[Meeting…] Benito Boniato

Being a teenager is not easy. It is the time in which little by little our identity as individuals is consolidated. It is also the vital stage in which responsibilities experience sustained growth, progressively leading us towards the academic or professional path that we will follow in adulthood. It is enough to take a quick look back to remember those scoldings from the teachers, or those failures that weighed us down for months or entire courses, although, if we are lucky, also those friendships for life, or at least a good part of it.

Now, what happens if we add the bad luck of the teenager to the stormy life of a teenager?Bruguera characterhalf? What gives us as a result Benito Boniato studies high school, the brothers series Luis and Carlos Fresno, published under the signature Fresno's since 1977 in Zipi y Zape magazine.

A Bruguera-style teenager

Benito Boniato It looks like what it is, the typical urban middle class teenager, according to the prototype of the time in which it was drawn. Your identity marks are your blonde hair with quiff, the moderate length of its nose, otherwise not excessively thick for males of the genus, its puffy ears and its characteristic sweater with turtleneck shirt below. With a happy appearance, although at times a little dazed, his physical appearance underwent small changes from the beginning of the series until his stylistic maturity, going from presenting more boyish features and a smaller stature to "hitting a growth spurt", already with all the appearance of a tall and lanky teenager.

Personally, Benito is a mediocre and indifferent student, always willing to complete his homework as little as possible, to be absent from class with any excuse and even cheat on exams if he is in a hurry enough to try. However, on occasions he will demonstrate that he is capable of showing will and tenacity when a matter is of interest to you. Furthermore, like every Bruguera character, he is clumsy, clueless and with terrible luck which means that he rarely achieves what he sets out to do.

Studies, friends and family life

Broadly speaking, our character's adventures can be divided into three categories: student, recreational and free time and family, although there is another nothing insignificant belonging to the field of fancy, to which the authors dedicate not only some comics, but two entire volumes, to which we will refer in the last section. All of them usually end negatively for him. At school, his bad attitude described above will cost him reprimands from his teachers, his father and, from time to time, his classmate Cabezórrez, the class nerd.

It will be in the comics with a recreational and free time theme in which his two best friends (whom we can also see at school, since they are classmates) play the most role: Luis Mico, named so because of his simian features, which will fade with the passage of time, and Quintalon, a chubby boy who is always thinking about eating. Due to their active nature and their love for the outdoors, sports and nature, they usually dedicate their vacation days to doing hiking, going to the beach, and ultimately, living any adventure which, like any self-respecting Bruguera comic, will end in an accident. To this framework of friendships it is worth adding Balarrasez, un chaval pícaro, bromista y aprovechado (le suele “sablear”, es decir, pedir dinero prestado) cuyas múltiples ocurrencias y gracietas costarán caras a nuestro protagonista.

En cuanto al ámbito familiar, son frecuentes los tiras y aflojas con su padre, un esforzado oficinista que suele mostrarse severo con él por su escaso sentido de la responsabilidad que a menudo amenaza con retirarle la paga. Otro tanto puede decirse de su madre, una ama de casa que le suele mandar recados, para lo cual el avispado adolescente ha desarrollado una habilidad especial para escabullirse. Por su parte, ella suele recurrir a efectivas técnicas de persuasión, especialmente la de amenazar con chivarse a su padre del resultado de su último examen. Tampoco faltan los típicos roces con su hermano pequeño Julito. Digno de mención son las ocasionales apariciones de Amadeo, su primo del pueblo, cuyas rústicas costumbres serán un foco de disgustos para Benito.

Conclusion and recommendations

Benito Boniato es un estudiante normal y corriente y especialmente torpe y desafortunado en casi todo lo que hace, siguiendo la mala estrella de todo personaje de Bruguera. Aunque las modas hayan cambiado, los coloquialismos ya no sean los mismos (hay profusión de ellos, como “guateque”, “mover el esqueleto”, etc.) o que, en lugar de tocadiscos, hoy en día se usen los reproductores de los Smarthphones y demás aparatos, la intemporalidad de escenas vivamente cotidianas en esas edades hacen que, aún hoy, sea un personaje bastante cercano.

The series Benito Boniato, estudia bachilleratohizo acto de aparición en las revistas Zipi y Zape and Super Zipì y Zape desde 1977 hasta mediados de los 80. Debido a la popularidad de la que gozó en su momento, la editorial publicó una colección monográfica de Olé compuesta por nada menos que diez volúmenes, algo bastante considerable para los estándares de Bruguera, tal como hemos podido comprobar con tantas otras series. De entre todos ellos, cabe destacar los dos primeros, La saga de los Boniato and Superhéroes del cómic, una especie de spin-offs que dejan a un lado lo cotidiano para entrar en lo histórico y lo fantástico respectivamente y que, además, destacan por lo extremadamente cuidado de su grafismo. No obstante, para conocer la esencia de la serie, mejor leer el resto de tomos, compuestos por historietas cortas autoconclusivas de entre una y ocho páginas.

Por desgracia, lo más reciente que se ha publicado de él en las dos últimas décadas es una antología bastante pobre en la colección Clásicos del Humor de RBA.