Mafalda

 

Mafalda is a comic strip written and drawn by Argentine cartoonist Joaquín Salvador Lavado, better known by his pen name Quino. The strip features a 6-year-old girl named Mafalda, who is deeply concerned about humanity and world peace and rebels against the current state of the world. The strip ran from 1964 to 1973 and was very popular in Latin America, Europe, Quebec, and in Asia, leading to two animated cartoon series and a movie.

The character Mafalda and a few other characters were created by Quino in 1962 for a promotional cartoon that was intended to be published in the daily Clarín. Mafalda's name was inspired by David Viñas's novel Dar la cara. Ultimately, however, Clarín broke the contract and the campaign was canceled altogether.

Mafalda became a full-fledged cartoon strip on the advice of Quino's friend Julián Delgado, at the time senior editor of the weekly Primera Plana. Its run in that newspaper began on 29 September 1964. At first it only featured Mafalda and her parents. Her friend Felipe came on the scene in January 1965. A legal dispute arose in March 1965, which led to the end of Mafalda's Primera Plana run on 9 March 1965.

One week later, on 15 March 1965 Mafalda (the character at the age of five) started appearing daily in Buenos Aires' Mundo, allowing the author to follow current events more closely. The characters of Felipe, Manolito, Susanita and Miguelito were created in the following weeks, and Mafalda's mother was pregnant when the newspaper shut down on 22 December 1967.

Publication resumed six months later, on 2 June 1968, in the weekly Siete Días Ilustrados. Since the cartoons had to be delivered two weeks before publication, Quino was not able to comment on the news to the same extent. After creating the characters of Mafalda's little brother Guille and her new friend Libertad, he definitively ceased publication of the strip on 25 June 1973.

After 1973,Quino still drew Mafalda afew times, mostly to promote humanrights.In 1976, he reproduced Mafalda for the UNICEF illustratingthe Conventionon the Rights of the Child.

Joaquín Salvador Lavado, better known by his pen name Quino (born 17 July 1932) is an Argentine cartoonist. His comic strip Mafalda (which ran from 1964 to 1973) is very popular in Latin America and many parts of Europe.

Quino's daily newspaper strip Mafalda washis most successful cartooning venture. Mafalda ranfrom 1964 to 1973. The comic was translated into more than 30languages.However,it never received much of an audience in the English-speaking world,perhaps because, as Quino put it, the strip was "too LatinAmerican." In1976, the character Mafalda was chosen by UNICEF tobe a spokesperson for the Conventionon the Rights of the Child. Mafalda isstill translated in book collections. Argentine director Daniel Mallotranslated 260 Mafalda stripsinto 90-second cartoons that aired in Argentina, starting in 1972.