A Quote by Guillermo Cabrera Infante

There were influences in my life that were more important than journalism, such as comic strips and radio. — © Guillermo Cabrera Infante
There were influences in my life that were more important than journalism, such as comic strips and radio.
It used to be that comic strips were the big thing, and comic books were toilet paper.
I think in daily newspapers, the way comic strips are treated, it's as if newspaper publishers are going out of their way to kill the medium. They're printing the comics so small that most strips are just talking heads, and if you look back at the glory days of comic strips, you can see that they were showcases for some of the best pop art ever to come out.
When I try to explain to people the big influences in my life, or at least when I first started, the most important ones were my friends who were also writing songs and were typically four or five years older than me.
People have a comic bent or an angularity to their thinking, and those are the people who make jokes. And it's usually people who were in an environment, when they were young, where jokes were at a premium, or at least considered important to a life. My parents always listened to the comedy radio shows, we went to the comedy movies, and my parents appreciated comedy. So kids listen and follow what their parents like.
I myself grew up when radio was very important. I'd come home from school and turn on the radio. There were funny comedians and wonderful music, and there were plays. I used to pass time with radio.
Peellaert's comic strips were the literature of intelligence, imagination and romanticism.
Comic books and radio were my escape. I even remember 3-D comic books where you put on the red-and-green glasses and Mighty Mouse would punch you in the face. It was the literature of the day for kids my age who were too bored with listening to 'Peter and the Wolf' on the record player.
I was an avid radio fan when I was a boy, as well as a great lover of comic strips
I was an avid radio fan when I was a boy, as well as a great lover of comic strips.
Such is the nature of comic strips. Once established, their half-life is usually more than nuclear waste. Typically, the end result is lazy, rich cartoonists.
To me, my favorite comic book movies were the ones that were never based on comic books, like Unforgiven. That's more the kind of thing that get us inspired. Usually when you say something's a comic book movie, it means you turn on the purple and green lights. Suddenly that means it's more like a comic book, and It's not really like that.
In the Depression, besides everybody being poor, our entertainment was much more primitive and innocent. The comic strip, which I so venerated, was still a very new form. Movies had just become talkies. Radio had just gone coast to coast for the first time. Network radio had just begun when I was a kid. So all of these forms were more or less in their infancy, and feeling their oats. Comics were fresh and funny and nervy, and in a sense, defiant of the prevailing culture.
Many people have been positive influences in my life. My parents, whom I mentioned, were the most important, but many of my teachers were also a big help to me.
People make a big deal about podcasts but it's basically an online radio show with the sound effects and sidekicks, but because you can curse it's more like satellite radio. Most of the podcasters were morning guys who were fired when Clear Channel decimated the radio landscape.
I seemed to have instinctually a strong idea of how the strip had to be written from the beginning. That changed too, but it was more in the direction of where it was headed. I didn't have a clue as to the drawing style, because the drawing style that I was groomed on from the beginning was newspaper comic strips, which were much more conventional.
Listen- my relationship with radio on a personal level is nothing but a one way love-a-thon... I love radio, I grew up on radio. That's where I heard Buddy Holly, that's where I heard Chuck Berry. I couldn't believe it the first time I heard one of my records on the radio, and I STILL love hearing anything I'm involved with on radio, and some of my best friends were from radio. But we were on different sides of that argument, there's no question about that.
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