Calpurnio

I first heard about the Spanish cartoonist Calpurnio from a discussion by Thierry Groensteen in his La Bande Dessinée: mode d’emploi (more on that in the future). Calpurnio uses stick figures and minimalist backgrounds, a very clean and iconic style. Unfortunately, his work is in Spanish so I can only vaguely make out the text and am probably missing much. But I like what I see in simple pages like this one. The drawing style is reminiscent of Ed Emberley’s work.

Half of a Cuttlas page

But Calpurnio does not limit himself to a conventional stick figure style. He varies his approach to supplement the stick figures, most impressively in this multi-page work that involves the German band Kraftwerk. As far as I can tell “Cuttlas”, Calpurnio’s cowboy character, dreams about meeting Kraftwerk. The use of strings of number, symbols, sine waves, and circuitry add a texture to many of the panels (and create a rather strange contrast with the western genre).

His use of spare coloring is unusual. He doesn’t use color in every panel and often the color is used more as another way differentiate the characters than for any realistic or expressive effect. At other times the colors are more expressive and powerful in their contrast with the other panels.

I’ll have to see if I can find French editions (if there are any) of his work.

Tags: color, minimalism, stick-figures

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