Quino

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Joaquín Salvador Lavado
Quino in Paris in 2004.
Born	July 17, 1932 Guaymallén, Argentina
Nationality	Argentine
Area(s)	Cartoonist
Pseudonym(s)	Quino
Notable works	Mafalda

Joaquín Salvador Lavado, better known by his pen name Quino, is an Argentine cartoonist born on July 17, 1932 in Guaymallén, Mendoza Province. His comic strip Mafalda (which ran from 1964 to 1973) is very popular in Latin America and many parts of Europe.

[edit] Quino's universe

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Quino's strips and cartoons feature no talking animals or animated toys: his main characters are ordinary people with ordinary feelings. If the situations are often surreal or allegorical (like the operating room with Errare humanum est written over the door, or the riot police throwing valium into protesters' open mouths), the personalities and reactions are very real and familiar — only magnified to caricatural proportions. Thus, although the conception of his Mafalda strip superficially resembles those of other child-centered strips, such as Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts — including the kids' incongruous concern for adult topics like world politics — Quino's characters can still be seen by readers as real children, with real (if caricatured) children's minds and real parents, rather than the stylized "adults in children's bodies" of Schulz's world. In that respect, Mafalda is closer to Bill Watterson's Calvin (with the exception that, instead of Calvin's easy and frequent escapism into his fantasy world, Mafalda and friends prefer to satirize an inescapable reality).

Quino's humor is characteristically bitter or even cynical, often dwelling on the misery and absurdity of human existence — independently of one's station in life — in face of stupid authorities, decrepit institutions, confining dogmas, and the narrow-mindedness of fellow humans. In Quino's world there is no promise of redemption, no sign that life will ever get better. Misery, which is portrayed without euphemisms, is essential and eternal; and each cartoon is just an eye-opening snapshot that misery, caught in a particularly funny moment — which is funny only for its absurdity, or its profound irony. His cartoons seem to say, let's have a laugh at life, and forget — just for a moment — how harsh it is.

On the other hand, Quino's focus on how grim life is betrays an inner conviction that it ought to be good, and a deep sympathy for life's mostly innocent victims — employees, children, housewives, pensioners, obscure artists, unrecognized heroes — in spite of their very human failings and limitations. Even in his caricatures of oppressive bosses and unfeeling bureaucrats one can see some sympathy: for they too are, after all, only victims of their own stupidity. Quino's world view is easy to explain in light of Argentina's vicissitudes over the last forty years. Indeed, his mixture of pessimism and humanism, and his ability to make the readers laugh at their collective tragedy, could be the reasons of his immense popularity in among Europeans and Latin Americans.

[edit] Prizes and honors

The kind of ideas that he works with are one of the most difficult, and I am amazed at their variety and depth. Also, he knows how to draw, and to draw in a funny way. I think that he is a giant. — Charles M. Schulz

Quino has won many international prizes and honors throughout his career. In 1982, Quino was chosen Cartoonist of the Year by fellow cartoonists around the world, and has won twice the Konex Platinum Prize for Visual Arts. In 2000 he received the second Quevedos Prize for graphical humor.