Javier Mariscal was born in Valencia, Spain in 1950. In Valencia, at the age of 19, Mariscal started publishing the cartoons that featured his first character, El Senor del Caballito.
In 1971 he moved to Barcelona to study at the Escuela Elisava. It was there that he founded El Rrollo Enmascarado, an underground comic strip that was sold on the streets.
In 1989, the same year his cartoon figure Cobi was chosen as the Olympic mascot of Barcelona 92, Mariscal produced the exhibition 100 Years with Mariscal. A gutted ship was used as a giant box to display a comprehensive view of Mariscal's thousands of bits of work. The show revealed the outlook, the attitude that serves as a key to his creativity.