2023-09-19 16:22:02
Not even Jorge Oliver was clear about the reason why Captain Plin was green. «I remember it well, because at the end of my presentation on the experiences of using humor and fantasy in primary education, a participant asked us, intrigued, about the color of the cat. Without thinking, half surprised by the question, I answered: “Well, because all cats are green.” “No one criticized me for that answer, on the contrary: everyone applauded,” he commented with his particular jocularity, the Cuban illustrator on one of the several occasions in which he spoke with Rebel Youth.
This September 18, when we were surprised by the news of the death of the renowned and multifaceted cartoonist Jorge Oliver Medina (Havana, 1947), those childhood images passed through the minds of many in which that green cat, dressed in boots, a cape, was the protagonist. and red beret, armed with a sword, rogue and good person, but also the evildoer Rui la Pestex, along with all the inhabitants of that peculiar island.
The discoverer of Cocos Island, the one who told us how to get there and the benefits of that green land, full of curious characters, built something great. From a comic printed in magazine editions Zunzúneven a television series, through the merchandisings or video clips singing some stories of the characters created by Oliver, Plin swarms through the Cuban popular imagination as an authentic Creole superhero, as has been Elpidio Valdés and many others created by another essential: Juan Padrón.
Precisely, thanks to Padrón, Oliver recognized in another conversation for this newspaper that Plin undertook the great story that has spanned 42 years, since its appearance in a Zunzún magazine in 1981. «It turns out that Ian Ernesto, the director of Habanastation, of little one was very restless. His father, Juan Padrón, entertained him by telling him stories. One day Juanito told him that the green cat had a sword and fought against pirate mice. The next day he told me the anecdote and it occurred to me to create a complete world for the cat. Plin and Cocos Island were later born; for the first time, in issue 8 of Zunzún magazine.
The discoverer of Cocos Island, the one who told us how to get there and the benefits of that green land, full of curious characters, built something great
«The green cat is not born like Plin. And Plin, like almost all the protagonists, is born as a secondary character. I worked in the propaganda team of the José Martí Pioneers Organization. He used comics as a vehicle of communication. The problem was that when we advertised on posters, comics… about negative things, the same boys were the protagonists. That didn’t work. So we looked for a secondary character and it occurred to us that he was a cat.
Through his characters, Oliver transmitted values such as camaraderie, love of country, loyalty and bravery to children and young people that decades later they transmit to their descendants, recognizing themselves in those stories, in those songs, in those images. Just as they began to recognize the artist, that name—Jorge Oliver—that appeared in the comics, when one day he decided to get in front of the screen and host a program like Cuadro a Cuadro.
The television space attracted audiences eager to see films of internationally known superheroes. At a time when it was not as easy to access this type of film products, as it is now, Jorge Oliver could come out of a scene from a Batman movie, as if he were on set, and explain to us some characteristics of the production of the film that Minutes later we would watch, fascinated, from beginning to end. He was a drawing artist, but above all, a master of communication that he knew how to transmit, because he was passionate about his work—comic, drawing, illustration, anime—and he knew who he was for. she spoke.
“To jump from one medium to another you need children to believe in you,” he said about the leap that Plin has made to different formats throughout his history. The truth is that many of us believed in the work of Jorge Oliver, in his ability to educate, to synthesize aspects of Cubanness, narrate them, make us laugh and, above all, reflect. His contributions as an illustrator to projects such as Singing to the Sun, Chamaquiliits titles published under the Abril label, the books of Cocos Island (2001, 2004, 2019), Katila: Animal doctor (2007), The Muñes… How were they born? How are they made? (2013).
Jorge Oliver leaves for the enjoyment of many a work that hopefully continues to transcend other formats and give way to new stories that fill childhoods with joy and artfully reflect the thick diversity that surrounds us. Oliver himself already said it in another interview for Juventud Rebelde: «The new generation of cartoonists is a stained glass window. There is everything. From those who still aspire to draw manga to those who only work with stories taken from the Yoruba tradition. As long as we manage to continue being a great rainbow, we will be fulfilling Cuba. Our country is a melting pot in which mangas and Changó fit.
Taken from Juventud Rebelde
#Goodbye #discoverer #Cocos #Island