Rompetechos

Rompetechos is a Spanish comic character created by cartoonist Francisco Ibáñez in 1964, protagonist of the series of the same name. Rompetechos is a short and myopic man whose poor vision generates comical situations. Ibánez stated repeatedly that, among his creations, this was his favorite character^[1] and due to this he appeared frequently in other series by the author, notably Mortadelo y Filemón (Mort and Phil).

Rompetechos is stubborn, short, short-sighted and clueless, his name (rompetechos means “ceiling breaker”) being an irony for his short height.^[2] The strips are 1 to 4 pages long and tell the life of this character and the funny situations that occur caused by his lack of vision.

The usual way of a cartoon of Rompetechos is usually as follows: The character has the need to do or buy something, so it starts to go back and forth causing many disasters because of his lack of vision that makes him confuse everything (e.g., confusing a young hairy man with a daisy and proceeding to "pluck" him or a man disguised as a Viking with a deer and trying to hunt him, etc.). If he tries to buy something he will invariably misread all the posters then will have a surreal dialogue with the store clerk. Rompetechos then mistreats the people he believes are laughing at him and then the situation escalates to physical violence or with Rompetechos locked in a jail or an asylum.

There are two conflicting stories about the creation of Rompetechos:

• Francisco Ibáñez said that his boss, Francisco Bruguera, admired an actor called Rompetechos and thus asked him to create a character named that. Ibáñez then created a character exactly the opposite of what his boss wanted. Supporting this version is the existence of a German film called Quax, der Bruchpilot, named in Spain Quax, el piloto Rompetechos[1]
• Journalist and Mortadelo magazine editor Vicente Palomares says that the character is caricature of a staff writer named Ernesto Pérez Mas.^[2]

Die Figur erschien erstmals 1964 im Magazin Tío Vivo ^{[ 3 ].} 1969 war sie die Hauptfigur des Magazins Din Dan und in den 1970er Jahren wurden zwei weitere Magazine nach ihr benannt. Sie ist neben Mortadelo y Filemón die einzige Figur des Autors, die im 21. Jahrhundert neue Comicstrips erhielt.

Im Film „La gran aventura de Mortadelo y Filemón“ (2003) , der auf einer anderen Figur des Autors, „ Mortadelo y Filemón “ ( Mort und Phil ), basiert, wird Rompetechos von Emilio Gavira gespielt und als Nostalgiker des Franco- Regimes dargestellt – eine Figur, die in den Comics nicht vorkommt. Regisseur Javier Fesser sagte dazu: „Ein kleiner Mann mit Schnurrbart, der immer wütend ist, muss ein Faschist sein.“ ^{[ 4 ]} In der Fortsetzung „ Mortadelo y Filemón. Misión: salvar la Tierra “ wurden diese Franco-Anspielungen entfernt.

Die Figur wurde von Leuten kritisiert, die darin eine Verhöhnung von Kurzsichtigen sehen, aber Ibáñez sagt, er habe selbst eine Sehschwäche und wolle niemandem schaden. ^{[ 5 ]}

• DE LA CRUZ PÉREZ, Fernando Javier. Die Comics von Francisco Ibáñez . Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla–La Mancha , Cuenca, 2008. ISBN 978-84-8427-600-5
• FERNÁNDEZ SOTO, Miguel. Die Welt von Mortadelo und Filemón . Medialive Content, 2008. ISBN 978-84-92506-29-3
• GUIRAL, Antoni . Das große Buch von Mortadelo und Filemón: 50 Jahre . Ediciones B . ISBN 978-84-666-3092-4

• Entrada in Ediciones B web (in Spanish)
• Reseña in comicpasion.com (in Spanish)
• Personajes de tebeo(in Spanish)