To laugh at oneself and reality is a necessity today. Faced with the whirlwind of misfortunes that seems to involve a world in permanent crisis, a little humor is indispensable. This is the way taken by Olea, one of the great contemporary Latin American comedians, who in Past, present and absent offers us a selection of his best cartoons: the famous "oleísmos". Olea's humor is simple and elegant. It does not need great coloring or twisted or especially graceful ways to reach our soul. His characters, physically and mentally, are very similar to us: beings with fears, anguish, problems, frustrations, fantasies, pleasures, joys, perversions, and an endless etcetera. These cards have the power to make us laugh even the deepest melancholy, while showing us, as if we were in a house of mirrors, different and unknown angles of our being.