Tomorrow, November 22, marks the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Cifré (Guillem Cifré Figuerola, Sant Jordi, Castellón, 1922-Barcelona, 1962), a cartoonist who is known above all as the creator, in 1947, of the series El Reporter Tribulete, but who was also the author of other hilarious, surprising, splendid works, in a popular and surreal key. In my opinion, his covers for El DDT, Tío Vivo and El Campeón de las comics make him one of the best cover artists in history – internationally – and perhaps the best humor cover artist. Eduardo Mendoza –a true Cervantes winner– recognized that one of his main influences was Cucufato Pi, a Cifré comic that was born in Pulgarcito and continued in El DDT. Cifré also created and drew characters such as Don Césped, Don Tele, Cepillo Chivátez, Pepe Despiste, El Sabio Megatón, Rosalía, Golondrino Pérez, Vagancio, Amapolo Nevera, Doña Filomena and Don Furcio Buscabollos.
He deserves to be recognized as an extraordinary draftsman for his freshness and imagination, and at times he was as brilliant as George Herriman or Guillem Cifré (second surname Barrabín), who was his son. The historian Jesús Cuadrado went on to clarify that, while Guillem Cifré –the one who published in Cairo and El Víbora in the eighties– was a conscious genius, the father Cifré –the one from the Bruguera era– was an unconscious genius. He affirmed Cuadrado in his indispensable Spanish Atlas dictionary of popular culture. Of the Cartoon and its use 1873-2000 that the Cifré of El DDT "was the greatest creator -together with Vázquez and Coll- of the entire history of Spanish humorous comics".
Today it would not be easy to organize a large exhibition of original drawings dedicated to Cifré, since most of them were kept by the Bruguera publishing house and still remain out of reach of the public, in some warehouse. What would be possible is to expose their splendid published covers, together with the original drawings that could be saved. The cartoonist's family keeps, for example, all the originals of the Don Césped series, which was published in the sports newspaper Dicen... . Don Césped is passionate about football and Barça who hates referees in a, let's say, proactive way. And aggressive: it bites them, for example. And this is due to the fact that these referees, who have surnames like Tarúguez and always carry their whistles in their mouths – even if they are not on a sports field – systematically benefit Barça's rivals. To mislead and avoid censorship, the cartoonist did not mention Real Madrid. He preferred to refer, for example, to the Barnacle Football Club. The center forward of Barnacle FC, by the way, was called Besúguez and was characterized by his cocky and ostentatious ways. In some respects, times have not changed that much.
Durations. How long should an audiovisual work last?... In Hollywood it was said that the ideal duration was one hundred minutes, and this required a great capacity for synthesis and mastering ellipses. But the epic cinema needed more time, and the color version of Ben-Hur, for example, required a half part to visit the toilets, smoke or drink ("Meticulous bar service", it was advertised).
There are works that need three minutes and others need many hours. In Inland Empire David Lynch took three hours to narrate – brilliantly – a mere nightmare. On the contrary, many series on television platforms go on too long and thus become worse, for commercial or economic reasons. There are happy exceptions, like Unorthodox and The Kominsky Method.
The excellent and sinister video by Roger Ballen that Senda presented at the Loop fair ( Roger the Rat ) could not last more than those 25 minutes. By contrast, the first King Crimson documentary to premiere on In-Edit would be much better if it became a multi-episode series with a lot more music.
