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El Abuelito has been posting some brilliant covers that fascinate me by Don Melchor Niubó, alias Niel, who was a cover artist for penny dreadful type serials published in Spain by Gato Negro in the twenties and early thirties. His style is reminiscent of the woodcut but also resembles the Rider/Waite Tarot cards illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith.
The inspiration for Gato Negro serials seems to have been the Aldine penny dreadfuls featuring Spring-Heeled Jack and Dick Turpin as well as the American dime novels of Buffalo Bill and Nick Carter which were imported and adapted for a Spanish audience. I am not too sure (my Spanish is not fluent*) but I believe that Gato Negro was a publishing house founded by Juan Bruguera in 1921 which published Pulgarcito, a periodical of infantil historietas (children’s comic strips). Pulgarcito reprinted many English comic pages from Puck, Funny Wonder, Comic Cuts, the Rainbow, and Illustrated Chips. They also published adventure and humor strips by Niel such as Extraordinarias adventuras de Quisquillas y Materile and La Vuelta Al Mundo.
*Los Comics en Espanol by Luis Gasca, 1969
El Abuelito, and others, to make a mistake to attribute to alias Niel to M. Niubó (1912-1982). Niel was the alias of Daniel Masgoumiery i Pena(1897-1942).
ReplyDeleteR. Niubó, son of M. Niubó.