Between tortilla skewers, beers and 'Star Wars': this is how Goomer, the clumsy space trucker, was born

Traveling to space has always been very complicated for any earthling.

Coming into contact with aliens, making monstrous-looking green friends, marrying someone with three eyes, and screwing up non-stop, like mistaking the basketball for the game referee, is only available to guys like Goomer. , the interstellar traveler created in the late seventies by cartoonist Ricardo Martínez and screenwriter Nacho Moreno.

But Goomer became popular when he landed on the pages of the children's supplement of EL PAÍS,

where he landed with his ship on April 10, 1988, after its creators had tried it in the American press.

Two years later, the character moved to the pages of

, where he starred in pranks until December 2013, when

ceased to be published .

Now, a chest collects in two volumes (1,248 pages), published by Norma Editorial, its more than 1,200 strips in order of appearance.

EL PAÍS publishes today an unpublished vignette of this antihero coinciding with the first anniversary of the death of Nacho Moreno, on August 16, 2021, when he was 64 years old.

Both authors, friends since adolescence, have long been involved in this comprehensive edition of Goomer's adventures, "a work of many months," says Ricardo Martínez (Santiago de Chile, 66 years old) by phone.

"The idea came from seeing that there was interest from fans who remembered the character, fans who even wrote to me and knew more about Goomer than I did," he recalls.

“I had about 300 strips scanned because I had colored many of them in Photoshop.

In addition, there were some copies, but I had to do it with the others, more or less 900, but taking advantage of the fact that I work from home I have been doing it little by little”.

Unpublished vignette by Goomer for EL PAÍS.

Goomer arrived on an unnamed planet in a galaxy far, far away.

He stayed in a hotel in which the elevator had a habit of chewing gum or smoking (with tenants inside), and in which he befriends a nice suppository who is always telling him about his scatological work problems ("one of my favorite characters says Martinez).

"We wanted his contact with the aliens to be quick so things would start happening."

Some aliens that have the same vices and defects as humans, and also their customs, such as eating grapes on New Year's, shopping at the supermarket, going to the beach (to the delight of the sharks) or making a wish on a shooting star .

Hardly anything is known about the protagonist's past, except "that he was a riot police officer on Earth."

When, at the hands of Ana Bermejo, responsible for the

, Ricardo and Nacho found accommodation for their space truck driver with little hair, short, belly... "and a green shirt, in homage to the characters in the movie

”, they realized that they had not considered giving him a certain personality.

"We just wanted to make a colorful strip, with objects that are actually Martians, but part of who we were emerged in it: a bit of a thug, who loved going out at night."

Goomer's resume also says that “he's not very smart, rather clumsy, quite a freeloader, but I'm sure he'd be a friend of mine,” he adds.

Perhaps for this reason, on some occasion they were warned that Goomer "wasn't very for children, but we didn't think of them".

There was also no interest in conveying any specific message.

“Sometimes more social issues arose, such as job insecurity, of which we made many strips after the 2008 crisis″.

Goomer cartoon published in September 1996.

In the final pages of the first volume, the origin of the character's name is told, which was in a snail, although Martínez points out: “That was something that Nacho always commented on, but I didn't find out about it;

the truth is that we called it that because it was catchy and suitable for the American market, which was our goal”.

What is clear is that everything was cooked in a bar in Madrid in the seventies, between tortilla chips and beers, at the time that

in 1977. Goomer is funny as Han Solo But that's where the comparisons end.

And with Homer Simpson?

"They always told us about it, but Goomer is older."

The Simpsons began to be broadcast as a series in the US in December 1989. Although for the history of comics and coincidences it remains that both characters are lovable cheeky and clumsy and that their wives wear impossible hairstyles.

On the creative process, Martínez, who continues to publish a political strip in

, explains: “Nacho would send me a script on Mondays and I would decide if I would remove something and how many vignettes I would do.

I took care of all the graphic part, no one else intervened.

He always said that he loved seeing how his texts appeared.

And if I liked an idea very much, he would suggest that he continue with the topic ”.

The result usually obeyed the same scheme: “The press comic in the US, of which Nacho was a fan of characters like Carlitos or Calvin and Hobbes, in which there is always a surprise in the last panel, something happens that you don't you see it coming because if not, it's not funny;

I would like to say that it was clever humor.”

A model that Martínez also knew well, who settled in Miami in 1981, where he worked as an illustrator for the evening newspaper

.

The great success of Goomer led to testing the character in new formats: books, cartoons and a film that won the Goya for best animated film in 2000.

Vignette for the chest with the two volumes of Goomer.

Over the years, it was the relationship between Goomer and Elma that took over the vignettes, a duo reminiscent of the one created by the great Forges with Concha and Mariano.

In addition, the intergalactic truck driver was surrounded by other characters, such as the attractive Neila, Elma's sister, with whom he falls in love;

Op, his inseparable friend, or his patient in-laws, Plotimio and Blotuna, who see how, because of their son-in-law, they end up evicted and living under a bridge.

Despite the human nose that he throws at life, Goomer endears himself to everything he has to put up with, like living with giant cockroaches in his hotel room, especially the one with whom he is obstinate in sharing a toothbrush.

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