Quino, Biography Of The Alterego Of Mafalda

His real name is Joaquín Salvador Lavado Tejón, but everyone knows him as Quino. Although, to tell the truth, Mafalda is much more famous, the Argentine girl concerned about world politics who baffles the elderly with her occurrences and who today is known practically all over the planet.

Unlike Mafalda , Quino loves soup. In reality, that gesture of his character was an allegory: it represented everything that we have to “swallow” every day, even if we don’t like it. That detail shows us one of the great features of both Quino and Mafalda: they are irremediable pessimists. Despite this, they are also humanists and that is why in all their stories there is a tender tone.

Quino has said that living and being a cartoonist is the same for him. He confessed that since he was 3 years old, it did not occur to him to do anything else in life other than draw.

Despite his deep skepticism, he thinks that hope is a mandatory attitude, because otherwise life would not be worth living.

Quino, an early vocation

Joaquín Lavado was born in Mendoza (Argentina) on July 17, 1932. He was the son of Andalusian immigrants and has often said that his pessimism is the result of that ancestry.

His uncle, Joaquín Tejón, was an excellent draftsman and graphic designer. From him he inherited the vocation and also his eternal name: Quino. It was a diminutive of the family to distinguish it from the uncle.

It was precisely this guy who taught him to scribble on paper when the boy was 3 years old. Since then, drawing has become an obsessive passion. Ten years later, when he was just 13 years old, his mother died. Joaquín’s response to this event was to go to the School of Fine Arts in Mendoza to study.

Sadly, a short time later, her father also died . The School of Fine Arts never quite seduced him and that is why he abandoned it after four years of studies. It was clear to him that he did not want to paint still lifes for the rest of his life, but comic strips. It was a very bold bet for the time.

The birth of Mafalda

Since the father died, Quino had to go through great financial hardships. He knocked on the door of many newspapers and publishers, but got no response.

At that time, he was drafted into compulsory military service and upon completion, he decided to move to Buenos Aires to try his luck.

He spent three more years living with great financial limitations, but at 22 he managed to fulfill his great dream. The weekly Esto es published his drawings for the first time in 1954. Quino says that this was the happiest day of his entire life. Since then, he has not stopped publishing in different newspapers and magazines around the world.

Several years of sustained success passed and in 1963 he decided to publish his first humor book, Mundo Quino . The prologue was made by Miguel Brascó, who also contacted an advertising agency. This was going to launch a line of electrical appliances called Mansfield and Joaquín was in charge of the campaign. He had to create characters whose names began with “M”. This is how Mafalda was born.

A harvest of successes

Surprisingly, the ad campaign never came true, but Quino was delighted with one of the characters he had created: a girl with a large dark hair who seemed to have a lot to say. On September 29, 1964, the first Mafalda comic strip came to light in the Buenos Aires weekly Primera Plana .

The success was immediate and the following year the comic was already published throughout South America. Later, it came to Europe and later to Asia. Soon the first book was published with the compilation of the publications; did Jorge Alvarez Editor , with a circulation of 5,000 copies that achieved record: in two days sold out completely.

Surprisingly, in 1973 he decided not to create another episode of Mafalda, according to him, because he had run out of ideas. Obviously, he has continued drawing and creating his cartoons for different newspapers around the world. Some think that the later comics are much more mature and interesting, but nothing has surpassed the success of Mafalda.

In 2014, just when Mafalda was turning 50, Quino received the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award in Spain. It was the first time that this award was given to a cartoonist.

Joaquín Lavado did not make any speech and only told the press that he regretted the fact that all the problems for which his character was outraged are still so relevant.