MARÍA ROBERTA

“The great illustrator Gabriel Frugone, author of the books “Gabriel Frugone, el mejor dibujante del mundo” (Gabriel Frugone the greatest Illustrator of the world) and “Gabriel Frugone, el artista mas creativo del universo” (Gabriel Frugone the the most creative artist of the universe) is responsible for a new masterpiece under the sobriquet of Pencilan. This great artist, procured by hundreds of countries (see Google), is admired in few of them and paid in almost none.”
It is with this hyperbolic declaration that Gabriel Frugone, known better as Pencilan, begins his blog (www.pencilanblog.blogspot.com). There, he provides plenty of commentaries about his work as an illustrator, comic and design artist—a reflection of his own personality.
Born in Uruguay, Gabriel Frugone arrived in Mexico a couple of years ago. I remember that when asked about his visit, he responded ambiguously, with a wry smile, that he came only to “know and see what there is to do.”
I do not know if the “see what there is to do” includes the physical, mental and sexual deviations we can find in his latest comics. If that were the case, there would be several other instances, particularly legal, to straighten them up.
From the Familia Leger to Los Adorables Ositos Nomecoma, Frugone makes fun of the pretentiousness and the most pathetic clichés that inadvertently, but persistently, flood our cultural environment. Music. TV. Soaps. Cartoons. Frugone's stories are some kind of high-on-crack pop art, plagued with references to philosophical bibliographies or, untouchable popular characters like Little Strawberry Rose, that lovable girl with a strawberry as a hat who decorated my bedspread during an infancy that knew nothing of sexual, cyclopean, predator teddy bears.
Nowadays, Gabriel Frugone is entirely devoted to designating, for himself, “universal” days that honor his artistic achievements; he produces a constant stream of hilarious and demented cartoons in addition to designing graphic works for periodicals and some other cultural products in Mexico—and the universe.
(www45.brinkster.com/tiruliru/)

01.03.2007