Sunday Comics: Mafalda
(I hope it’s okay with Quino, but I translated it myself. A scan of the original can be seen at my Flikr site, here.)
Mafalda is a Spanish language comic strip that was fatally compared to Charlie Brown early enough on to keep it from ever being imported to us. I found Mafalda in Spain, in my friend Sybilla’s bathroom. Mafalda book after Mafalda book were piled in front of the toilet. Since I was so stressed living in Madrid and not being paid for my handbag and toy designing, I spent a lot of time in that toilet. The strip above is a scan of the original, which I suspect I tore out of one of Sybilla’s books. (Which I can’t believe I did, it’s not very typical of me, but perhaps I found it so inspirational that I thought she’d forgive me.) It’s been taped to every fridge I’ve had for the last fifteen years.
Mafalda had originally been created by Quino (whose full name is JoaquÃn Salvador Lavado, Quino being a nickname for JoaquÃn), as part of an ad campaign for household appliances that got killed. He decided to keep the character of Mafalda, which began appearing in Argentina’s weekly newspaper, “Primero Plano,” before becoming popular in Europe, particularly Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Germany. Mafalda has always been outspoken and questioned the world rather lucidly, making observations about politics and world events without being precocious or cynical. She’s simply curious and impressionable.
For example, see Wikipedia for more on Mafalda, including a panel where Mafalda says, in true Mafalda style: “We’re screwed! It turns out that if we don’t start changing the world, it’s the world that ends up changing us!” (I’ve re-translated the translation to suit my ear.)
If you speak English, German, Portuguese, or Catalan, you’re in luck with Mafalda Online. If not, just keep the above cartoon in mind when the world seems scary and with any luck you’ll come down with a slight case of Mafalda.