Toonpool artist Munguίa combines a painter’s command of color with the bold, curvaceous line work and playful humor of a master cartoonist. This is a beautiful, shimmery, decorative style with echoes of Picasso and Klimt, folk art, even ancient mosaics. It’s interesting in itself, but that’s just the beginning. There is always a parody, a joke, a surprising connection or a deeper meaning. His dreamlike scenarios carry you back to childhood, when two unlikely words strung together could call up an instant picture in your head. Or the expression on a dog’s face could put you in a dream. Munguίa encourages the fantasy – and unleashes a gorgeous world of zany, serendipitous delight.

Hawaiian Pizza

A surprised-looking pizza chef catches a wave at sunset on a huge slice of ham-and-pineapple pizza, in Hawaiian Pizza 2. His teal-blue color makes him pop against the red-orange sea of tomato sauce. The waves are foamy with sliced tomatoes, and after a moment it becomes clear what those clouds are – Midas-touched dollops of mozzarella. Like the surfer, we’re carried along by the wave’s red curve and the edge of the pizza slice, to a surprise at lower left – the setting sun frames a tiny bikini-clad girl on a sailboat, with a slice of pizza for the sail. There’s a hum of movement and contrast – flat space gives way to sudden depth, intricate patterns break up smoother areas of color, all in support of the carefree figure at the center with the enviable lifestyle. I would love to be this guy!

What if valet parking were really Ballet Parking, with the lot attendants pirouetting en pointe! In a play on cama, the Spanish word for bed, two beds are entwined in ecstasy in Kamasutra. And I love the sheer outrageousness of Barbies, with the bearded tranny Barbie dolls still encased in their boxes.

Munguίa’s masterwork parodies are always affectionate. A favorite of mine: Monalisa Giving the Finger! At first blush, the cartoonist seems to be putting the most famous painting of all time in its place. But the artist is actually in collusion with his timeless subject. He’d like to give her a break. The lady has been dying to do something rude for a few hundred years, and Munguίa finally gives her the chance!

Monalisa giving the finger

My recent interview with Munguίa.

Francisco Munguia

Where were you born, where did you study, and where do you live now?

I was born and raised in San Jose, Costa Rica. I’m currently living in Guadalupe, a canton of San José, the capital.

Which artists inspire you the most?

As a child I was a fan of Garbage Pail Kids and Topps sticker collections. The style of John Pound influenced me as much as Matt Groening and Quino. My country recognizes the influence of my colleagues Nano, Arcadio and Ferrom in my work.

You use a beautiful painterly technique in your cartoons – do you also put cartoons in your paintings?

I just do cartoons – the techniques are what I change. Sometimes I do acrylic paintings, ceramics, sculptures, animations and video games – all related in the unity of my own style into humoristic art.

How do you work?

When working digitally I start with an original drawing with ink on paper, then scan it and color it on the computer. I usually use Photoshop, but now I’m using a Bamboo Tablet and Animator to put color to my drawings on paper. In addition to publishing my drawings on toonpool, I produce the Calcamunguías, a series of stickers printed on vinyl. The collection started ten years ago, and so far there are 1,226 images and counting. Some are printed on tee shirts, and others are printed on ceramic tiles and then shown in galleries.

What do you do when you’re not doing art?

I’m a husband and father of two children. I live with Deborah, Fausto (two and a half) and Fidel (a year and eight months), along with twenty-two dogs recovered by my wife from the street. In our shelter we had five dogs with three legs, two one-eyed dogs, a scarface one, ex-fighters, and mental illness. All good behavior, quiet and clean, thanks to my wife who has an extra-special ability to change the sad and sick into the happy and healthy.

I do art all the time. I paint and program video games for my kids, I help my wife in her work with illustrations and videos, and I also help many animal welfare groups and associations. I love to cook, I move furniture around the house, and I do installations.

More of Munguίa´s work you find here.

The Adda river nearby

01. Which movie/tv character you see yourself as and why?
There is a TV show, “Scrubs”, where the protagonist tends to imagine unreal situations to distract himself from reality. Sometimes I distract my attention from reality like that.

