Mafalda, Argentine cartoonist Quino’s best-known character, may have been a girl in the neighboring country, but her questioning spirit and vision on social issues conquered the world. Known in more than 40 countries, the character Mafalda, a questioning girl who sees the world’s problems as an adult, has starred in thousands of comic strips, and even rereading them, it is possible to always find new things.
And this is one of the objectives of the documentary series “Voltando a Ler Mafalda”, which premieres on Disney+ and Star+, next Wednesday (27): revisit Quino’s work to find new views on the character.
“I feel like she is a vital part of my life. And the funny thing is that if I pick up one of the books and start reading, I can’t stop. And every time I reread it, I discover something new. That’s why the title of the series is a way of looking at the characters’ stories from different and new points of view.”, says Lorena Muñoz, director of the series in an interview with CNN .
The production reveals what Quino’s sources of inspiration were, how he created each of the supporting characters, his production routine, his relationship with the people around him and several analyzes of the most popular and well-known comic strips.
According to Lorena, the biggest challenge was translating a comic strip, the drawings, the information, into an audiovisual language.
“Make everything interesting for the viewer, including elements of audiovisual language. We didn’t want to make an animation, we wanted to respect the origins of the comic strips,” she says.
“The way we found to see different artists drawing the characters, explaining the strips, how they are constructed, with different resources, is what makes the narrative more dynamic”, he says.
The series brings together names like Maitena, Liniers, Montt, Tute, Rep, Kemchs and Raquel Riba Rossy, renowned Latin American cartoonists and admirers of Quino’s work, who help in the journey of discovering new curiosities about the character and his creator.
For Lorena, the most surprising thing was discovering how Quino, sometimes, didn’t have the energy to sit down and draw. “This complexity of there being a great demand, of needing to design and at the same time not having the desire, when you have no inspiration. I could imagine that this happened, because it happens to a lot of people, but understanding why it happened to him humanized him, humanized my idol,” she says. “That made him my idol twice over.”
Another discovery was the proximity of Quino’s work to cinema. “When he says that when he sat down to draw the first thing he asked himself where the camera was, which is something I do. This identification with him seemed super interesting to me,” he says.
The documentary series has four episodes and brings a mix of nostalgia, sweetness and provides a lot of laughs as you explore Mafalda’s incisive questions that still make a lot of sense today.
“I hope the series helps new generations to have a greater understanding of why Mafalda is so valuable, why we identify with her”, says Lorena. “She actually represents the world. She is also like Messi, she is our ambassador.”
Created in 1962, Mafalda was initially a character who would star in comic strips that would serve as advertising for a brand of household appliances. The strategy didn’t work and Quino was able to use the character as we know her today, a girl who sees the inequalities and problems in the world and is not afraid to question them. Quino died in 2020.
Source: CNN Brasil
I’m Robert Neff, a professional writer and editor. I specialize in the entertainment section, providing up-to-date coverage on the latest developments in film, television and music. My work has been featured on World Stock Market and other prominent publications.
