RIP Enrique Ventura

 

 Enrique Ventura, legendary comic artist, dies

He mixed humor and surrealism in series such as 'Grouñidos en el desierto' or 'Maremagnum', created together with Miguel Ángel Nieto for El Jueves and El Papus

Las Provincias

By Miguel Lorenci

March 25, 2024

 

The comic artist Enrique Ventura, a reference of the ninth art in Spain and known above all for the mythical series 'Grouñidos en el desierto', died on Monday at the age of 78, as confirmed by the publishing house Evolution-Cómics, of the Panini imprint. Born in Madrid in 1946, Ventura formed with his cousin Miguel Ángel Nieto (1947-1995) a fundamental duo in Spanish graphic humor that began publishing more than half a century ago.

At the beginning of the 70s of the last century, the couple revolutionized the Spanish comic scene with series such as 'Es que van como locos', 'Maremagnum' or 'Histerias indecent de la tele', created for the magazine El Jueves. His humor between surrealist absurdity and his search for new graphic and narrative resources culminated in the masterpiece 'Grouñidos en el desierto', which also appeared in El Jueves, 1979, and starred Groucho Marx.

Enrique Ventura continued with the series without diminishing its quality after the sudden death of Miguel Ángel in 1995. He was in charge of the scripts of the series until 2013, the year when Bisnieto took over, a pseudonym that was still a nice tribute to its first screenwriter.

Miguel Ángel Nieto and Enrique Ventura abandoned their architecture studies for those of advertising technicians. They published the comic 'Sam and the Walrus' (1971) in the children's magazine Molinete. The following year they signed with the magazine Trinca for which they made the silent comic 'King Tongo'.

They worked for the satirical magazine El Papus and for El Jueves, where they published their long-running series 'Grouñidos en el desierto' (Stirrings in the Desert) since January 31, 1979. Groucho was a character with whom they had a long-standing relationship, as he often appeared in many of their stories. Almost perennial in El Jueves, for a period it was replaced by 'Harponazos', a series in the same vein starring Harpo Marx.

Cartoonists such as David Rubín, Cels Piñol and Juanjo Cuerda bid farewell and paid tribute to the creator as one of the great references in the sector.

VENTURA, Enrique

Born: 1946, Madrid, Madrid, Spain

Died: 3/25/2024, Spain

 

Enrique Ventura’s westerns – comic book artist:

Crazy Magazine – 1973-1983