Quino mafalda biography of william
- Mafalda, mon héroïne (2024) by Florence Cestac, Maële Reat, Emilie Gleason, Anne Simon, Aude Picault, Maud Begon, Véro Cazot, Soledad Bravi, Agathe de Lastic, Gally, Marie Bardiaux-Vaïente and Florence Dupré Latour.
- Wild River by Roger Seiter (scenario) and Vincent Wagner. (drawings) 2016
- Montana 1948 by Nicolas Pitz based on the novel by Larry Watson (2016)
In French, the word Bande Dessinée (BD) covers a broader meaning than its English translation as comic strip. I don’t read a lot of BD but I enjoy them from time to time.
At Christmas I received the excellent Mafalda, mon heroine where 15 women BD authors pay a tribute to Quino and his feisty heroine Mafalda. Each author explains what Mafalda means to them and did their own Mafalda comic strip.
In these spin-offs, Mafalda is her usual self: she hates soup, asks uncomfortable questions to her father, watches with horror her mother swallowed by domestic tasks and rolls her eyes at Susanita’s dream of love and marital life.
But the authors also try to imagine what Mafalda would say about today’s world and what kind of strips Quino would have done.
As you see in this sample, each author kept her way of drawing and created their own Mafalda, not trying to copy Quino but taking ownership of his favorite topics and of Mafalda’s background.
It’s very interesting to see how much Mafalda influenced these BD authors and how well-known Quino’s BD is in France. I believe Mafalda has something of the French spirit, a je-ne-sais-quoi in her that make French people feel some kinship with her. Maybe it’s her ranting, her protesting against anything she doesn’t agree with, her deep interest in politics and her underlying wish to reach the Liberté-Egalité-Fraternité ideal.
The next BD is a totally different kind of BD as it’s a graphic novel.
Montana 1948 is the BD version of the eponymous novella by Larry Watson. I’ve read it and my billet is here.
The narrator recalls July is Spanish Literature Month at Caravana de Recuerdosand Winston’s Dad Blog. It’s an opportunity for me to write a billet about Mafalda. I’m not sure comics qualify as literature for this event but I suppose Richard and Stu will forgive me. Mafalda is the little girl you see on my gravatar and some of my personal posts. She’s very famous in France and her albums are available in most bookshops. Her father is Quino, an Argentinean cartoonist. Quino’s comics were published from 1964 to 1973 in three different magazines or newspapers. (Primera Plan, El Mundo and Siete Dias Illustrados). Then Quino decided to put an end to it, thinking his concept was worn out. Mafalda is a Charlie Brown with a strong political awareness. It’s a flavour of Argentina and the world in the 1960s. As a character, Mafalda is both a child and an adult. As a child, she goes to school, plays with friends and asks endless questions to her parents. She hates soup and Quino uses it as comical material. Once you see Mafalda sitting at the dinner table and when her mother brings her a plate full of soup, she tells her: “Perhaps it’s sad, Rachel, but in such cases Mom is barely a pseudonym”. This is Mafalda and her brother Guille: Her adult side tends to ask tricky questions to her poor father, make sarcastic remarks about the news and point out the adults’ inconsistencies and flaws. Living in the 1960s, she worries about the Cold War, the Vietnam War, peace in general and the state of the world in particular. Mafalda also shows a certain side of the Argentinean society and its evolution. Mafalda’s father buys a car (a 2CV) and the whole neighbourhood raves about it. Mafalda eventually gets a telly but soon criticizes the programs. She .[RIP] Quino - creator of Mafalda 1932-2020
Argentinian cartoonist Joaquín Salvador Lavado Tejón, known by the nickname Quino, died today. His most famous creation was the comic strip Mafalda, that ran from 1964 to 1973 but still sells lots of books of the collected strips. In that series, a very precocious girl named Mafalda and her family and gang of friends commented on everything from the Argentinian political situation, the Cold War, democracy, capitalism, the role of women in society, everything... Mafalda was always idealist and looking for a better world and angry at the injustice of it, but with a bit of a kid innocence to it.
The strip was a success not only in Argentina, but in all Latin America and Spain, to the point that again, is not only being still sold in volumes, Quino got a Principe de Asturias award for his work. I'm not sure how well know it is elsewhere, but I think it was also printed in France and Italy.
He also had a different set of cartoons, lots of them without words or with few words, that touched on the same themes but in a different way, not having to be tied to the whole characters and gags of the situation, and the "sad humour" of Mafalda got more lyric in those.
All in all, he gave us some of the best loved material in comic strips ever, and became one of those shared cultural institutions that somehow tie the very different people that speak Spanish.
Thanks for all the thoughts and all the smiles, Don Quino.
"We send a father every day and the damn office sends us this back?"
"And your dad, Libertad, who is he going to vote for in the election?"
"Oh, dont speak about it, he has such a face, poor man"
"Ah, he hasnt made up his mind yet?"
"Yes, he made up his mind... and he has such a face, poor man"
Mafalda:What are you doing with the phone, Guille?Guille:Me El CordobesMafalda: El Cordobes? Where’s the bull? Mother:What are you doing, Mafalda?Mafalda:Nothing, Mom. Just contemplating Humanity.Mother: Humanity?