Horace Horsecollar (D4552)
José Ramon Ferré Elies, better known as Pepe Ferré, was a Catalan comics artist and art director. He was involved in several humorous print publications aimed at children, at first through the studio's Recreo and Sanchis, and then through his own company Comicon S.L. in Barcelona. He served as Comicon's art director from 1988 until 2013, and supervised the studio's art production for a great many licensed properties, mostly for German publishers. He continued to work as an artist himself for children's publications like TIGGER Magazine and Bummi, and for Ravensburger's Disney puzzles. Pepe Ferré should not be confused with the comics artist José Luis Ferrér Rozalen (1946-2012), who worked on realistic comics for British and American publishers. Funny enough, the two men were childhood friends, but not related.
Born in 1949, José Ferré grew up in a small town near Tarragona, then moved to Barcelona to pursue his artistic ambitions. He was the apprentice of a photographer, and subsequently began his career in the field of advertising. After a small stint in animation he turned to comics in the early 1970s. He illustrated about 150 short gags with Walt Disney's 'Mickey Mouse' and 'Goofy' for the Danish publisher Gutenberghus through Francesc Bargadà's Studio Recreo between 1976 and 1980. In the early 1980s he produced six longer adventure stories with 'Mickey Mouse' for Mondadori's Disney magazine Topolino from Italy as well. He was later affiliated with the art studio of Blas Sanchis, but he had the longest association with Studio Comicon, of which he was art director from 1988 until 2013.
Topolino e il messaggio del re (Topolino #1297, 1980)
Comicon had its origins in the German town Neubiberg near Munich. In late 1977 Peter Wiechmann and his associate Fred Kipka began an agency under this name to provide magazines like YPS and Rolf Kauka's Fix und Foxi with comics pages. They mostly contracted Spanish artists for the production, which were from 1980 on affiliated with José Canovas' Studio Comicup in Barcelona. When Kipka left Comicon to begin his own Kipkakomiks agency, Wiechmann transferred his activities to Barcelona. Comicon S.L. was founded in the summer of 1988 with Wiechmann as managing and editorial director, and Pepe Ferré as art and creative director. Administrative support was provided by Edwina Taeger (1988-1993) and Mari-Angeles Soldevila (from 1993 onwards). Wiechmann departed in 1997 after which Ferré managed the studio with Christof Ruoss, who continues to run the company to this day (2018). Comicon's staff further consists of the artists Miguel Sanchez, Alex Capera, Ricardo Zaplana and Mariela Barnes, and the art directors Susan Aumann, Eva Blank and Sabine Schwindling. About a hundred affiliated artists provide the pencil art, inking and coloring of comics stories, illustrations and puzzle/activity pages with existing characters, but also concepts and designs for new mascots and brand characters.
Because of its origins, the studio's main activities have been for German publishing houses like Egmont-Ehapa, Pabel-Moewig and Blue Ocean Entertainment. Comicon produced much material with Rolf Kauka's characters for the Pabel-Moewig Verlag until the demise of Fix und Foxi in 1992. When the magazine was relaunched by Tigerpress between 2006 and 2009, the stories were provided by Comicon's Heinz Kinzler (scripts), Julian Jordan (pencils), Luis José Beltrán (inking) and Oriol San Julian (coloring). Comicon also produced original gag pages based on the Disney TV series 'DuckTales' and 'Rescue Rangers' for the German magazine Limit between 1993 and 1995. Pepe Ferré himself illustrated Disney jigsaw puzzles for Ravensburger in the 1990s. Between 2002 and 2007 he was responsible for penciling the content of Egmont-Ehapa's internationally published Disney bi-monthly TIGGER Magazine. Ferré remained active as an artist himself throughout his tenure with the studio. Besides Disney art, he was the penciler and inker of the German pre-school monthly about the bear Bummi, published by Bauer Media's subdivision Pabel-Moewig.
For Egmont-Ehapa, the team of Ferré and Ruoss has worked on several pre-school Disney booklets, the magazine with Kiddinx's 'Bibi und Tina' (2002-2013), comics based on Rolf Kalmuczak's children's book series 'TKKG' (2008-2009) and Fashion Cats magazine (since 2013). Comicon furthermore made comics and illustrations for the German magazine based on the Japanese media anime franchises such as 'Digimon' (2000-2005) and 'Mega Hiro' (2002-2008) for Dino, books and merchandising with 'Diddl', illustrations with the Nickelodeon characters 'Dora the Explorer' and 'Spongebob Squarepants', comics based on Futurikon's animated TV series 'Dragon Hunters' and the 'Babylon 5' spin-off 'Technomage' (Carlsen Comics, 2000-2001). A major client is Blue Ocean Entertainment, which has published a great many German children's magazines since 2005. These include properties licensed from Kiddinx ('Benjamin Blümchen', 'Bibi Blocksberg'), Coppenrath ('Käpt'n Sharky'), Geobra Brandstätter ('Playmobil Magazin', 'Playmobil Comic-Spezial', 'Playmobil Girls'), SCG Power Rangers LLC ('Power Rangers: Samurai'), The Lego Group ('Lego: Ninjago', 'Lego: Chima', 'Lego: Friends'), Verlag Friedrich Oetinger ('Die Olchis', based on the children's book series by Erhard Dietl) and Dracco Company ('Predators DNA Fusion'). The studio was additionally responsible for the graphical creation of characters like 'Salusino' for the food supplements company Salus Haus, 'Schluffi' for pharmacy calendars through Goerler Werbe GmbH, 'Bille, Kim & Kiko' for AnyCare GmbH, 'Viktor und die Schlemmerbande' for Mövenpick, 'Extrem Bissig!' and 'Lilly & Luna' for Blue Ocean Entertainment and 'Lilly Magic Ponys' and 'Die Zauberflocke' for Pabel-Moewig.
Comicon furthermore delivered magazine art to Einfach Tierisch, Diddl's Käseblatt, Tiggers Spielekiste, Traum-Prinzessin, Bobby and Bastei Verlag's pulp book series 'Geisterjäger John Sinclair'. Book publishers who requested Comicon's services were Pestalozzi (books with Jim Henson/Disney Channel's 'Bear in the Big Blue House'), Ellermann (Nici's 'Little Wingels'), Xenos (Disney children's books, pop-up books, 'Sesame Street' books, and more), Ladybird (books based on Dreamworks' 'The Prince of Egypt') and Nelson/Lingen (booklets with Kiddinx characters). Additional artwork was made for digital and online projects like 'Sumsi', the mascot of the Raiffeisen bank goup), Coppenrath's 'Hase Felix', a Nintendo DS game with Sony's 'Hexe Lilli' and online activities with KVG Baltrum's 'Onnie und die Ahois'.
Pepe Ferré retired from his studio work in 2013. He spent several weeks in a coma after a heart transplant, and passed away in Barcelona on 5 July 2018 at the age of 69.
Among the many talented writers, pencilers, inkers and colorists who have worked for Studio Comicon are:
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