At the beginning of August, a tireless Cuban cartoonist passed away in Havana. He was director of ICAIC's Animation Studios, a comic scriptwriter and editor of comic publications.

The author of numerous children’s books and radio scripts, Niurki Pérez García also writes comic strip scripts.

Osvaldo “Montos” Pastrana is a Cuban comics artist whose work combines the best of the local old school with the aesthetics of American comics. An experienced professional who had the fortune to be trained at a time when there were still a few publications that would run graphic novels in Cuba, he has recently taken part in several conventions in the United States. OnCuba approached him to hear what he had to say about the current state of comic books in Cuba. Comic books for adults are rarely published in Cuba. Why is that? In Cuba, comic books have always been considered more of a product for kids than for grownups, a lesser art of sorts. Most of the book titles people can name in Cuba are titles of comic books for children: Elpidio Valdes, Captain Plin, and so on. The only publication I can remember that would publish comic strips for grownup was Pablo, a magazine that circulated by the late 1980s. The economic crisis of the 1990s, and all the economic restrictions it brought about, may have played a role in what we are seeing today. My generation of artists has not been able to see their work...