I don’t really know how to go about analyzing/critiquing this book as I have never studied comics before, but I’ll give it my best shot. I found it pretty hard to get some of the humor sometimes because of the language barrier; in fact I actually think that it’s easier to understand a Spanish novel over this comic’s humor. Of what I did understand, I found some of the topics slightly humorous, and others quite bizarre. For example, what is with Mafalda’s adverse disgust for soup? It’s such a strange idiosyncrasy to have. I know that some soup tastes bad, but not every type! And the fact that this is a recurring topic makes it even more bizarre. I also found it a tad tiresome to read over and over again about Felipe’s procrastination. It’s not a very stimulating topic. The political commentary is interesting; when you open up a North American newspaper, usually the comic strips that focus on children don’t contain many political themes. For example, I don’t ever recall Charlie Brown exclaiming over the state of the world’s political leaders etc. Some of the characters are pretty unique as well, such as Libertad. It is pretty amusing to see such a tiny girl speak so well. It was strange to see the characters age yet not change in appearance. When you watch a cartoon such as the Simpson’s, they do not age at all so it makes sense that they’re appearances do not change, but in the case of Mafalda it is just frustrating. This is not a very thought provoking point, but it was nice to see that the character’s clothing change through the strip. That is a slight pet peeve of mine when I watch cartoons and they only have one article of clothes. In fact I can’t really think of anything meaningful to say about this comic strip precisely because of the fact that I’ve never analyzed one before.
March 20, 2007 at 2:00 am
Your comment about the characters not aging is very interesting. When I had finished the first chapter, I cheated and flipped to the end of the book to see if Mafalda still looks the same and she did. So that makes it kind of confusing since we know that she grows as her little brother is conceived (ordered by mail
), is born and grows, but in each individual frame we generally have no idea how old she is.
At the same time, we can’t really criticize the book about that since we have to remember that Quino did not write it as a coherent book, but rather as more or less independent comics. Therefore, I would guess he was not really focused on the outward growth of his characters.
March 21, 2007 at 2:49 am
well on the topic of things that we found peculiar in the strip, has anyone else noticed a distinct pattern of turning to drugs?
mafalda is constantly getting pills/drops from the pharmacy to calm her parents after she blows their mind with questions, and it seems a pretty common feature to have them popping pills. i suppose it could be a continued commentary on the regular consumption of pharmaceuticals to cope with life…
March 21, 2007 at 5:48 am
marina-oh yeah, I don’t know why that didn’t strike me as odd, but now that you mention it…
Shelby- I think you have a good start at analyzing this comic, though, it’s true, as university students studying Hispanic Studies etc and not popular culture, we are not well equipped to discuss comics. This is probably a good opportunity for that.
I too thought that the political commentaries were an interesting addition, but I it hadn’t occured to me that most north american comics don’t touch on politics often. Family Circus, Garfield, Ziggy, Peanuts… never a political quip. So, I wonder if that says something about our vs. Argentinian culture?
March 21, 2007 at 6:21 am
Drugs:
I think some of these comics are from the sixties, if not the seventies. As far as I know calming drugs like Valium were used fairly liberally before knowing the dangers of addiction. Thus, perhaps for the day seeing the parents and Mafalda taking drops to “calm” themselves wasn’t too noticable. Nobody remembers the song “Mothers little helper” by the Rolling Stones?