#madriz

José Manuel Nuevo, two pages from his cubist comics short story "Armas Inofensivas" ('Harmless Weapons') from the first issue of the Madrilenian comics magazine Hélice, 1982.

As far as I can tell this is Nuevo's first appearance in a comics periodical.* The style Nuevo employs here is a far cry from the work he did in Madriz, which is what I'm most familiar with (there's an example of that work here). Nuevo's Madriz work is still cubist but trades the Analytic busyness and chicken fat for a more assured, minimal look influenced by Futurist designers like Fortunato Depero.

Nuevo was not the only Spanish cartoonist active during the eighties to embrace Cubism and other Modernist art movements as a major influence: fellow Madriz contributers Juan Calonje, Micharmut and J. Serra also took cues. All of these artists made comics that, importantly, actually look Cubist and fulfill the movement's preoccupations (mapped out by critics like Clement Greenberg), unlike Jack Kirby, Yuichi Yokoyama and other cartoonists art-illiterate critics like to spuriously connect to Cubism. If you want to compare Kirby to fine-art movements, Latin-American Muralism and Pop-Art are right there. You don't have to make shit up.

Nuevo is still active today, though he's long since abandoned the comics form, something he has in common with many of his peers. On his instagram he's been posting some of his recent work (Matisse-esque paper cutouts and wild collage) and some of his early graphic design and comics work. Check it out.