Themo Lobos

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Themo Lobos
BornThemístocles Nazario Lobos Aguirre
(1928-12-03)December 3, 1928
San Miguel, Chile
DiedJuly 24, 2012(2012-07-24) (aged 83)
Valparaíso, Chile
NationalityChilean
Area(s)Cartoonist
Pseudonym(s)Themo Lobos
Notable works

Themístocles Nazario Lobos Aguirre (December 3, 1928 – July 24, 2012), better known as Themo Lobos, was a

comic-book Cucalón
, which collected all his previous characters and stories.

Biography

Childhood and early career

Themístocles Lobos was born in

La Nación in 1949, with his characters serving to promote advertising.[3]

The following year, he got to work in El Peneca. He was later signed on to work as one of the assistants to Guido Vallejos on the famous Chilean comic-book Barrabases, where he created the characters Cicleto, Cucufato and Ñeclito.[1] In the mid-1950s, he was signed on to work on the humor publication El Pingüino ("The Penguin"). For this magazine he introduced his first truly popular creation: Alaraco, a comic strip about an over-concerned and overreacting man (modeled on Lobos' own personality).[4] The same decade saw his work appear in the magazines Pobre Diablo, Flash, Humor de Hoy and Humanoide.[1]

Mampato magazine

Astérix. Vega had just read an Astérix book, at the time little known in Latin America, and was very impressed with the work; he attempted to merge Dennis the Menace's physical appearance and Astérix' art style into Mampato.[3] Themo Lobos was then very busy with his work for El Peneca, yet Armstrong offered him the chance to illustrate Mampato. At first, Lobos declined the offer, but after a while he accepted – quickly becoming close friends with Armstrong.[3] Lobos began drawing the series from the third chapter of Mampato's first adventure. While doing the illustrations, he mentioned to Armstrong that he was uncomfortable working with a script he had not written. Armstrong then decided to give Lobos free reins for the creation of stories and characters in all subsequent Mampato comics.[3] For the remainder of the first storyline and, in full instalments since the second Mampato adventure ("Kilikilis and Golagolas"), the series was entirely written and illustrated by Lobos (save for a few storylines by Vega) and the magazine went on to become highly popular and successful with Chilean youth, at its peak selling roughly 100,000 copies per issue[6] and changed its schedule to weekly in April 1971.[5]

Mampato and the whole Chilean comics industry were affected by the 1973 coup d'état against Salvador Allende's government, led by Augusto Pinochet on September 11. Eventually, many comics ceased publication[6] and also, in November of the same year, Eduardo Armstrong died from cancer at age 41.[7]

Since 1973, Lobos encountered problems in producing the Mampato strip. Some people took issue with certain stories such as Los Tres ("The Three"), aka El Árbol Gigante ("The Giant Tree"), where Mampato fights

mutants ruled by a character called Ferjus, the leader of a tyrannical dictatorship. Lobos commented on this particular storyline, explaining that he came up with it before the coup so it was not an attempt to satirize the then-current government. Most importantly, Lobos believed, it would be wrong to turn children's comics into political commentary.[8]

Amid the country's tense situation, Mampato magazine ceased publication in January 1978.[5]

During the publication period of 1968 – 1978, Lobos produced 25 complete Mampato storylines[1] and the magazine was the main publication venue for other Chilean comics artists in addition to other works by Lobos, such as Máximo Chambónez, a comic strip originally seen in Barrabases but which became more popular while appearing on Mampato.

Hiatus and Cucalón

First issue of Cucalón (1986)

After Mampato's abrupt end in 1978, certain stories and art by Lobos were left incomplete. Around this time, many of his colleagues, assistants and friends were exiled or left the country, but he decided to stay.[1] Until 1986, Lobos worked with very small or foreign publishers as well as illustrating promotional material for foreign properties such as the Smurfs and Super Friends.

In 1983, the Chilean

live-action sketch of his comic strip, Alaraco, starring comedian Fernando Alarcón. The recurring sketch became very popular across the country and rekindled interest in Themo Lobos comics.[9]

In 1986, Themo Lobos gathered the funds and rights needed to create a new publication called Cucalón.[10][11] This was a comic-book which collected all of Lobos' output from all the magazines that he had worked in his career, joined by new and previously unpublished material. Cucalón was very well received in Chile and ran for 48 issues until 1993,[11] with most of Lobos' material being covered during the run.

Later years

In 1996, Ediciones Dolmen began its publication of Mampato's adventures in the

animated motion picture by Chilean animation studio Cine Animadores
, based on the storyline known as "Mata-ki-te-rangui".

References

  1. ^ a b c d e es:Themo Lobos
  2. ^ a b c d "Interview of Themo Lobos, question "¿Y desde cuando que dibuja, Themistocles?" (Spanish)". Archived from the original on 2009-10-24. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
  3. ^ a b c d e "Interview of Themo Lobos by Jaime Huerta (Second Part, Spanish)". Retrieved 2009-05-05.
  4. ^ "Interview of Themo Lobos, question "Dígame, ¿quién es Alaraco?" (Spanish)". Archived from the original on 2009-10-24. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
  5. ^ a b c "History of Mampato magazine in website "Sala de Historia" (Spanish)". Archived from the original on 2009-05-18. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
  6. ^ a b "Interview of Themo Lobos, question "¿Y qué pasó? ¿ Porqué se acabaron las revistas de historietas?" (Spanish)". Archived from the original on 2009-10-24. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
  7. ^ "Biography of Eduardo Armstrong at Ergomics" (Spanish)". Archived from the original on 2007-09-28. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
  8. ^ "Interview of Themo Lobos, question "¿Y qué refleja Mampato?" (Spanish)". Archived from the original on 2009-10-24. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
  9. ^ "Jappening con Ja article at TVN (Spanish)". Retrieved 2009-05-05.
  10. ^ "Interview of Themo Lobos (Spanish)". Archived from the original on 2009-10-24. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
  11. ^ a b "Cucalón, Mampato fansite info". Retrieved 2009-05-05.

External links

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