Quino, creator of Mafalda comic character, dies aged 88 | Hacker News Reader

Quino, creator of Mafalda comic character, dies aged 88

bbc.com

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Can't believe the article doesn't have samples of this man's amazing work.

https://twitter.com/MechiValle/status/1311323302883930128/ph...

https://twitter.com/MechiValle/status/1311327158795743232/ph...

https://twitter.com/MechiValle/status/1311327628624826370/ph...

"This is not available to you"

Hopefully this does the trick:

https://nitter.net/MechiValle/status/1311323302883930128/pho... https://nitter.net/MechiValle/status/1311327158795743232/pho... https://nitter.net/MechiValle/status/1311327628624826370/pho...

Nice. This guy is like an Argentinean Banksy (or viceversa, Banksy is a British Quino).

Yeah, I think these non-verbal strips have a similar feel to it. Mafalda is more like Calvin and Hobbes IMO as another user pointed out.

the few I've seen of mafalda hints at slightly larger reflections than calvin & hobbes, I think it does ring a bell with banksy's groove

TIL. I'd say he reminds me of Sergio Aragonés and Antonio Prohías.

https://nitter.net/pic/media%2FEjLEhyrWkAEXhN5.png%3Fname%3D...

https://nitter.net/pic/media%2FEjLFF9dXgAQSSIj.png%3Fname%3D...

https://nitter.net/pic/media%2FEjLLQa4XkAEQJoh.png%3Fname%3D...

He was famous for Mafalda but his best work IMO is his non-Mafalda stuff which can be seen in those tweets. Super smart guy.

Hmm, do you know spanish ? Mafalda has a lot of good jokes and smart criticism.

Sure, I'm from Spain.

Great work and great guy. He will be missed. RIP Quino.

I love the "life according to Quino" strip

I've seen people comparing Quino to Calvin & Hobbes and Gary Larson's Farside. Quino is very different from both.

I prefer his non-Mafalda work. In there he his a lot more visual than those American authors. He is almost non-verbal.

Also, I find his "magic realism" to be more in tune with the classic Latin American writers of his age (Borges, Marquez, Cortazar). I say it because, unlike Larson's absurdity and Calvin's dreams, his fantasies are still strongly tied to reality, they're a comment about reality, not just imaginary for the sake of it. He is the far opposite of escapism.

As an argentinian, this is a really sad day for me and for the rest of the country, you can tell in the /r/argentina subreddit today which has been absolutely flooded with comics from him to remember his work, you don't need to know spanish to understand his work because he was a genius in semiology, there was no reason for words. I even named one my cats Mafalda 8 years ago in his honor for making my youth fantastic while reading his comics.

He will be missed, RIP Quino.

It was felt very strongly here in Spain, too. I have a giant Mafalda compilation book on a shelve next to me, I practically learn to read with those strips since my parents already had them by the time I was born.

Along with Les Luthiers recordings, it's one of the few cases where my parent's preferences were completely transferable to me because it really transcends their time, you don't really need a lot of generational context to connect.

Is Mafalda popular in the English world?

Even today, it's super popular in the Spanish speaking world. As popular as Peanuts or Garfield.

A quick poll of my friends and I in the room right now would suggest a resounding 'no'. Is it translated? I don't know Spanish.

I think not, also some of the jokes might lose sense in english. Edit: From the article "Mafalda's wit and her sharp observations of the adult world ensured the comic's popularity, which was translated into 26 languages." So you might be able to get it in english.

From amazon, searching Mafalda and setting the book language to english:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=mafalda&rh=p_n_feature_nine_brows...

Like Les Luthiers and any comedian making full use of their original language, many jokes lose their punch —or even don't make any sense— when translated.

On the other hands, many of the Mafalda strips work well with literal translations too. I am reminded of her getting a turtle. Mafalda decided to call her Bureaucracy. Or her in the beach seeing a crab walking backwards and after a panel of contemplation letting the crab know "The future is forwards!" and when the crab continues on its merry way, backwards, her yelling at it "Reactionary!". Or her taking a globe and treating it like it has a cold after listening to the news in the radio.

The strips seem to also be commonly used when teaching Spanish, as the simple art work lends itself to be easily described.

As a sample of 1 person from the US, I can say I have never heard of Mafalda.

Probably will never be much appreciated in US (I could hear Americans shouting 'socialist!' in terror from there), but is a good comic. Apart of some outdated references here and there it has aged relatively well, taking in mind that is from 60' and 70's.

Definitely playing in the same league as Garfield, and inspired by peanuts, but better IMO. More deep and complex than the happy world of Snoopy. Quino was wicked deploying visual gags, describing psychologically the characters with a few strokes, and extracting universal humor from common situations. Sometimes poignant, very dark, cynic and twisted humor, but of impeccable good taste and often really clever. It is still very enjoyable with dozens of memorable quotes.

> More deep and complex than the happy world of Snoopy.

Probably because Latin America :) He was way more adult-oriented and political than Peanuts and Garfield.

Yeah totally. I compared it to those comics because there's also Mafalda merchandising everywhere (at least in Spain).

Not in the US, at least. I only learned of Mafalda because of my wife (on a trip to visit her in BA prior to getting married).

Just as a trivia, he's really popular in Brazil. It's extremely common for school books to use his strips, both as interpretation exercises but also as a comic relief w/ the strip matching the subject we're studying. It's so common it's hard to find a Brazilian who never heard of Mafalda.

Heck, when I was a kid in the 80s in Brazil I thought Mafalda was Brazilian. It took me some time to learn that he was from Argentina. That is how common it was to find strips in our schoolbooks.

I don't know for english world, but I can say that in France Mafalda was relatively well known in the 80s and 90s, since you could find Mafalda comics in every public library for example. However she was not very popular amongst french kids probably because 1/ it was complicated and filled with political satire that kids could not understand 2/ kids were not accustomed to "comic strip" style.

Amongst adults, Quino was appreciated for Mafalda but even more for his other works (of which I am a huge fan)

Comics in general are not very big in the English-speaking world relative to other places. A lot of major international successes never even get translated to English or take decades to get translations.

Super popular in Italy too, Quino’s death hit the homepage of all major Italian newspapers. Lots of people read Mafalda collections in the 70s and 80s, I got one that was gifted to my mom in the late ‘70s and went through it several times as a kid.

Terrible news :(

A few months ago I made a twitter bot with Mafalda comic every two hours (in Spanish). Maybe someone will find it of interest. https://twitter.com/mafalda_bot

Ah... I spent so many hours of my childhood reading his comics. He will be sorely missed.

He is one of my idols too :..(

His cartoons are timeless, and many of them don’t have any text so you don’t need to read Spanish to understand.

I don't know about any other country. but as an argentinian, at any point in my life I could read one of his cartoons and it feels like it was drawn yesterday.

Argentina, the country that if you leave for a week, everything changes, if you leave for 20 years, everything is the same as you left.

Wow, is that accurate.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a3/44/cb/a344cb9e1ab0271102fc...

Ah yes, that's that good ol' argentine bureaucracy.

If you are a fan of Calvin and Hobbes or Peanuts then definitely check out Mafalda.

So sad, such a genius.

three generations (and counting) marveled by his work...

RIP Quino, such a witty and talented artist.

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