Johnny Galaxy and the Space Patrol by James Zee
Johnny's creation by Beá
Jose Beá was still a teenager when he began Johnny Galaxia, providing not just the artwork but probably writing at least some of the stories after the initial collaboration with co-creator Blay Navarro.
At about the age of 14,11Beá has reported 14, although some websites state 15. See En compañía de gatos y perdido en la galaxia (1ª... Bea entered the creative cauldron of Selecciones Ilustradas, fulfilling his childhood fantasies as a comic lover. Beá’s father and Toutain had known each other vaguely so, as Bea reports:
"My father took me by the hand—I was still at school, studying high school—and took me to this studio where more than 50 or 60 artists were gathered. It was a little concentration camp where there were terrible jokes, as shown in Carlos Gimenez’s book Los Profesionales. I was passionate about everything surrounding the world of comics and very clear I wanted to be a cartoonist. There, we met everyone who was then a cartoonist… but Selecciones Ilustradas was a pretty harsh environment. There was much competition; they encouraged professional jealousy between the people and, above all, did incredible dirty tricks; it was like hazing, you had to go through the hazing… After that, I worked at the time on commissioned French scripts, unsigned, then moved to the English adolescent market and the entire group of British teen magazines…"22See En compañía de gatos y perdido en la galaxia (1ª Parte) at spacerockheaters.com....
Beá's first work was for Artima in France; then romance and war stories for Fleetway and DC Thompson in the UK; with Spanish work in the daily newspaper National Solidarity and for Ediciones Toray. He also illustrated books, including some by Enyd Blyton, as well as various European work—some that Beá no longer remembers or where he signed another artists’ name.33See lambiek.net, en.wikipedia.org, the biography and bibliography at www.tebeosfera.com, and Manuel Barrero's interview at www.tebeosfera.com....
Recalling the creation of Johnny Galaxia, Beá said:
"Once I tired of English romances, I begged Toutain to let me create a science fiction character. He said, 'Okay, Bea. Make up a space character, but with one condition. You must name it Johnny Galaxy because the world isn’t ready and we have to make it more palatable. I know you would use an extraordinary title.' So I met with Blay Navarro who, besides being the company's accountant,44In Memorias Ilustradas, Fernando Fernández comments about Blay (p.291), who may be the same person: "He was the first (and... was also a scripter because he had an Underwood typewriter, and together we created Johnny Galaxy. The character was nothing other than a second-rate copy of [Dan] Barry's Flash Gordon,55The Flash Gordon daily strip (cancelled in 1944) was revived in 1951 with Dan Barry (1923-1997) as its... but it worked just fine and is sold in many countries. Atlas bought it (and incidentally I was assigned the corresponding covers) but changed its name to Space Ace".66See www.tebeosfera.com....
Beá also reports about his syndicated work:
"For these comic series, the artist received an advance for future sales, with distribution in the English, French and northern European markets.... To do this, once you create the character (it was always a character), a printing was done on card in two colors and sent as bait to as many publishers as might be interested. It was a great idea, the products sold everywhere. At the end of the year there was a settlement, always falsified, but it was very rewarding.
"The page I've sent [see image at side] is the promotion for the first character I created at the age of 17. I did about 15 stories that were sold in many countries over 10 years and more... [When sending the promotion] we also included a front page from one of the stories."77Image originally presented on Jaime Martín's blog, Slow Studio....