Rare "Cotta" cartoons

Ignacio Ochoa has kindly alerted me to one of Oscar Grillo's blogs, where the master has recently posted 4 cartoon pages by the South American print cartoonist Juan Angel Cotta. Check them out.

I first saw a few examples Cotta's work years ago on Shane Gline's CARTOON RETRO, where they leapt off the screen and excited me in exactly the way UPA cartoons frankly don't. Cotta's work seems to be from around the same time: the birth of the "Cartoon Modern" ethos (circa 1946) and although I doubt he was working in a vacuum, his drawing style strikes me as just about the boldest and freest example of that movement, despite the fact that no one ever seems to cite him.

Two pages originally seen on Cartoon Retro: 

Ignacio also posted about Cotta a while back, featuring some nice illustrations on his own site. Enjoy!
(Gracias, Ignacio!)