By Lucila Sigal and Maximilian Heath
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Argentines starred in a day of national mourning following the death of the beloved ist “Quino”, whose character Mafalda, an Argentine woman with black hair and strong political opinions, has attracted admirers from all over the world.
On Thursday, flags of public buildings waved to separate staff, while others on social media said goodbye to the artist and the National Treasury, who will have a small personal funeral due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Celebrities such as singer Ricky Martin, basketball player Manu Ginóbili, politicians and artists have paid tribute to Quino, the pseudonym Joaquín Salvador Lavado, who died at the age of 88, his editor-in-chief on Wednesday.
Quino was able to use Mafalda’s obvious innocence to spread scathing criticism, adding dictatorships that plagued Latin America from the 1960s on. He himself lived through the military regime in Argentina.
“Few things are as unhappy as the fact that Quino is gone,” Colombian Ricardo Silva Romero wrote on his Twitter account.
Quino’s niece told Mendoza newspapers that her remains would be cremated in an intimate ceremony.
With flowers and messages of gratitude, thousands of people in Argentina and around the world paid tribute to the author of the rebellious woman who advocated greater globalization, defended human rights and questioned abuses of power.
“Goodbye, professor,” wrote Argentine graphic cartoonist Juan Martín “Tute” Loiseau in a strip of the newspaper La Nación.
“He was a philosopher of humor and, at the same time, a 10-year-old boy. Like geniuses, they stay talking to us, he helps keep challenging us,” Tute said separately in an interview with local television. channel.
PLACE OF PILGRIMAGE
A statue of Mafalda, the swollen black-haired woman who hates soup and loves the Beatles, adorned with readers’ flowers who came to pay homage to him in the historic neighborhood of San Telmo in central Buenos Aires.
“This position is very vital for us because it is almost a pilgrimage position, there are queues of tourists every weekend,” Damion Losada, a 55-year-old social employee and comedian, told Reuters Television Damion Losada.
Mafalda comics, which Quino began writing in the 1960s but which transcended generations by the universality of his ideas, have been translated into 27 languages and opened the doors of outside recognition.
The comic, which recounted the daily life and reflections of the daughter of a typical Argentine bourgeois couple, published in the weekly Primera Plana in 1964, the character temporarily became a success and her first compilation ebook sold out in five days.
“In Argentina, since my generation, we all learned to read through Mafalda,” Argentine cartoonist Ricardo Siri, known as Liniers, said in an interview with Reuters last year, comparing Quino to the Beatles and Charlie Chaplin.
“Mafalda is the best character,” said Liniers, author of the band Macanudo and artist of several covers of New Yorker magazine. “Whatever you face in the adult world, situations demand it without delay. “
The son of Andalusian and declared socialist republicans, Quino left Argentina for Italy in 1976, when the last dictatorship of the Argentine army began.
After the return of democracy to Argentina, Quino alternated his between Milan, Madrid and Buenos Aires, where he continued to paint until 2006.
In 2004, when the Mexican edition of Playboy asked him if his life had been good, with his characteristic acrimony Quino replied: “Has it been good?Man! Compared to so many other people who live. Doing what they love, then that’s fine. “
(Report through Lucila Sigal and Maximilian Heath; Edited through Adam Jourdan and Jonathan Oatis)