I suspect like many of you, I'd heard of Mafalda years ago as THE best comic to come out of Argentina, often being favorably compared to Peanuts. Joaquín Salvador Lavado Tejón -- better known by his pen name Quino -- began the strip in 1964 (having created the character the year before) and continued on it until 1973. The strip's humor was allegedly incredibly witty and satricial, but despite the strips being collected in book form and translated/published around the world, it's only been in the last two weeks that we finally get an English-language version here in the States.
Mafalda collects the firsst 240 strips and the comparisons to Peanuts are almost immediately obvious. The characters bear little resemblance to one another and Quino's drawing style is nothing like Charles Schulz's, but the biting commentary on adults and adulthood coming from children hits in much the same way that the very best Peanuts strips do. The strips tend to focus on a single theme for 4-5 days in a row, frequently with Mafalda trying to learn more about a subject by discussing it with her friends, asking her parents, or by simply observing things around her. She comes to the topics with a child-like naivete but manages to pose extremely pointed questions like, "Papa? Can you explain why humanity is a disaster?"
While I think Quino was often writing the strips in reaction to current events, most of the strips don't require much historical context. There were a few references to the Vietnam War and a couple of news-worthy folks that have since fallen into relative obscurity, but even those references don't need much context to understand. I think the cultural touchstones might be a little harder for Americans to connect with -- while strikes are not unheard of here, certainly, we haven't seen the spate of them that would've been taking place (and are therefore referenced) in Argentina back in the '60s. Also, Mafalda has an absolute aversion to soup, going so far as to use "soup" as a curse word; I think I must be missing something with that bit.
But by and large, the humor holds up exceptionally well and it really is as good as I'd been led to believe. More amazingly, too, it starts right out of the gate with some good gags and the really biting stuff starts coming within a few pages. I've rarely seen comics start that well-crafted and well-defined that early on. Quino really knew what he was doing.
As far as I can tell, this version is -- aside from being an English translation -- basically just a reprint of the original Argentinian edition from 1966. It's a high-quality reprint, certainly, on a very nice paper stock with better-than-I-expected reproduction quality. (I half-wonder if they were able to use the original printing materials; all the linework is incredibly clean!) So it's a very nice presentation. But that also means there's no context for American audiences -- no introduction, no foreword, not even a note about when these originally were published. Granted, we are in 2025 so that's all easily found online and the majority of people likely to buy this book are already familiar with Mafalda's reputation, so it's probably not really critical to include, but it does come as something of a departure from what I think we're used to seeing in comic strip collections these days.
Like I said, this is the first time Mafalda has made it to the US. That's why you're interested. My review, nor anyone else's, is really going to sway you one way or another. You heard Mafalda was getting published and that was all you needed to hear. It's out now, and the hardcover retails for $18 US. It really does live up to its reputation, so go get it if you've got any interest at all.
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