Anyone that knows me knows how much I love comics.
I’ve been reading them as far as I can remember. In fact, some my earliest memories involve going to the newsagent with the little money that I had managed to get from my parents. The rack with the newest issues I craved used to be right at the entrance on the right hand side. Next to the newspapers.
I can still see the image in my mind like it was yesterday.
But I read comics even before then. In a way, I was always destined to fall in love with comics. My parents, escaping from Franco's fascist regime, lived in France for quite a few years and I was born in the French side of the Basque Country. My dad read comics and we had lots of them at home. Most of them were in French, some were in Spanish. I remember, Reiser being a favourite of my dad's and lots of the early Charlie Hebdo cartoonists. I was attracted to these amazing books full of pictures. Totally fascinated.
I always wanted to read them with him but he didn't want to share them with me. He always chose one story or a few pages, showed them to me and translated the French text. I wanted more, but he always showed me just a little and sent me away.
What I didn't know then and realised much later was that those comics were not for children and most of the stories were quite inappropriate. That's why he had to carefully select which ones to share.
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| Quino and his best known creation: Mafalda |
My parents also read a comic in Spanish created by Argentinian master Quino.
My first big love when it comes to comics was Mafalda. In fact, Mafalda had a huge impact on me. I was the last one in my class in terms of reading. Living in the outskirts of town, the river, the mountains, the forest, the canal, were my playground. I had too much to explore to 'waste' time on reading. At least that's how I saw it. I simply wasn't interested and I refused to learn to read.
Then I met Mafalda, Felipe, Manolito, Susanita and the rest. What can I say, it was love at first sight. Quino's art is simple and easy to read but that simplicity belies the extraordinary skill of the artist in creating these wonderful characters.
Even though the main characters are children, Quino's creation cannot be said to be made for children but children read it and loved it. I've heard it compared to Peanuts. A fair comparison, but I like that in Mafalda adults still feature in the strips. It allows Quino to explore the contradictions between adults and how children see the world. I would also compare it to Calvin and Hobbes and argue that Mafalda is somewhere between both but with a more mature socio political angle.
The stories and jokes often touch on politics and social issues and, thankfully, Quino doesn't dumb down any of it. We see the world from the children's perspectives, we see their innocence, their naivety, their imagination, but also their concerns.
Mafalda and her friends often see adults who don't seem to have it together. They point out the things that adults do and take as the norm that from a children's perspective make no sense. It's important to note that Quino was drawing these cartoons between 1964 to 1973, amid political instability and turmoil in Argentina, including the 1966 military coup.
Mafalda and her friends long for peace and justice, they want to make sense of a seemingly senseless world. Quino said that Mafalda was a socio-political comic strip firmly rooted on family values. And I would say it was also the closest thing to philosophy I read as a kid. Quino's humour is sharp but also warm and full of humanity.
I often say, that Mafalda taught me to read, but it also taught me how to be a better person and, perhaps most importantly, helped me understand life, humanity, society and politics. Reading Mafalda wasn't just for fun, it also shaped my thinking and world view.
Mafalda and Quino have been largely unknown in the English speaking world. Some people were in the know but there hasn't been a proper English translation. That's about to change and I wonder what North America, the UK and Australia will make of these characters from the global south. Don't get me wrong, Mafalda has aged really well. The strips are still as impactful and highly relevant today as they were back then, but I wonder if the socio political themes will be embraced.
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| Mafalda's announcement poster for Netflix |
An animated TV series Netflix series has also been announced. I would usually be wary of an adaptation but Argentinian director Juan José Campanella, most famous for the Oscar winner Secret in Their Eyes, is at the helm and I'm confident he'll do a great job.
Personally I couldn't be happier that Mafalda will finally have an English translation and an animated series. I've shared some of the strips with my son. He doesn't speak Spanish but I've translated some of them for him. He knows how much she means to me and from the few strips I've translated he's totally fallen in love with Mafalda and her friends. How could it be otherwise?
I can't wait for the English translation to be published so I can buy all five volumes and give them as a personal gift to him. It won't have the same impact on him. He's already an excellent reader. But I look forward to hear him laugh out loud repeatedly and I'm sure he will learn a lot from these strips. It will make him a better person.
That's the power of Quino.
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