Pumby #135
Pumby #135 represents the magazine at a pivotal creative moment: it arrived in 1960, shortly after the title transitioned from biweekly to weekly publication (a shift that took effect from issue #125 onward), signaling Editorial Valenciana's confidence in the property as Spain's dominant children's tebeo. The dense roster of simultaneous strips — Pumby alongside Cangurito, Pulgarín, Caperucita Encarnada, Payasete y Fu-Chinín, Becerrín y Monucho, and Centaurito, among others — captures the full ensemble format that made the magazine, in the words of comic historian Juan Antonio Ramírez, a credible homegrown alternative to Disney's dominance. As part of the broader Pumby run that eventually earned Spain's National Children's Magazine Award three times and reached a weekly circulation of 56,000 copies, issues like #135 document the fertile mid-run period before the anthology's format expanded and its contributor pool widened.
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The Pumby magazine was launched in April 1955 by Editorial Valenciana, built around the anthropomorphic black cat created by José Sanchis Grau, who had debuted the character in issue #260 of the sibling magazine Jaimito in 1954. The editorial team under art director José Soriano Izquierdo populated the magazine with strips by the same stable of Valencian artists who worked on Jaimito — including Karpa (Rafael Catalá Lucas), José Palop Gómez, Edgar, and others — giving the anthology a consistent house style. By the time issue #135 appeared in 1960, the Super Pumby spin-off had just launched (December 1959), and the magazine had recently gone weekly, expanding its publishing cadence and further embedding its cast of recurring characters into the rhythms of Spanish childhood reading.
Trivia · 8 facts
- The lead Pumby story in issue #135 is titled 'Rescate Audaz' ('Daring Rescue'), in which Pumby rescues the kidnapped son of a millionaire from bandits — a typical adventure-comedy plot for this era of the run.
- Issue #135 falls within the weekly publication period of the magazine: from issue #125 onward the title shifted from biweekly to weekly, placing #135 squarely in the early weekly era.
- The magazine's format at this point was 26.5 × 18.5 cm with color covers — the same compact format the series used from issue #1 through #460.
- Pumby ('el gatito feliz') was created by José Sanchis Grau (1932–2011), who debuted the character in Jaimito #260 (second half of 1954) before it received its own dedicated title in April 1955.
- The issue carried a supporting cast of recurring anthology strips whose credited creators are identifiable: Cangurito and Pulgarín by Karpa; Payasete y Fu-Chinín and Becerrín y Monucho by José Palop Gómez; Caperucita Encarnada by Edgar; Centaurito by Rojas de la Cámara.
- The Pumby magazine went on to win Spain's National Children's Magazine Award (Premio Nacional de Revistas para Niños) in 1963, 1965, and 1975 — awards the cover subtitle eventually referenced directly from issue #334 onward.
- A Super Pumby spin-off, launched in December 1959, gave the title cat a superhero alter-ego activated by orange juice concentrate — the first issues of that series would have been on newsstands simultaneously with Pumby #135.
- Classic material from this era of the series was later reprinted in the 'Libros Ilustrados' hardcover reprint line (from 1967) and received modern collected editions from Dolmen Editorial beginning in 2017, extending the cultural reach of stories first published in issues like #135.