CONTRA LA INERCIA AGAINST INERTIA - granada cultura

Mortadelo y Filemón vignette (from El cochecito leré),
Francisco Ibáñez, 1985. Courtesy of Ediciones B
Paco Pomet: Agente secreto, 2009
oil on canvas, 120 × 160 cm
again “faces, feet, hands, folds, clothes” and “hundreds
of details” 12 from comics such as Astérix and,
especially, Francisco Ibáñez’s Mortadelo y Filemón,
and perhaps also Jan’s Superlópez, full of delirious
violence. It is not unusual, therefore, that Filemón’s
big head should replace Steve McQueen’s face in
Agente secreto [Secret Agent] (2009) [p. 47], or that
Professor Tornasol should turn up in Fans (2009),
and that the plump, placid Obélix should appear in
Obeliner (2008). Likewise with television: Ernie and
Bert are placed amongst a group of soldiers in Pesadilla
[Nightmare] (2009) [p. 101] and the Cookie
Monster appears with paradoxical precision among
what seems to be a group of African mercenaries in
Internacional [International] (2008) [p. 81]. These
are the few moments when Pomet transmits a not entirely
certain similarity with the aesthetics of Pop Art,
as the media potential of these icons does not act per
se, but in contrast to a particularly significant type of
scenarios and contexts, as we shall see later.
I think the influence of animated cartoons is even
more important. Almost all the mechanisms of distortion
we find in Paco Pomet’s work are expressive
solutions which, while they may not originate in the
language of animation (big heads, for example, have
been a feature of caricature in the press since at least
the 19th century), have found in this medium their (12) Op. cit., p. 9.
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