Joaquín García Abellán - Memoria del Diseño

Joaquín García Abellán

Molina de Segura (Murcia), 1950 – Murcia, 2024

Cartoonist, painter, advertising creative, social activist

I begin by declaring that I feel privileged to be in charge of writing about Joaquín García Abellán, Chipola, because graphic design and advertising communication in the Region of Murcia —and also graphic humor, comics, drawing and painting— have in him one of their most talented representatives.

And that I would have liked very much to be able to transcribe his own words, but it is too late for that, because this multifaceted creative has been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease since December 2019 and today he can no longer face an interview.

I will try to compose a portrait that does him justice, with memories of people we have known him at different times in his life and the generous collaboration of his wife, Irene Torregrosa, and their two daughters, Irene and Elisa, also a designer, by the way.

I know a couple of things about Chipola that Google doesn’t know. For example, that his birth nickname was Pipa and that he took his artistic name from another family, Molinense like his, whom he knew a lot for going on adolescent adventures with a born “Chipola”, my friend JoséAntonio Ruiz Rex. This one, who has had to deal all his life with having a famous colombroño, has not forgotten how they became farmers in their spare time from studies, to experience first-hand the harshness of manual work in the dry land. Although their social commitment remained firm, the experience lasted only one alfalfa harvest.

Joaquín is an autodidact who has always drawn as if there were no tomorrow. Doodles first and then comics, because, as he himself told and some biographies collect, thanks to Francisco Abad, he discovered Spanish and American masters such as Miguel Quesada, author of “Black Panther”; Luis Bermejo and “Apache”; the “Valiant Prince” of Harold Foster and the “Flash Gordon” by Alex Raymond. And also the works of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Ingres and Raphael, which have always fascinated him.

After the death of Juan, his father, two other people influenced him to devote himself fully to creation: one was Francisco García Albaladejo and the other Baldomero Ferrer “Baldo”, who soon incorporated him into his advertising agency, Ekipo, where he learned the trade of graphic designer and consolidated his mastery of humorous drawing.

At the end of the 70s, he began to publish his series “La familia Chipola” in the newspaper “La Verdad” of Murcia and at the beginning of the 80s he achieved national recognition, publishing in the magazine “Senda del Cómic” and the weekly humor “El Jueves”. Later, he collaborated in the Murcian newspaper “La Opinión”, which he combined for a time with the magazine “Noticias Obreras”.

In the mid-80s, Chipola created the advertising agency Contraplano, one of the most dynamic in our region, until its closure in 2011. Many graphic designers and advertising creatives passed through it, young then and today recognized professionals. Its clients, public institutions and private companies, are counted in the hundreds.

With Chipola and his team from Contraplano I participated in an exhibition production on radio for the City Council of Murcia in Los Molinos del Río, hired by its director, María Isabel Parra Lledó. A demanding job that has been clearly engraved in my memory, these are the matters of which you feel proud and, above all, you learn a lot. Chipola has created drawing courses that were published in the Sunday edition of “La Verdad”. He was also the intellectual author of the advertising creativity conference Cerebrando, with the University of Murcia, Cajamurcia and the Jesús Abandonado Foundation. His jokes and illustrations have been exhibited in Segovia, Tudela, Valladolid, Palencia and Salamanca. A restless creative, he has also explored photography and advertising spots. One of his most popular works was the realization of a Huertana Deck commissioned by the newspaper “La Opinión” that we can still find in many houses.

Painting was his last vocation and he gave himself fully to it since the beginning of the millennium. It was the Chys gallery in Murcia that opened its doors to him in 2004, for his first successful solo exhibition as an artist, entitled Nudes, Dreams and Awakenings. And he also showed the following year, in the Aula de Cultura of the Cajamurcia Foundation in Madrid, the proposal Chipola, nudes and acrobats.

That same year and coordinated by Paco Olivares, the Nausicaä publishing house published Ahí hay un hombre que grita ¡Ay!, a compilation of his press jokes from the 90s, a book for the enjoyment of his skill as a cartoonist and his fine sense of irony. With messages that, at least to me, reach me like arrows, direct and deep, to the heart and brain. And that’s why I like them so much. Perhaps it is influenced by the fact that in my sentimental education – the same one that today we describe as emotional – Mingote, Quino and Hermano Lobo are present, as in his.

Chipola continued to create non-stop and in 2019 we learned of her passion for black music thanks to the exhibition organized in the Ámbito Cultural room of El Corte Inglés in Murcia, with drawings and paintings in tribute to Jazz & Soul.

And, although his personal website is no longer active, by consulting the World Wide Web it is possible to find some traces of his steps in digital communication and, by browsing them, get to know him a little better as a designer and artist. What Google also knows is that Joaquín García Abellán has remained committed to social causes throughout his life and thus, we find him among the indefatigable citizens who defend the burying of the train tracks.

My hope is that, just as Chipola has come to know that we finally got the AVE to pass under and us to go above, it will perceive the warmth of this re-recognition promoted by our collective.

[Update 10/07/2024]:
Joaquín died serenely during the early hours of July 5, accompanied by his wife and two daughters. The presence of friends at his funeral was very numerous; The farewell messages, full of praise and recognition, continue to be produced.

………

A memory of Teresa Jular, with the collaboration of Elisa and Irene García Torregrosa and Raquel Puche, from the Municipal Archive of Molina de Segura. The portrait is based on a photograph by Marcial Guillén for the newspaper La Opinión.
May 2024