“The cartoon is in intensive care”, Manuel Pérez Alfaro warned in 2009 from the pages of the newspaper Rebel Youth. The notice was accompanied by an argument that has been repeated countless times: there were young people eager to publicize their comicsbut they did not have a periodic publication that would allow them, therefore, in Cuba the ninth art was in danger of death.
Now the one who has died is Manolo; his death, at the age of 86, occurred in Havana on August 6 last. His cry was constant. This is evidenced by this fragment of an extensive writing of his in the tabloid the dollregarding the First Ibero-American Meeting of Cartoonists to be held in the Cuban capital in 1990, of which Manolo was one of its coordinators: “National artists who dedicate themselves to cultivating comics are regarded as rare specimens who uselessly waste their faculties” .
The paradoxical thing: this was manifested at the moment in which the aforementioned tabloid circulated in the country, which welcomed works by the youngest; as well as the very popular magazines comedians Y Pablo, in which renowned Cuban and foreign cartoonists published, and of which he was a member of the Advisory Council. Who was he referring to, if the creators had print media, had countless admirers and a national comic book salon?
Apparently the underestimation came from their own ranks, because long before, also in the dollManolo had pointed out the deep crisis that the Cartoonist Section of the Union of Journalists of Cuba was going through, weak in its informative work and incapable of organizing the aforementioned salon, to the point that it presaged its disappearance.
He battled against that, first of all, writing scripts, among which it is worth remembering Víctor Sierra, Mito Brito, Fefo, the storyteller and Camila. To this was added the pedagogical work, in a duet with Francisco Blanco, to perfect the craft of writing through the Comprehensive Cartoon Course, which led to the “El Muñe” Workshop, in which boys who stand out today were forged.
Manolo was indefatigable to honor the work of others. Since his performance as Cultural Director of the Latin American Journal of Cartoon Studies spread the experience of the disappeared Grupo P-Ele, to which the most significant creators of the guild belonged; just as he recalled the importance of the magazine ©Linewhich he proposed to rescue, so that the Cuban cartoon would be known outside its borders.
He was unable to achieve it, but more than a decade later he produced, not without multiple setbacks, a compilation under the title of have artwas celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Editorial Pablo de la Torriente, where he had worked since its founding in 1985. The notebook, simple in its finish but valuable in its content, brought together comic strips by Tulio Raggi, Juan Padrón, Virgilio Martínez, Cecilio Avilés, Roberto Alfonso, Rafael Morante, Luis Lorenzo, Orestes Suárez…
Due to his physique and his impetus, Manolo Pérez seemed like a modern Quixote, only he never lost his mind. He died in the hope that current and future authors would continue to be brought together in installments that would give continuity to the hitherto only volume of Have art.
