#daniel torres

Daniel Torres “Opium” (1989) Source

What an exquisite group portrait by the Spanish master of the Clear Line! It is rendered with ink, white paint, and watercolor.

You might not have recognised that this was Torres―handily the most well-known member of the Valencian school of comics that found it's home in the magazine Cairo in the '80s―at first glance, for he was still aping Miguel Calatayud and had yet to properly assimilate the E.P. Jacobs and Milton Caniff influences into his drawing. The Torres of Rocco Vargas and the rest of his later oeuvre feel increasingly sterile to me. After the first few Vargas albums the influence of Calatayud becomes increasingly fainter in favour of classical, starchier influences. It's similar to the career trajectory of one Ted Benoit, who's work's quality similarly deteriorated (to my eyes) when E.P. Jacobs seemingly became the influence rather than just one piece of the puzzle. I'm of the opinion that E.P. Jacobs (like Caniff in Anglophone comics) has had a largely deleterious effect on the development and maturation of European comics ― but that's a screed for another day.

Rocco Vargas

Daniel Torres, Sabotage, 1983

Torres made it through the opening round earlier this year and is on to the quarterfinals. He will face off with Ronald Paradeiser (19-8) this Saturday (July 20) at Oktagon 59.