Antonio Fraguas de Pablo (Madrid, January 17, 1942), known as Forges (the translation into Catalan of his first surname), is a graphic humorist, the son of a Catalan mother and a Galician father. At the age of fourteen he started working for TVE, leaving soon afterwards to devote himself to graphic humour. His first cartoon appeared in Pueblo (1964). Later he was to draw for Informaciones, Diez Minutos, Sábado Gráfico, Interviú, Lecturas, Hermano Lobo, Por Favor and El Jueves, among other publications. He has also published work in Diario 16 and El Mundo. Since 1995 he has published a daily cartoon in El País. He has directed two films (País SA, in 1975, and El bengador gusticiero y su pastelera madre, in 1977) and four humorous series on television. He has also made numerous radio programmes and has written the novel Doce de Babilonia (1992).
He is an inventor of words and catch phrases that have become popular, and characters that have become famous: Mariano and Concha, the castaways on the desert island, the incredible old ladies in rural villages, Blasillo, stupid yuppies, the annoying civil servant behind his desk, and corrupt politicians, plus details of urban life like ambulances and buildings with strange posters in a noisy, run down town.
Social criticism is basic in his work, with titles such as El libro del Forges (1972), Los forrenta años (40 años de franquismo) (1976), Historia de aquí (1980), Historia forgesporánea (1984), Colección “La Neurona Feliz” (1996), Humor del día (2004), Arte de am@r (2005) and La Guerra Incivil (2006). He has also illustrated many books. In 2008 he proposed that graphic humorists around the world should support the UN Millennium goals.
He has received numerous prizes, distinctions and awards, including the Prize for Freedom of Expression awarded by the Spanish Union of Journalists, the International Gat Perich Humour Award and the Creu de Sant Jordi. He has also been made an Honorary Member of the College of Journalists of Catalonia. The University of Alcalá de Henares appointed him as Technical Director of the Instituto Quevedo del Humor. In 2007, the Council of Ministers awarded him the Gold Medal for Merit in Work, and in 2011, the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts. In 2012, he received the FAO Award for publicising the problem of hunger in the world with his drawings. In 2013, the Rodolfo Benito Samaniego Foundation, in Alcalá de Henares, awarded him its Prize for Coexistence, Peace and Freedom.
LiberPress Award 2013
Antonio Fraguas de Pablo (Forges), the great graphic humourist, received the LiberPress 2013 Award for his long, solid and humanitarian career, during which, with his drawings and with a sense of humour that is sarcastic, mordant, acid, critical, truthful, stark and sharp, but also tender, delicate and amusing, he has always fiercely defended true democratic values, solidarity, tolerance and human rights, supporting the weakest and most disadvantaged, denouncing injustice and the loss of moral direction in this cynical and ultra-capitalist society, dominated by the power of banks and multinationals, the military, intolerant religions, reactionaries, pseudodemocratic dictators and pseudodictatorial democrats, chauvinists and people who are rude. In short, the society of those who are very rich, corrupt and violent.