Happy Birthday Mafalda!

Americans friends: I will introduce you to my favorite comic strip, Mafalda.

 

Mafalda is a comic strip written and drawn by argentine cartoonist Joaquín Salvador Lavado, also known by Quino. Mafalda is a 6-year-old, who reflects the Latin American middle class and progressive youth, which is concerned about humanity and world peace and rebels against the world. She also has a great concern for the state of humanity and a proverbial hatred for soup. She often leaves her parents at a loss by asking about mature or complex topics. One of the things that I love about Mafalda is her honesty and simplicity in questioning the world. Her questioning is timeless. You read her strip today and 10 years from now, that strip will retain its true essence. That scares me some times. Can’t we learn from our past mistakes and change for better?

I also have two Mafaldas at home. My children.  I often have to handle a big drama when soup is in the menu and not hot dogs. I do get questions like “Mommy, what is an orphan?”  or “Why the orphan looks so sad? No one will do something to fix this?”

Mafalda is not a lonely child. She has a little brother Guille. One ofmy favorites. He loves soup, has a pathological dependence on his pacifier, and he and Mafalda have a pet tortoise called Burocracia, in english Bureaucracy. He is a bit of a troublemaker and appears to share the same trait as his sister in terms of bringing up awkward topics of discussion.

She also has a lot of friends. Her friends represent the typical stereotypes of a society. Among my favorites, we have:

Felipe: A dreamer who is usually lost in his fantasies and imagination, and also deeply scared of school, even though he’s the brightest and oldest member of the gang.

Manolito: The son of a spanish shoppkeeper. While his family business is a small, local grocery store, he seems ambitious with his career, and is more concerned with notions of business, capitalism and dollars, than anything else. He’s always promoting the store and its products in street graffiti and even in ordinary conversations.

 

Susanita: A frivolous girl with curly blond hair, who displays stereotypical feminine traits; her life revolves around femininity, gossip, dreams of marriage and maternity, and woman antagonism. Her dream is to be a mother and dedicated housewife and often fantasizes about the possibilities, which often leads to arguments with Mafalda.

 

Miguelito: Somewhat of a rebel, most of the time he is a little too eager to get into philosophical debates. Although he is characterized as “innocent” by his friends, he often surprises them with comments ridden with cynism. A descendant of Italian immigrants, his grandfather is very fond of Mussolini. Has really strong family values and is often scared of his mother. Aren’t we all?

Her debut in the newspapers was in Argentina on September 29^th, 1964. Her strips made it all over the world, although here in the US they are very rare to find. I have all the books, including the English book “The World of Quino”. My mom has a HUGE book with every single strip written.  My siblings know that someday that book will be mine. Well… if they don’t know, they will soon after they read this post. 🙂

Xoxo,