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, 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. 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 da 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.