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For this new issue of Letter from… column, we asked toonpool.com artist Rafael Carrasco about his life and begged for some photographs of his working place and the city he lives nearby – Cuenca, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Trust site because of its many historical constructions. Even if the equator doesn’t cross exactly trough his yard, Rafael lives in a beautiful land, about 2500 meters above the sea level with no neighbors but his father. Let’s see how Rafael was about to invent sea-water beer:

1. Which movie/TV character you see yourself as and why?

Uncle Fester from Adam´s Family old TV show, it´s not that I want to be like him, it´s just that I look like him, ha-ha, although, It would be so cool if I could light bulbs like him and light up my drawings anyplace, anytime.

2. Next plans or ideas?

I´m working on a comic book, that is more like a graphic novel, I´m close to finishing it, it´s a science-fiction story about two detectives investigating some murderers that happened in Cuenca Ecuador of the future.

3. Your food today?

Veggie soup, and “seco de pollo”, that literally means dry chicken , but actually is quite the opposite, it is hard to explain in English since this is a very traditional dish in my country, so I leave that in mystery, but I must say it was delicious.

4. Do you like your place or would you like to live somewhere else?

I like the place I live, Cuenca in Ecuador. it´s a beautiful little city  in a valley surrounded  by Andean mountains,  where the weather is great, landscapes are fantastic and city spots like little colonial churches squares and bars located  in republican building make you feel in old times, as you see I really like my town, but also I would like to visit Spain some day, especially because I was born there and of course take a journey somewhere else beyond these mountains, but most I hope to get the unreachable visa, this is ironic that sometimes I feel like my own migration cartoon characters trying to cross the borders that keep me stuck.

5. What was the huge mistake in your life you (unfortunately) never did?

Still soon to know, I rather prefer not to think there is something I didn´t do, I would like to think I´m still young to do a lot of things I did not do yet, but there is a thing I will never do and I regret already, that is bungee jumping because I have an awful problem with heights…

6. Who are your neighbors?

Besides my dad, I have no neighbors, because I live in the countryside far from city.

7. Tell me the shortest joke you know

Can´t tell, I´m better with drawing jokes, it costs me a lot to express my humor in words.

8. Tell me the biggest prank you did on a friend.

I´m not proud, but someday on the beach a friend of mine was so thirsty because of a hangover, he asked me for water. But he also told me, and I quote, “I´ll drink sea water if I don´t get a beer”. So I made his wishes come true, I gave him sea water in a beer can, poor guy. That´s the ugliest prank I did on a friend.

9. How to ruin your vacation?

That´s a tricky question, because cartoonists don´t have vacations, on the other hand it is easy for us to travel everywhere if there is electricity and internet, so I guess there is a way for us to ruin vacations, going to a place without those services.

10. In 1977 NASA has sent orbiters Voyager 1 and 2 into space which will never stop to fly through the universe by gravity. They contain the Voyager Golden Records with many testimonials of the whole mankind, greetings in 55 languages introduced by US president Jimmy Carter (“This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings….”). The Golden Records with a lifespan of 500 million years at least are including drawings of a naked man and woman, detailed genitalia, many scientific graphics, sounds of planet earth and music by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart – and Chuck Berry:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3haYAbqKjA

Maybe aliens out there will be shocked in some million years! But in case such a NASA mission will be replayed: which (1) of your artworks should join it?

“What moves the earth” cartoon would be my offer.

11. Please give us an answer to a question we didn’t ask!

Sometimes I sign my work as LUCAS as my pseudonym, because it was my nickname in high-school. I already told you I look like Uncle Fester…. let me explain,  this famous character´s name, was translated into Spanish as Tío Lucas, ha-ha! Truth be told, I got bold very, very young .

Credits to Nicoleta Ionescu for talking with Rafael Carrasco

© toonpool.com

Tags: artist, cartoons, Interview, letter from, Rafael Carrasco, toonpool.com

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 27th, 2010 at 9:41 pm and is filed under 2010, Community, Interview, Letter from. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.