Manfred Sommer was a Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 comics

Comics

Comics denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual and verbal side in...

 artist

Comics artist

A comics artist is an artist working within the comics medium on comic strips, comic books or graphic novels. The term may refer to any number of artists who contribute to produce a work in the comics form, from those who oversee all aspects of the work to those who contribute only a part.-Comic...

, best known for the reporter comics series Frank Cappa.

Career

Sommer was born at San Sebastián

San Sebastián

Donostia-San Sebastián is a city and municipality located in the north of Spain, in the coast of the Bay of Biscay and 20 km away from the French border. The city is the capital of Gipuzkoa, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. The municipality’s population is 186,122 , and its...

.

He began his career as an informal pupil of Jesus Blasco

Jesús Blasco

Jesús Blasco was a Spanish author and artist of comic books, whose career covered most of the conventional history of comic strips. He worked extensively in British comics in the 1960s and 1970s.-Career:...

, and received creative support from the Blasco family during his young years. Sommer's main influences were Milton Caniff

Milton Caniff

Milton Arthur Paul Caniff was an American cartoonist famous for the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon comic strips.-Biography:...

, Frank Robbins

Frank Robbins

Franklin "Frank" Robbins was a notable American comic book and comic strip artist and writer, as well as a prominent painter whose work appeared in museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art, where one of his paintings was featured in the 1955 Whitney Annual Exhibition of American...

 and Hugo Pratt

Hugo Pratt

Hugo Eugenio Pratt was an Italian comic book creator who was known for combining strong storytelling with extensive historical research on works such as Corto Maltese...

.

Sommer created the series El Lobo Solitario, Polux, and El Tigre, before launching his first great success in 1981, Frank Cappa, which was published in the comics magazine Cimoc. Joining the Spanish creators such as Jordi Bernet

Jordi Bernet

Jordi Bernet Cussó is a Spanish comics artist, best known for the gangster comics series Torpedo and Jonah Hex.-Career:He was born in Barcelona, the son of a Spanish comic book artist, Miguel Bernet....

, Antonio Segura

Antonio Segura

Antonio Segura is a Spanish comics writer.-Biography:Antonio Segura's earliest work appeared in the early 80s after meeting the experienced artists José Ortiz, Luis Bermejo and Leopold Sanchez who were looking for an inexperienced scriptwriter, untainted by the industry...

, Leopold Sánchez

Leopold Sánchez

-Career:Sánchez was born in 1948 in Spain. Sánchez started his career in the comic book industry at the age of 14, as an assistant for the artist Gines Garcia. Throughout the 1960s he assisted the artists José Ortiz and Leopold Ortiz. He eventually started working on his own in Britain and France...

 and José Ortiz

José Ortiz (comics)

José Ortiz Moya is a Spanish comics artist, best known for several collaborations with Antonio Segura, such as the series Hombre.-Biography:...

, Sommer was part of the ambitious though short-lived Metropol initiative which published three magazines in the early 1980s, Metropol, Mocambo and KO cómics.

External links

• Manfred Sommer biography on Lambiek Comiclopedia
• "Manfred Sommer portarà una antologia de Cappa a la Massana" Diari d'Andorra article