Very often, just like in those tales we love so much, the most significant figures are like the shooting stars crossing the firmament on summer nights. But if we are fortunate enough to see them we will never forget about them. That’s the way the work from illustrator Francisco Melendez is for me, like long tail that me and other illustrators from my generation try to follow.

This article about the hidden but not completely forgotten figure of Francisco Melendez. It is the result of a conjunction of elements, after the Spanish illustrator Jacobo Muñiz mentioned him in his blog. When I saw the name of Melendez on the screen I jumped on the chance to sort out what was the news about this genius author who influenced me so much during my first stages as an illustrator. Jacobo and I decided that it was necessary to give a little exposure to the work of Francisco Melendez on the net, in order to recover the memory of his unique work. Jacobo has also been very generous to post a Spanish translation of this same article in his blog.

I ran into the works by Francisco Melendez in 1989 through one of his many illustration works for the Spanish publishing company SM: “El Valle de los Cocuyos”. This beautiful and highly recommendable children story of magic literature by the pen of the Colombian writer Gloria Cecilia Díaz Ortiz was awarded with the Barco de Vapor prize in 1985. It contains some of the most beautiful, delicate and intense illustrations that I had seen in many years.

“El Valle de los Cocuyos”

That’s the way I fell in love with Francisco Melendez´s illustrations. Since that moment on, I bought each and every book I’d find with his drawings, including several children books for the Spanish publishing company Espasa Calpe.

One of the wonders that Melendez ever produced are the illustrations for “The Nutcracker”, published by Montena in 1987. It is true that I’ve always been a fan of E.T.A. Hoffmann and the music work by Tchaikovsky, but in my view the illustrations for this book with their delicate pencil drawings are still some of the most beautiful illustration works ever published in Spain.

“El Cascanueces y el Rey de los Ratones”

There´s not much to say about Francisco Melendez´s persona and maybe this was helpful to add mystery to his career. He was born in Zaragoza, Spain, in 1964. He left school as a teenager to enter the army, where he spent just a few months. He was close to take a ship to travel the world but in the last second he fell in love and decided to stay in Spain.

Francisco Melendez started working as an illustrator in 1983, since he was commissioned to do the drawings for an ecology book for which he was apparently scammed. From that moment on, he worked to many different projects for the institutions in Aragon. Personally, I don´t know his works before “El Valle de los Cocuyos”, which was published a few years later.

“Los Buscadores de Tesoros”

The works from Melendez appeared in Spain bringing a breath of fresh air and innovation in the fields of children and teenage illustration. Just like me, Melendez belongs to an era when the illustration work in Spain used to be extremely anonymous. There was no such thing as the Internet or illustrators blogs where we could talk about each others works. Anyhow, his wonderful work was not underestimated at all: in 1987 he got the National Illustration Award for his work “La Oveja Negra y Otras Fábulas” by Augusto Monterroso.

“The Mermaid and the Major”

The career of Melendez in the publishing world was so fast that he started getting his own illustration and text books just six years after he started in the business. For a country like Spain that’s something completely unbelievable. His first book of this kind was “The Mermaid and the Major” (1989), which was first released in Spain under the title of “El Verdadero Inventor del Buque Submarino”. This is an unique work in which Melendez mixed graphic elements such as calligraphy and baroque engravings. During the forthcoming years, he got several awards, including the National Illustration Award for the second time. His last works called the attention from international publishers such as Harry N. Abrams from New York to get them published in the North-American market. But the colophon of his career was when Walt Disney/Touchstone Pictures bought the rights of his book “Leopold” for a movie project that still remains unveiled.

“Kifuko Yep-Yep Nami Gú”

From my point of view, one of the most interesting aspects in the work of Melendez is the impact that it provoked in the Spanish publishing world at the time. To understand this it’s neccessary to look back in time to the late 80’s, when most of the children’s illustration works followed a number of cannons and rules that were established before the 60’s. Some of these rules were already defied by artists like Ana Juan and Cessepe. The proposal of Francisco Melendez had nothing to do with the kind of childish drawing we were used to. They mostly looked like an innocent and provocative distillation of Greek art, baroque engravings and naive art. And all this was impregnated by an apparent love for the romantic British culture.

“Ocho Cuentos del Perrito y la Gatita”

In my humble opinion, the work by Melendez is based in the drawing while painting was put aside until his latest works. Melendez himself said in an interview: “I started drawing in black and white because I didn’t really control the colors. Later, they asked me to do it repeatedly so I kept doing so”. Melendez is foremost a master of simplicity, shapes, harmony in the composition of scenes, and character design. They are reasons enough to turn their works into true master works. On top of it, he could be the personified sample of the self-taught artist who has proven that originality and quality can happen despite the lack of “technical schooling”.

Another important highlight from his work is his ability to adapt his unique style to different aesthetics depending on the text requirements. This is an essential skill for every good illustrator. The Incan art in “El Valle de los Cocuyos”, the Japanese look in “Tomi Kikansha”, the baroque images in “The Nutcracker”, and the Victorian aesthetic in “Leopold” are some samples of this.

