When I was a child, Andrés Jiménez spent hours leafing through the comics and graphic novels his grandfather sold at a kiosk in Carmona (Seville). The only condition was not to open them too much so they would look new and could be sold without problems. That passion for illustrations never disappeared and a few years later he set out to create his own works.Jiménez changed Carmona for Badalona, as he signed for the mythical Cotonifici (1978-83). “In Carmona, not much basketball was played, but I was tall. When I was 13 years old, I was already 1.97 meters tall. I signed up for one of the Height operations that the Spanish Federation carried out and I was selected for a 15-day training camp in Cáceres. My report, which said I was willing, but that I didn't know how to play basketball very well, went around. Two years later, when I was already discouraged and wanted to quit basketball, two Cotonifici executives made me an offer”, he recalls.His great luck was to coincide with Aíto García Reneses, a coach with a privileged vision for detecting talent before others. “I landed in the best possible place because Cotonifici needed to train young players”, says Jiménez. For years, the man from Seville combined basketball with his creations. “I have always liked to draw. When I arrived in Badalona, I did not continue my studies at the Industrial School, which at that time was a bit neglected. I found out that the Pau Gargallo School of Art offered applied arts studies. I entered advertising and design and I saw that I was good at it”, he recalls.Fernando Martín, who always saw him drawing during the Spanish national team gatherings and knew he was a big fan ofAsterix and Obelix, nicknamed him Jimix. Jiménez played for Joventut for three seasons (1983-86). “When I played for La Penya, I used to do advertising campaigns, but when I joined Barça, I started to find it difficult to find the necessary time to draw. We traveled a lot and the matches were very intense. For two years I kept a weekly comic strip, but then I stopped for 20 years,” he confesses.