02. What was your New Year’s resolution?
I’m on a course for a new total different work..I hope to be promoted!

03. What bores you the most?
Listening to stupid politicians it’s what bores me the most. Berlusconi was the worst of all. But there are more… Monti and company aren’t different.

04. Do you like your place or would you like to live somewhere else?
I live in a small village in the countryside, a perfect place for children to grow “into the wild”, but I personally hope to move to a place just in front of the sea, somewhere, someday.

05. What are you able to do that Superman can’t do?
Superman can’t give people the intelligence to make this world the paradise that could be.

06. If you were sleep walking one night, where would you probably wake up the next day?
On a train…

07. What would you wear to be kicked out from a black tie cocktail party
No idea..perhaps a black sensual dress with tennis shoes

08. Tell me the biggest prank you did on a friend.
Usually the victim…is me! Maybe because I’m too ingenuous!

09. How to ruin your vacation?
Vacation…what does vacation mean?

10. If I gave you a giraffe, where would you hide it?
I would hide it among other giraffes.

11. What do you do when you see the glass half empty!
I go in front of the mirror and give a speech for the half full part!

More photos. Please click them to enlarge.

Credits to Nicoleta Ionescu for
talking with Cristina Bernazzani

toonpool.com artist Gerardo Llobet’s vision is so deeply held that he can’t draw a line without revealing it. His life-affirming spin on the world is encoded in the DNA of his cartoons. The humor and excitement, hubbub and catastrophe of social life his is subject, in his exquisitely realized bar scenes, street scenes, and beach scenes.

"Titus"

The flow of Gerardo’s breezy, fluid lines creates an almost audible buzz, particularly in his crowd scenarios. In Titus, gesture drawing reaches high art in this bar scene full of life, movement and character. A style like this one requires a dead-on technique. It looks effortless, but of course it isn’t. The ability to draw with this kind of freedom is the result of total self-assurance, technically and expressively. The organic curve is pre-eminent in Gerardo’s work. There are almost no straight lines, and where they exist, they show incredible variation – the same line can begin with a thick dark stroke, and end with a feathery, quivering edge.

Gerardo’s people are a true delight. The bodies and faces of his hilarious characters, their popping eyes and ecstatic grinning faces, their screwed-up foreheads and black-browed frowns, reveal every emotion. We do more than see these people – we know them on sight.
Their personalities bloom directly out of the gestural lines of their bodies, in an ideal fusion of form and character.

"Primadonna1"

In Gerardo’s cartoon portrait Primadona 1, we meet a blonde woman in mid-stride, naked except for the strip of her teal-blue swimsuit bottoms. She’s a squat, confident figure in motion, composed of layers. The heavy-lidded eyes surmount a gigantic potato-shaped nose, and the nose juts out from between the huge breasts. These breasts seem to be the Primadona’s real eyes – two ferocious organs that size up the landscape with piercing pink pupils. She’s balanced on her short right leg, while the other foot stabs the air with ecstatic toes, and waves at us like a hand. Her real hand and arm are flung outward like a tasseled cord. Though her face is submerged, we know she’s a beauty. What does she want, a sunnier spot on the beach? A hot dog swathed in mustard? A new man? Whatever it is, this Primadona has an intensely appealing quality. The tenderness of this portrait is characteristic of Gerardo’s affectionate depictions of his characters, male and female.

Here’s my recent interview with Gerardo

What inspires you the most?
The full moon, a little…and seeing the work of great artists.

When did you first become obsessed with bars?
This is how I get beer! I worked in a bar with my parents in my youth.

Which artists did you admire when you were younger?
Moebius, R. Crumb, Edika, Franquin…and lots more!

How do you get your amazing loose and fluid line?
I developed this technique to make quick notes while taking orders at the bar.

I’m interested in how you’ve combined pen and ink with digital – do you draw first, and then color?
I work on parts of drawings with china ink and watercolor, and I also do ballpoint sketches.
I scan them, and then use the magnetic loop. With the magic wand I select areas in which I use gradients, brushes, filters, and the clone stamp to get the same tone as watercolors.

How often do you draw from life, with something in front of you?
At all times I observe the girls around me. The rest is all imagination.

