The creator of one of the world’s best known comics characters has died: Argentinean creator Quino, creator of Mafalda.
Little known in the US, Mafalda, a six-year-old girl who seeks world peace, is beloved throughout the Spanish-speaking world, easily the equivalent of Charlie Brown in South America and Spain.
According to the BBC, Quino, the pen name of Joaquín Salvador Lavado, died at his home in Mendoza.
Lavado wrote and drew the comics between 1964 and 1973 but they are still being reprinted to this day.
Mafalda is so popular she even has her own statues in Argentina and in Spain.The comic, which first appeared in the Argentine weekly Primer Plana in 1964, features the daily life of Mafalda, the daughter of a typical middle-class Argentine couple, whom she often baffles with her insightful questions.
Although Mafalda fits into the niche of “mischievous kid characters” who are popular around the world, she was no terrorist Bart Simpson, but a wise little girl who questioned authority and sought to make the world better than she left it and even addressed gender issues. Mafalda was a sharp satire on politics and world affairs.
https://twitter.com/SocialLore/status/1311337906691338241
https://twitter.com/arianaescobar/status/1311365823576055808
The comics world noted his passing:
https://twitter.com/entrevinetas/status/1311349660318134273
https://twitter.com/NTarnopolsky/status/1311321707274211328
https://twitter.com/cmonstah/status/1311348230072877058
https://twitter.com/IleanaPRod/status/1311360747482611713
Fellow Argentine cartoonist Liniers had this lovely tribute.
https://twitter.com/porliniers/status/1311345953874620419
Quino retired from cartooning in 2006.
Mafalda does seem to fit visually somewhere between Charlie Brown and Little Lulu.
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