Ilustración + Comix Internacional (later known simply as Comix Internacional) is a magazine published by Toutain Editor in Barcelona, Spain commencing in November 1980. The monthly softcover magazine series contains 70 regular issues plus 2 special editions, with the last edition released in 1986, designed to showcase elite comic art and illustration from both Spain and around the world. The magazine catered to a mature audience and acted as a bridge between classic comic heritage, European auteur comics, and groundbreaking modern graphic novels.
What set Comix Internacional apart from standard comic anthologies was its dedication to non-fiction comic journalism, including detailed critical breakdowns of legendary comic history, essays celebrating golden-age American and European fine art illustrators and news on European graphic novel releases, publisher editorials, and annual reader/critic awards recognizing top international talent.
Toutain Editor was a powerhouse Spanish publishing house based in Barcelona, founded by the visionary editor, writer, and talent agent Josep Toutain. Its origins were deeply rooted in Selecciones Ilustradas, an artists’ agency created by Toutain in 1953 that represented top Spanish comic creators and secured them groundbreaking international work, most notably supplying art talent to Warren Publishing in the United States for iconic horror titles like Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella. Leveraging these strong international networks, Toutain launched his namesake publishing imprint to transform how comic art was produced and consumed in Spain.
The publisher reached its commercial and artistic peak during the 1970s and 1980s, serving as a primary driver of the Spanish “adult comic boom” (Boom del cómic adulto) following the end of Francoist censorship. Toutain Editor catered to mature audiences by introducing a lineup of glossy, sophisticated anthology magazines, including local editions of Creepy and 1984 (later Zona 84), TOTEM el Comix, and Comix Internacional. These publications served as critical platforms for celebrated Spanish and Latin American authors such as Jordi Bernet, Enrique Sánchez Abulí, Horacio Altuna, and Juan Giménez, while also serializing top-tier international graphic novels and classic American comic strips.
Beyond its monthly anthologies, Toutain Editor was instrumental in elevating the comic medium’s prestige through ambitious graphic novel releases, luxury art books, and high-quality historical scholarship, such as the multi-volume Historia de los Cómics series. Though economic shifts and a changing media landscape in the late 1980s and early 1990s eventually led to the publisher’s closure, Toutain Editor left an indelible legacy: it successfully professionalized Spanish comic creation, championed artist rights, and forever changed the international landscape of adult graphic storytelling.
Ilustración + Comix Internacional edition number 38 was published in 1984, containing 92 pages featuring a mix of black-and-white and full-color comic pages. The front cover of this edition can be seen below containing an illustration by Will Eisner.
Amongst the contents of this edition are two pages which feature an in-depth retrospective article titled “Grandes Personajes del Comic” (“Great Comic Characters”), written by F. Moreno Santábara, focusing on the history and lore of The Phantom (known in Spanish as El Hombre Enmascarado).
The text is organized into structured thematic sections with a detailed reference box (Ficha) listing the hero’s publication dates, creator Lee Falk, distributors, and legendary artists like Ray Moore, Wilson McCoy, Bill Lignante, and Sy Barry. Accompanied by black-and-white comic strip illustrations showing key characters like Diana Palmer, Guran, and the horse Hero, alongside famous iconography like the Skull Throne, the article explores the character’s origins in 1525, his generational sworn oath against piracy, his deep jungle lore, and his film serial adaptation.
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