It's a mystery to me that the work of Argentine comics artist Tomas D'Espósito Muller aka. El Tomi (1955), outside his home country (and perhaps Spain) relatively unknown in the rest of the world. Especially after seeing his many impressive erotic drawings and paintings on his old Spanish spoken blogs, it is surprising that there are virtually no English-language articles about him. So it's high time to change this here.
Fig.1. Tomas D'Espósito Muller (El Tomi) (Source: Instagram @eltomimuller)
Superior School of Visual Art
Muller grew up in Rosario, the biggest city of the province Santa Fe in central Argentina. This is also where he studied at the Escuela Superior de Artes Visuales (Superior School of Visual Arts).
Thick Layer of Dust
I came across the following anecdote which gives a nice picture of how Muller came into contact with art. When he was very little he crawled to the closet of his parents' bedroom, opened the doors and found two framed oil paintings. They were covered in a thick layer of dust. One depicted a mountain landscape with a powerful light illuminating the summit. The other was a maritime painting depicting a sailboat caught up in a violent storm, battling against the high foamy blue waves that surround it. His father had painted them before he became a banker and had left his ambitions to become an artist.
Index Finger
The discovery of these two works sparked in him a desire to draw, and from that moment on he cannot remember a single day in his life in which he has not made at least one drawing. Even when he almost lost the index finger of his right hand in a domestic accident (the first and second phalanges only hung from a thin thread of skin) he took the opportunity to draw with his left hand without wasting time.
Fig.2. Cover for Fierro Magazine #56 (June 2011). This issue included a chapter from El Tomi's Freak City (see also Fig. ..)
Polenta With Little Birds
El Tomi's career really started to take shape in the eighties when he became a regular contributor to Fierro. For this Argentinian comics magazine (say the Argentinian version of Heavy Metal), which had two periods of publication (1984-1992 / 2006-2017),.he produced most of his comic strips including his best known “Polenta with Little Birds (Polenta Con Pajaritos)” (Fig.1), that is characterized by its fast dialogues and intense images. Here, the virtuoso comic artist created his own genre, halfway between comic book and illustration. Polenta follows the adventures of 'Conejo (Rabbit)', a boy from the banks of the Paraná. With his torn pants and his sling always in his pocket, Conejo became an unforgettable character.
Fig.3. Page from 'Polenta con pajaritos (Polenta with little birds) ' (1997)
Refined Style
Muller, under his working name 'El Tomi (Tom)', developed a refined style due to his academic training and an aptitude for anatomical representation. The color that, in some way, defines much of El Tomi's work is that of the waters of the Paraná River. He abhors complex backgrounds with skylines of skyscrapers and illuminated windows, street plains with vanishing buildings full of balconies in correct perspective, and despises architecture applied to comic strips to such an extent that he has been leaving the background of the vignettes empty, and stripping the characters as much as possible, so that the landscape can be read in the flesh, in the skin, in sex, in love without shame, in the open air. His love for brownish popsicles led him to papier-mâché, the medium on which he creates most of his works.
Erection
Although he produces illustrations for different genres, like caricature and adventure, his preference is clearly for the erotic. As the artist says himself, 'The best pornographic drawings are those that produce an erection in the cartoonist while he is doing them.'
Wrapped Manila Women
His work breathes a melancholic brightness but there is nothing gloomy or dark in the eroticism of El Tomi: his imagery represents a pure celebration of sex. Humor is another great aspect in El Tomi's work; with his sublime use of pencil, chalk and brush and mastery of the entire palette of styles, he creates his illustrations from an original angle, with fascinating characters and often with an unexpected twist. Very entertaining are, for example, the tightly wrapped Manila women, giant nuns belittling little men in three-piece suits (Fig.9 ), in this regard, the fiercely debating line of Indians waiting their turn for an intimate rendezvous with a prostitute in a wigwam should not be missed, and what about the ghosts involved in the act of fellatio or the copulating hair.
Fig.4. Various sketches (2010)
Femme Fatale
Also fascinating to see is that the humorous look is sometimes present in the preliminary (sketch) phase but that this is brought back in the final painting. For instance, in The Gift (Fig.16), the man unpacks.an exuberantly naive pin-up girl, while in the finished painting we discern what looks like a shrewd femme fatale.
Unique Vision
El Tomi's regular updates to his Instagram account are proof that he is still quite active in his late sixties and testify to the tireless inspiration in which he gives his unique vision of a world hungry for original fantasies. The following text from an Argentinian newspaper gives a telling description of El Tomi's art, 'Many of his creations become works of art or are simply born as such.'
Tangozando
The coming 4 Illustrations are vignettes coming from the cartoon 'Tangozando ' (2007) published in the Argentinian edition of 'Fierro ' magazine.
Fig.5. The legendary pubic hair dryer invented in an artisanal erotic hairdresser in the 1930s, the undisputed precursor of the current hair dryer.
Fig.6.
Fig.7.
Fig.8.
Fig.9. The Book of the Saints (2020), The Saint of Chueca
Fig.10 'Hombre lobo (Werewolf)' (2010)
Fig.11. 'Bandoneon II ' (2012)
Fig.12. 'Bandoneona arrabalera ' from the series 'Tangolosina Copyright ' (2009)
Fig.13. 'Al Trotecito Lento ('At the Slow Trot ') from the 'Argentinian Yeguas' series (2021)
Fig.14. 'A girlfriend in each port.' (2011) A page from the chapter belonging to the comic strip Freak City published by Fierro magazine (#56)
Translation*:
" Pascual was never heard from again."
"But it is necessary to know that if a sailor has to have a bride in every port, the bride of every port has the right to have a sailor in every ship."
Fig.15. The Saint of High Heels (2020)
Fig.16 "The Gift " (2010)
"An erotic illustration must be moisturizing."
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Click HERE for an article examining erotic drawings, sketches and watercolors by the comic artist Frank Frazetta
Sources: eldesmitificadorargentino.blogspot.com (on this extensive, older, blog the artist shares many of his thoughts, inspiration, insights, poems and visual art), twitter.com, eltomierotic.blogspot.com (here more of El Tomi's erotic art), tomimuller.blogspot.com, Instagram (@eltomimuller),,howtoarsenio.blogspot.com, revistafierro.com.ar
What do you think about El Tomi's comic art? What is your favorite piece? Leave your reaction in the comment box below...!!
