Quino obituary

Argentinian creator of Mafalda, Latin America's most famous strip cartoon character

She is a stumpy six-year old girl with a mop of black hair, innocent-looking saucer eyes and a broad smile. Like little girls everywhere, she asks awkward questions. Of her mother, busy doing the washing: What would you be if you had a life?" Of her father: How come in the family of man everyone wants to be the father?" The little girl is Mafalda, the creation of the Argentinian cartoonist Joaquin Salvador Lavado Tejon, universally known by his pen name of Quino, who has died aged 88.

Mafalda began life as a strip cartoon character in the early 1960s as part of an advertising campaign for domestic appliances. The campaign came to nothing but Mafalda was soon taken up by magazines and newspapers across the country. By the time Quino drew his last Mafalda strip in 1973, she had become a household name across Latin America.