Are women’s boobs bigger in Spain?
Everything is bigger in Spain!

What would you say your philosophy of life is, if you have one?
Pursue gurus!

Please have a look at the first shops created by toonpool.com’s artists:

1. Ehrtarbeiten

Ehrarbeiten

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2. Little Shop of Toons

Little Shop of Toons

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3. Yavous Konsumtümpel

Yavous Konsumtümpel

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4. Mortimer T-Shirts Official Shop

Mortimer T-Shirts Official Shop

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5. Limbus

Limbus

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6. Gerd-Kunst

Gerd-Kunst

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7. Ramsestoons

Ramsestoons

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8. Köln Dom Cartoons

Köln Dom Cartoons

Please note that T-Shirst and Posters are beeing shipped within Europe only.

Please open your own shop here: 
english » | deutsch »

1. Which movie/TV character you see yourself as and why?
The movie character I see myself as would probably be the lead part in the film ‘Chocolate ‘ for so many reasons!!!

2. What are your New Year’s resolutions?
My new year’s resolution was to eat more chocolate and exercise less, or was it the other way round?  I choose not to remember.a

3. What bores you the most?
My day job bores me most at the moment.

4. Do you like your place or would you like to live somewhere else?
I love living in East Anglia and probably won’t ever go too far from it if I can avoid it.  I have tried but always seem to end up returning here.

5. What are you able to do that Superman can’t do?
Things I can do that Superman can’t, have a baby, go into the Ladies toilets, walk into a phone box without changing costume.

6. If you were sleep walking one night, where would you probably wake up the next day?
If I were sleep walking I would probably wake up in the nearest chocolate factory/ sweet shop/ ice cream parlour.

7. What would you wear to be kicked out from a black tie cocktail party
I could wear a cocktail dress and still get thrown out of a cocktail party.

8. Tell me the biggest prank you did on a friend.
The biggest joke I ever played on anyone was one of my ex managers. We had no staff and it was very difficult, but me and two of my collegues wrote out really ridiculous letters of resignation and handed them to him altogether.  He went white.  Five minutes later we watched his face change as he opened the first letter, then he realised it was April Fool’s Day.  The letters went right round all the managers at our supermarket, we’d written we were leaving to become strippers or prostitutes or something!!!!  All very ridiculous stuff.

9. How to ruin your vacation?
I’d have to get food poisoning or a tooth ache to ruin any holiday.

10. If I gave you a giraffe, where would you hide it?
I would hide a giraffe in the middle of an English supermarket with a sign round it’s neck saying ‘I’m a giraffe’.  English people don’t see anything in front of them and certainly don’t read signs.  They just complain if there’s not a sign. We’re a strange breed.

11. What do you do when you see the glass half empty!
What do I do with a glass half empty?  Depends what’s been in it.

Click on image to enlarge

Credits to Nicoleta Ionescu for talking with Kerina Strevens

The circles portraits, the Pencil vs. Camera series or his strong expressed views on the world communicated trough art – all are part of Ben’s artistic universe and really make you wonder about the man behind this.

Le Petit Julien’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manneken_Pis) clothes are a perfect inspiration for what to wear to a black tie cocktail party ! Read more fun stuff on the following letter.

01. Which movie/tv character you see yourself as and why?

Maybe The Joker, because he is the opposite of what he pretends to be.

02. What are your New Year’s resolutions?

I have the bad habit to not follow my New Year’s resolution… So I don’t take any…

03. What bores you the most?

I hate doing administrative stuff, you know… I’m very bad at it and never understand why it’s important.

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

I’d love to move away, very far. But maybe if I was living somewhere else, I’d want to come back…

05. What are you able to do that Superman can’t do?

Die, sadly.

06. If you were sleep walking one night, where would you probably wake up the next day?

50 km away, in the countryside… where the air is fresh.

07. What would you wear to be kicked out from a black tie cocktail party

I’d come naked 

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

I’d better not reveal it… Too dangerous.

09. How to ruin your vacation?

No sun, no girls…

10. If I gave you a giraffe, where would you hide it?

I’d cut it in pieces and eat it, lol.

