Joaquín Salvador Lavado Tejón (pen name QUINO)
The profession according to Quino. When asked to define his work and his art-profession, Quino reflects for a moment and then answers: “I think it is correct to call it a profession but I don't know whether it's fair to use the word “art”. That's the problem that all of us drawers have. Maybe at the beginning, many of us want to become artists. In my opinion, art is something that makes you vibrate inside. We can create nice, intelligent things that make people think. But I can't see anything in drawings capable of making someone truly vibrate”. Is this a final judgment? Maybe not because when asked where he would place his profession in relation with other visual arts, Quino doesn't hesitate and responds: “I'd put it next to cinema and television. Each time we drawers sit before a white piece pf paper to draw, we end up reasoning as if we were behind the camera. How to frame an image? Or, where to cut? What do we place in the foreground? In what order will the images go? Another point in common with cinema is the periods of production, which are very long. Moreover, the results are obteined in time and the feedback comes from a wide public”.
Professional Development. “I began to publish my work when I was 22 years old”, says Quino, “although the experiences learned during the first ten years were the most enriching ones.”
They were very hard years for Quino. He started, like others, offering his drawings to newspapers and magazines. His first comic strip was for an advertising campaign of a textile shop in Mendoza.
“I rather not think about the drawing itself”, says Quino. “The character was called Sedalina (a shiny cotton cloth that looks like silk). It was about a woman who entered the shop and when she leaves she is very satisfied with the service provided”.
Quino travels to Buenos Aires. The first time he goes there, he does not manage to sell a single drawing and he must return to Mendoza “anxious” because he has to do the mandatory military service. When he finishes in 1953 he gives it a try again. He goes one by one every publishing house in town, without break. When he least expected anything, he received a call from a newspaper. At that moment, his professional career as a drawer of comic strips begins. But the job, publishing one page a week, was not enough to make a living, so Quino's older brother helped support him for a while. By 1960, Quino is already a consolidated professional in the graphic humor world. This year, he marries Alicia, who becomes Quino's life companion.
The development. “Work has developed both very well but also very bad throughout my career”, says Quino. “Very bad because it is so difficult for me to draw; and very well because I've had to improve my technique and skill out of necessity. All this has happened, in my opinion since my 40th year.”
Agency. Quino does not have an agent in South America and newspapers address him directly. In Italy, however, all contacts are made through his agent. “Connections made through agencies are very cold”, he says. “When you go to a newspaper office you can see the face of the person that takes your drawing and this can be very useful to get better. On the contrary, with the agency -his agent is an old friend from the 70's- it's like getting one of my ideas through to Alicia, my wife. It's understood that, after 40 years of marriage, she's going to say that it's fine, whereas a lot of people won't understand anything. Money-wise, the agency is very important in Europe and in the United States. Agents have to travel a lot and for us authors having to travel in order to sell is an enormous cost.”
Television. Quino is often invited to different TV programs. “At the beginning I found it difficult,” he confesses. “Now, I've come to enjoy it a lot”. This is the only direct connection Quino has with the television. Frequently, TV channels put on cartoons series, which characters are gotten from his drawings. Again, this experience has carried both positive and negative consequences. The negative one: the ones done in Argentina in 1972 on Mafalda were made into a full-length sound film. Quino is not happy with this experience: “It was the anti-movie”, Quino complaints. On the contrary, he is very pleased with the cartoons series produced in Cuba with his original drawings and the 102 episodes on Mafalda. “It's a perfect job”, he says. “I hope the series continue”.
Publicity. Quino does not avoid it. He has done important publicity campaigns, like the “Ford” one. However, he is not keen on the philosophy behind publicity; “Often it's just a matter of selling products”.