Since 1993 on, the figure of Francisco Melendez vanished. It was all rumours. The official promo biography from Espasa-Calpe publishings said: “He lives now in tranquility like a monk, concentrated in his work”. As rumor has it, after the loss of a person who was very close to him he decided to leave the illustration work to enter a monastery as a monk. I couldn’t say if this is true. It may be just a cloak of mystery that he used to leave the publishing business like a ghost in the fog, just like a character of one of his books.

“Leopold, La Conquista del Aire”

In relation with Francisco Melendez, I recall a conversation that I once had with Spanish child author Joan Manuel Gisbert, with whom I got an acquaintance in the late 80’s. At the moment, I was thinking seriously of becoming a professional illustrator and I told him about it. He portrayed a pretty black and discouraging picture to me saying that such thing was not possible to do in Spain. The I said there was some people already working earning a life with their illustration such as Francisco Melendez and he was actually doing pretty good. Gisbert answered: “That’s because Francisco Melendez is God!” I never really sorted out if Francisco Melendez is God or not, I don’t really give a damn about it because I’ve never believed in this type of idolization. But I do know that 20 years after this conversation nobody knows who the hell Francisco Melendez is.

Just like Spanish illustrator Gabi Beltrán said recently on his blog, illustrators are not rock stars. Much better this way. But what think is really sad is to see that the work of an artist like Francisco Melendez can pass from international recognition to complete obscurity in such a little span of years. That’s why Jacobo Muñiz and I are trying to put our little grain of sand in order to exhume Francisco’s work from forgetfulness. And we do this with the hope that other illustrators, young and old, discover the enormous richness of his artistic heritage so we can hold on tight to the tail of this bright comet in Spanish illustration called Francisco Melendez.

Here is an incomplete list of his books. If you have information about any other work please leave a comment so I can update it.

Spanish books:
-Once Animales con Garra y Uno con Alma de Ciro Alegría. Alfaguara, 1986.
-El Valle de los Cocuyos. Gloria Cecilia Díaz. Colección el Barco de Vapor. SM, 1986.
-Los Machafatos de Consuelo Armijo. Edelvives, 1987.
-El Cascanueces y el Rey de los Ratones. E.T.A. Hoffmann. Montena, 1987.
-Jacobo No Es Un Pobre Diablo. Gabriele Heiser. Colección el Barco de Vapor. SM, 1987.
-Los Buscadores de Tesoros. Edith Nesbit. Colección el Barco de Vapor. SM, 1987.
-La Huida. Antonio Martinez Menchén. Colección Austral Juvenil. Espasa-Calpe.1988.
-Los Cuentos de Mis Hijos. Horacio Quiroga. Alfaguara, 1988.
-Los Viajes de Gulliver. Jonathan Swift SM, 1988.
-Ocho Cuentos del Perrito y la Gatita. Josef Capek. Colección Austral Juvenil,. Espasa-Calpe.1989.
-El Gigante de la Selva. B. Monterde. Colección Cuentos del Pastor. Montena, 1989.
-La Sortija Milagrosa. B. Monterde. Colección Cuentos del Pastor. Montena, 1989.
-El Anillo de Simplicio. B. Monterde. Colección Cuentos del Pastor. Montena, 1989.
-La Calabaza de la Suerte. B. Monterde. Colección Cuentos del Pastor. Montena, 1989.
-La Hija del Minero. B. Monterde. Colección Cuentos del Pastor. Montena, 1989.
-La Amazona de los Bosques. B. Monterde. Colección Cuentos del Pastor. Montena, 1989.
-El Delfín de Oro. B. Monterde. Colección Cuentos del Pastor. Montena, 1989.
-El Verdadero Inventor del Buque Submarino. Francisco Melendez. B, 1989.
-Leopold, La Conquista del Aire. Francisco Melendez.. Aura Comunicación, 1990.
-El Peculiar Rally París-Pekin. Francisco Melendez. Aura Comunicación, 1991.
-El Viaje de Colomus. Francisco Melendez. Aura Comunicación, 1992.
-Kifuko Yep-Yep Nami Gú. Francisco Melendez. Ikusager, 1992.
-Intimas Suculencias. Laura Esquivel. Plaza & Janes, 1998.

English books:
-The Mermaid and the Major. Francisco Melendez. Harry N. Abrams, 1989.
-Leopold’s Dream. Robert Morton. Harry N. Abrams, 1993.

Francisco Melendez on the net:
-Tras la Estela de Francisco Melendez. A version of this same article in Spanish at the blog of Jacobo Muñiz, featuring different images than this one.
-Interview in Spanish. Peonza magazine, October 1993.

It’s so exciting when you find something new about someone you know! I knew about B. Sue and her husband Kimara two years ago because of their progressive/experimental rock project called Polyethylene Pet / +1 and their independent label Precognitive Records located in Seattle. I was the other day looking at their web site and I discovered a link to B. Sue’s Paperjam and her beautiful origami art. Incredible!

Naomi and I are big fans of all sort of lamps and lighting stuff, and we found B. Sue’s origami lamps so beautiful and charming! They look to us like a curious mix of modern deco and Japanese decoration, which we absolutely love. I just wanted to share this discovery with everyone and I am always very glad when I learn about a friend who is multi-talented like B. Sue.