11. What do you do when you see the glass half empty!

I’m usually somebody optimistic, so I’d be cool and happy until the glass is totally empty.

Credits to Nicoleta Ionescu for talking with Ben Heine

Junior’s artwork is so amazing that many of us were happy to find the story behind his ideas in the first interview, “Fabric and Fandom”, on toonpool’s blog.

What will you get if you mix cachaça (liquor made from fermented sugarcane) sugar and lime? You will get Brazil’s best known cocktail drink that could make you go to a cocktail party with a giraffe. Read more about it in the following letter:

A reason to wear a hat inside? Keeps the ideas warm!

He is the little one.

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

I love Homer Simpson, and now I have the same belly.

2. What are your New Year’s resolutions?

Stop smoking!

3. What bores you the most?

My short time to do all the things I want to do…

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

One of my dreams is live one time in Cuba… alone…

5. What are you able to do that Superman can’t do?

Superman can’t do my portraits

"The bar", as Junior and his friends call it, is the perfect place to grab a snak in the center of Sao Paolo

What´s so funny Junior?

Friends

6. If you were sleep walking one night, where would you probably wake up the next day?

At the Zoo, kissing a giraffe.

7. What would you wear to be kicked out from a black tie cocktail party

Probably, after some caipirinhas, naked, with one naked giraffe

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

I married her!

9. How to ruin your vacation?

I’m in permanent vacation… I need a job

10. If I gave you a giraffe, where would you hide it?

I don’t have the psychological conditions to answer more questions about giraffes.

11. What do you do when you see the glass half empty!

Sorry, my funny and intelligent answers gone away.

The characters end up on the "wall of sketches"

You can see a pile of clothes and some ink, but Junior can see a work of art.

There is not much talking without lips.

Credits to Nicoleta Ionescu for talking with Junior Lopes

Peter and his little brother, Dave

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

I see myself giving a very convincing performance in the role of… me, as a five-year-old boy in “Oblivion 1964″, a stirring tale of danger, courage and sublime cluelessness during a cataclysm. “Oblivion 1964″ is a short animated memoir of my experiences during and following the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964. You can view it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L-D1jqIr4c

2. Next plans or ideas?

I’m working on my second children’s book. Which means I first must publish my first children’s book. Otherwise my second book, if published, would be my first book. This is the kind of logical rigor I bring to all aspects of my life and work.

3. Your food today?

I think you mean “You’re food today?”, and no, I’m not (in spite of my below-mentioned neighbors, the Grizzlies.)

Taken when Peter´s band played a gig at Alice´s champagne palace in Homer-Alaska

Lost in traffic

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

I like the place I live AND would like to live someplace else. I resent the arbitrary laws of physics that dictate that I be merely in one place at one time. In my ideal world I would live simultaneously in Barcelona, Buenos Aries, Paris, New York, and Easter Island. Then I could write a Toonpool letter from each location. And if I got a phone call from someone I didn’t want to talk to, I could say, I’m sorry, but he’s in another city right now.

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

Lived simultaneously in Barcelona, Buenos Aries, Paris, New York, and Easter Island.

6. Who are your neighbors?

Grizzly bears, moose, and a nice woman who reupholsters furniture.

View from Peter's window. His neighbors are preparing to go picnic

7. Tell me the shortest joke you know

Q: What’s orange, and sounds like a carrot? A: A parrot

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

Once, a friend of my son called to ask if we could bring his instrument, a clarinet, to a big performance. I hate practical jokes, but for some reason I talked my son into removing the clarinet from the elegant black case that contained it, and replacing it with a large carrot. My son then hand-delivered the case to the unsuspecting victim. The poor kid opened it, and there, glowing radiant orange in the deep black softness of the case lay, not his precious instrument, but instead a garish root vegetable. Hilarity ensued. My one regret in this matter, aside from ever thinking of it at all, is not seeing the look on his face when he opened the case backstage. My one other regret is that we didn’t use a parrot.

Peter with his son, Wiley

Everybody loves a cartoonist

9. How to ruin your vacation?

Take me fishing or golfing.

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?

let’s give whomever is out there fair warning that we are coming.

