the Sants station. Mine is a simple proposal but I think endearing and showy, since you have to see a traffic light yes or yes to cross”.
If this collective wish came true, Ibañez would join other famous people who have their own traffic light, such as Elvis Presley, in the German city of Friedberg, since he did his military service there; or Chiquito de la Calzada, in the Malaga neighborhood of Huelín. “It would be his thing to give him back everything he has given us,” he concludes.
