İpier

Ignacio Pietro Carnicer (November 25, 1919 – June 29, 1988) known by the stage name İpier, was a Colombian-Turkish cartoonist. He is worldwide famous for being the creator of the comic book series The Archaeological Adventures of Joe Rabbit, Joe Rabbit began in 1947, when Ignacio was already living in Turkey, and that after his retirement was continued by his daughter, Mirabel Del Carmen Carnicer. Other 3 secondary comic books made by İpier were also extremely successful, Roadside Mutt (1975) and the adults The Cat of Istanbul (1965) and its sequel Süyümbike and the Alley Kittens (1983), which turned out to be the last work of Pietro Carnicer.

Poor childhood, school dropout and beginning of passion for cartooning: 1919–1940


Ignacio Pietro Carnicer was born on November 25, 1919, in Toca, a city in the Colombian department of Boyacá. His family was working class, his father worked in a cement factory and his mother as a fruit seller at local fairs. Married since 1908, they moved to the city after the death of İpier's disabled uncle, whom he never met personally, since he died in 1912. Pietro had to start working at the age of 5, in order to buy school supplies, he worked helping his father in the factory where he worked, and in 1925 he entered elementary school, having studied until the 5th grade. In 1929, with the onset of the Great Depression, Ignacio had to leave school as his father had lost his job, and thus the family lost a substantial part of their income, Carnicer began to work at fairs helping his mother.

In his free time, while he wasn't helping his mother at fairs, he read newspapers, he loved comic strips and this love started to develop in him the dream of being a cartoonist, he started to perfect his drawing ability, which caught the attention of one of his aunts, Luísa, who lived in Bogotá, and who was impressed by the boy's drawings.

Carnicer grew up with this endless training, and then in 1936, when İpier was already 17 years old, his aunt invited him to visit the Colombian capital, Bogotá, he accepted the invitation, and spent a few months there, where he earned money making cartoon portraits of pedestrians who paid him, he returned to Toca, with some profit, and spent on pens, pencils and brushes, to keep improving his drafts.

in 1940, when she learned that the newspaper Expresso de Colombia had opened vacancies for new cartoonists, her aunt Luísa visited her again and brought with her a friend of hers who was one of the newspaper's executives, Isaac Ríos, and showed him the various cartoons that his niece made, which surprised Isaac, who after talking to the boy convinced him to start making comic strips in the newspaper in exchange for a generous salary, the young man asked the newspaper to cover his and his parents' move to Bogotá, which the executives agreed to in a letter sent to Pietro a few days later, so İpier and his parents moved to Bogotá, where they could dream of better days financially after years of poverty, the cartoonist then decided to start taking writing classes so that he could start writing in a formidable way, he spent around 6 years taking writing classes until he was finally able to write pleasantly.

Early career as a cartoonist and marriage: 1940–1946
The first edition of the newspaper Expresso de Colombia that featured a comic strip made by İpier was published in July 1940, featuring what was initially its most prominent character, Robito, who achieved national fame in Colombia, making Igancio one of the most important members of the newspaper. In the first strips he produced, Robito did not speak due to the fact that İpier did not know how to write properly due to his poor level of education. An event shook Ignacio in his early career, when his father died in February 1941, when he was 59 years old, this affected the young cartoonist's creativity, making him have to take a break from comic strips.

When he recovered from the blow caused by the death of his parent, he returned full of creativity and with new ideas, so he began to create "mini-sagas" within his character comic strips, a decisive fact that would influence the Colombian cartoonist when he created The Archaeological Adventures of Joe Rabbit 6 years later. Robito's fame spread throughout the Colombian territory and simply fueled Expresso de Colombia during its existence, which the newspaper rewarded İpier with its own office at the newspaper's HQ, he started working there in the middle of 1941, and from then on, he made non-stop comic strips, for about 5 years. In 1946, the newspaper suffered a reprisal from the Government of Colombia, led by the liberal Felizardo Santacruz, and after denouncing this act, it was definitively closed, and its main members were temporarily arrested, including İpier.

During the time he was working at Expresso de Colombia, Ignacio met Isabella Del Carmen, a 19-year-old girl who was an assistant to one of the newspaper's reporters, at first they didn't talk much to each other, but one day, Isabella was broke and couldn't buy food for lunch since she worked there all day, İpier invited her to have lunch with him at a simple restaurant close to their workplace, she accepted and went with him, there they talked and she said that she had accepted to work there due to the fact that there were not many options and that she was afraid to stay unemployed after finishing high school, he joked with the fact and said he was at an advantage, because he finished the basics of studies, unlike him who did not even finish elementary school, after that day, they started talking more in their spare time. After a while, Isabella started to show some more love interest for the cartoonist, who still didn't notice anything else in the young woman, she then started flirting with him, who started to correspond, the relationship between them was evolved, they then started dating, and so it was for 2 years until the end of 1943 when he proposed engagement to Isabella, the young woman accepted and they spent 4 months engaged, until they finally got married in March 1944.

İpier and Isabella remained married for 44 years, until İpier's death in 1988, the marriage produced a daughter, Mirabel Del Carmen Carnicer, who was born on October 15, 1949 and who would continue her father's work, ensuring that they would not fall into oblivion. Isabella was also an excellent cartoonist and helped her husband to produce his works, drawing the comics together with him, there is even a rumor that she was the one who knew how to draw the cartoon model of Ipier's works and trained her partner and later his daughter, Mirabel, to draw just like her

Temporary arrest and self-exile in Turkey: 1946
İpier was temporarily arrested, when his newspaper was closed at the behest of President Felizardo Santacruz, accusing Expresso de Colombia of "conspiracy", due to the fact that the newspaper's executives were linked to figures of the Conservative Party, which made all of them temporarily imprisoned until September 1946, when they were released under Habeas corpus, when Carnicer was released, he shouted: "Colombia, how much you regret it?! Felizardo, you are a filthy and cursed despot!".

After that, Ignacio decided to leave Colombia to self-exile in any other country, which he decided to be Turkey due to the large number of Colombians there, this desire was radicalized after the death of his mother, and so in the At the end of 1946, İpier and his wife decided to leave the country. Upon arriving in Turkey, Pietro spent some time unemployed, until he met the Japanese Okamoto Tetsuhiko, who was 25 years old and was also looking for a new job after moving to Turkey with his girlfriend. İpier and Tetsuhiko found much in common in their goals, Tetsuhiko sought to convince the head of the newspaper where he worked, İstanbul Anı (The Istanbul Moment), to start publishing comics, and on the other hand, Pietro wanted to return to work, so they became partners in work, and finally convinced the head of the newspaper to start producing comics after seeing the ability of the cartoonist. Therefore, İpier returned to his work...