Rapture

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

Martin Carthy, Richard Thompson, Marc Ribot.

Credits to Nicoleta Ionescu for talking with Peter Dunlap-Shohl

Nobel prize for cuteness

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

The Joker. Of course he`s originally a comic book character, but anyway… He`s a stylish guy, laughs a lot and his views about human society are very similar to mine. “Everything anybody ever valued or struggled for… it’s all a monstrous, demented gag! So why can’t you see the funny side? Why aren’t you laughing”?

2. Next plans or ideas?

No plans, really. I try to avoid making plans, because they have a tendency to transform into compulsions and I have enough of those already. The only thing I`d like to do is to publish a collection of horror stories. I have plenty of them ready, and some are actually quite good.

3. Your food today?

I just ate, thanks for asking. *burp* Mashed potatoes, onions and liver. I love liver. Liver is the best. If you don`t trust me, ask Dr. Lecter!

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

I live near town of Riihimäki – not too near, though – and the location itself is great. It`s quite peaceful here and a huge forest area begins almost from the yard. There are hares, all sorts of birds (an eagle owl used to hang around right behind the house), elks, deer, foxes, raccoon dogs, badgers… I`m not sure about bears, but a couple of winters ago there was talk about wolves being seen by some locals. Because of the closeness of real nature I`m happy for now, but in the future I want to live somewhere in the coast like when I was a kid, preferably right by the sea.

Downtown. A central view from the metropolis of Riihimäki

I never go to pubs and such, but this five star restaurant makes the best cheeseburger in the region!

It was so cold the...the dogs were wearing cats!

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

I never married for money. But hey, there`s still plenty of time for that!

6. Who are your neighbors?

A squirrel family and the bats living in the attic. They are the best neighbors ever. They mind their own business and there`s no need for small talk.

7. Tell me the shortest joke you know

Obama`s Nobel prize! Ha ha ha! Only three words and so much hilarity!

Visiting my number one fan Hipsu, the Siberian cat. I am the one with the tattoos

My drawing table. Actually my dachshund. Pitko draws all the pictures, I just sign them

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

Well, back when the earth was young and I had a social life, I joined a band to play bass. Once we had a practice and there were some girls along. One of them was all over our singer, and when we had a break, the singer man took the girl into a different room and told us not to disturb. We waited for a while, got a camera, kicked the door in and started taking pictures.

9. How to ruin your vacation?

TRY to have fun and to relax, instead of just having fun and relaxing.

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?

To be honest, I have to say that I wouldn`t care to participate. But if somebody whacked me in the head and stole my scribbles to send one of them along, I hope he (or she) would chose “Free fall”.

Free Fall

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

Tove Jansson.

Credits to Nicoleta Ionescu for talking with Jani Viljanmaa

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

The White Rabbit in „Alice in Wonderland“. It’s always in a hurry, too.

Katharina still has that dress but had not found the opportuniy to wear it again

2. Next plans or ideas?

Short-term: inhaling and exhaling. Long-term: to become a droll old lady. Mid-term: write and draw a new graphic novel.

3. Your food today?

Too much chocolate.

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

Ok, the weather is not always the best and the sea is four hours away. But to live somewhere else? No way!

Berlin--Rosenthaler Platz. This house used to stand in another country

Not the best food but the best view. The restaurant at Berlin television tower

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

To make a really huge mistake.

6. Who are your neighbors?

Nice families with ever so creative children, who always come up with completely new, hitherto unknown very loud noises – preferably at the weekend and early in the morning.

This great fellow lives down the hall with Katharina´s roommate

7. Tell me the shortest joke you know

π = 3

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

Those to whom I have played a big prank, are not my friends anymore – an indication of either the depth of the friendship or the nature of the prank.

9. How to ruin your vacation?

A beach without fossilized animals and a hotel room with living animals.

Outdoor fun. Comic Local Calls for the 48 hours Neukölln art festival in Berlin.

Katharina´s desk

Left: East Berlin. Background: the Golden West. In between: construction site of the new Berlin Wall Memorial. Everywhere: the first snow

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?

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

Yes, please! With milk!

Credits to Nicoleta Ionescu for talking with Katharina Greve