Julio Fernandez Larraz was born in Cuba on 12 March 1944. His family were owners of the Cuban newspaper "La Discusión". In 1961, the year of the failed American invasion of Cuba, the family fled the island for Miami, Florida, later moving to Washington, D.C., and then to New York City. Larraz first worked as a political caricaturist and cartoonist, signing his work "Julio Fernandez". His caricatures of political figures such as Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir and Richard Nixon were published in "Esquire" magazine, in the "New York Times", in "Rolling Stone" and in the "Washington Post". A caricature of Nixon as Louis XIV, captioned "L'état, c'est moi", was used on the cover of "Time" magazine.