Mafalda

Mafalda is the most famous creation of Argentinian cartoonist Joaquin Salvador Lavado, better known as Quino. The character is worldly recognised because of her sharp sense of humour and social commentary. Though in her biography, Mafalda is said to have been born in 1962, it was until 1964 that a Mafalda comic strip was published. The beginning of the second half of the XX Century, when the Cold War was present in every person's thoutghs, was a time in which big ideological and political changes occured and decisions were made; and Quino was able to incorporate these events into his art. How?

The character Felipe--a personage famous for his continuous nervous breakdowns--was incorporated after the Indonesian government's nervous breakdown due to its Malaysian neighbors; Susana--the ultimate corny--, the date of her debut into the series matches the date of the peace and disarm declarations and negotiations of Washington, the OAS (Organisation of American States), and Moscow; Manolito--the utterly capitalistic owner of a grocery store--debuts nearly the same day that North Vietnam blows up the American embassy and in return the US makes a North Vietnamese island disappear from the map, claiming that "War is a business and those who make it possible are good merchants."

Mafalda gives us the opportunity of reading a humoured version of what happened in the world from 1964 to 1973 with subjects ranging from Vietnam, racism, the atomic war, Fidel Castro, and Lyndon Johnson up to the Beatles, the creation of the UN, and Soviet Union, the US proposals to the Soviet Union, the Iron Curtain, and more.

"Cuando sea grande voy a trabajar de intérprete en laONU y cuando un delegado le diga a otro que su país es un asco yo voy a traducir que su país es un encanto y, claro, nadie podrá pelearse ¡y se acabarán los líos y las guerras y el mundo estará a salvo!" - Mafalda

"Y, claro, el drama de ser presidente es que si uno se pone a resolver los problemas de estado no le queda tiempo para gobernar." - Mafalda

Source:

TODA MAFALDA by Joaquín Salvador Lavado