Superlopez

Origin

The origin and powers of Superlópez are basically the same as Superman. Krypton is Chiton (Shut it!), his alien name is Jo-Con-El (Damn-the-little ****), instead of Kal-El... He even has his own Fortress of Solitude. He arrived to earth as a baby and was adopted by an elderly couple in Catalonia, Spain. As Superman, he has a public, rather clumsy identity. He works in an office, "disguised" under his glasses (until issue #9) and goes by the the name of Juan López, wich in Spain is pretty much like John Smith in the USA. Jan, the creator wanted the character to be the absolute average Joe of spanish society. The rest of the Juan López family is also inspired in the original Superman. Lois Lane is Luisa Lanas, Jimmy Olsen is Jaime González, etc etc.

Creation

The character Superlópez started in 1973, published by Euredit, as a series of short mute gags in black and white. At first Juan López didn't have superpowers. He was a common man who imagines himself as a superhero to overcome his daily frustrations. He became quickly a full parody of Superman. Ediciones Bruguera started to publish longer stories of one or two pages until, finally, in 1980, Juan Lopez (aka Jan) started to work on the Superlopez character with writer Francisco Perez (aka Efepe).

Character Evolution

Jan and Efepe based the first issues on creating spanish versions of american superheroes. Issue #1 presents La Increible Maza (The Incredible Hulk) and other villains of less obvious inspiration. Issue #2 introduces the Supergrupo (Superteam) with versions of Captain America, Iron Man, The Thing, Doctor Strange and a female hero that could be Jean Grey or any other from the Marvel universe. The creators, as they intend to make typical spanish versions of american culture, came with the brilliant idea that the Superteam should spend more time fighting each other for the leadership than facing villains. This kind of humor, with a light touch of social observation, can be found throughout the stories.

On issue #3, we continue to see parodies of american heroes, such as Spider-Man and Thor, but from issue #4, Jan, now without Efepe, focus on the main character, creating more original stories about aliens, gangsters, ancient civilizations or even surreal world epidemics. Jan gets usually inspiration from writers like JR Tolkien, Lewis Carroll, Jonathan Swift, HG Wells, Rudyard Kipling, Stanislaw Lem, Boris Vian, Jules Verne, Dante, Goethe,... and even Goscinny. Of course we still can find parodies of other characters such as Sherlock Holmes, Conan the Barbarian, Burt Lancaster, Cecill B. DeMille, Al Capone and even the Swamp Thing!

He cannot resist following the european tradition of comic books like Tintin, so Superlópez also travels a lot: Bulgaria, Japan, Mexico, France, England, Germany, Holland and lot of small villages around the earth and other planets. Jan takes so much care in drawing recognizable streets and buildings of all these places that sometimes he has received some reviews criticizing how his comics look like tourist guides.

Jan's social awareness shows in more educational comic books recently. He deals with current topics like economy, politics... but also the dangers of drugs, vices, violence, internet and videogames addiction.