I really enjoyed Isabella Cosse’s writing in “Mafalda: Middle Class, Everyday Life, and Politics in Argentina, 1964-1973.” I especially enjoyed the way that exploring Mafalda, this pretty adorable and seemingly innocent cartoon, was a way to better understand the Argentinian middle class and the political circumstances in that time period. At first, I was worried that it was just going to be a technical analysis of the comic itself, but I actually found myself learning a lot from the Argentinian political history as well.

I have probably read millions of comic stripes in my lifetime, from Donald Duck to some random comics that appear on the newspaper every morning. To be honest, I don’t really care about them, and while many people skip the newspaper to read the comics, I tend to skip the comics.. However, it struck me in this weeks readings the amount of information that can actually be delivered in a short comic stripe. I mean, it’s not merely what the characters say or do, but the characters existence itself and the positioning and size of the characters convey a lot of information. Many of those meanings may even slip if the reader isn’t familial with the comic or the context in which it appears, which makes it really powerful. For example, without this contextualization of Mafalda, I would have probably read the comic stripes as “cute” or “entertaining”. Moreover, I found the character Mafalda very strategic. Although I kept wondering why the author chose a female character, I thought Mafalda being a child allowed more room for the author to explore. People empathize naturally with children and may excuse some behaviour “just because they are children”, and thus Mafalda could say radical things and people wouldn’t get agitated. Furthermore, delivering social or political critique from a childlike perspective probably makes it easier for people to digest, making serious things seem even a bit “silly”.

Finally, I wanna say that I felt really bad for the author himself. That responsibility and the conflicting expectations that were laid on him were just unfair. It struck me that the guerrillas criticized him for not making Mafalda even more political and radical, clearly recognizing the power this little comic had. Thus, I wonder if comics are more powerful or resilient against censorship than other forms of art? What is the role of artists in political struggle? Do you think it’s their responsibility to engage in political struggle?