Introduction – Manuel Junco

Manuel Álvarez Junco is Professor Emeritus of the Department of Design & Image, Faculty of Fine Arts, Complutense University of Madrid. Previously was Director of that departament. He is currently at charge of General Direction of Complutense Summer Courses at El Escorial. Member of the Jury of the Spain National Design Prize, has published graphic work and held solo exhibitions in the USA, China, Kuwait, Italy, Colombia and Mexico. He has written several articles and books. His last book is El Espejo y el Martillo (Hammer and Mirror), Turpin Ed, Madrid 2017.

"Humor is indeed a daily instrument of real life, of the concrete world. Its direct function is to relativize the abstract, the formal, the "mental exactitude”. Comicality is perhaps the most social of all the spiritual functions aimed at achieving pleasure. Therefore, it is elaborated under the condition that the others understand the proposed game because, if they do not, then it has no reason to exist. Graphic humor fulfills a questioning role of apparent reality, which does not imply that its goal is not one of “truth”. Instead, its role is —and it is not a minor one— a calling to order of a mess of forms in this poorly structured world."