Themo Lobos

Themístocles Nazario Lobos Aguirre (December 3, 1928 – July 24, 2012), better known as Themo Lobos, was a Chilean cartoonist. He created the characters Máximo Chambónez, Ferrilo, Nick Obre, and Alaraco, with his most famous work being Mampato, a character first developed, briefly, by Eduardo Armstrong and Óscar Vega; Lobos then wrote and illustrated his adventures from 1968 to 1978. He was also the publisher of the comic-book Cucalón, which collected all his previous characters and stories.

Biography

Childhood and early career Themístocles Lobos was born in San Miguel, Santiago, Chile in 1928. He began drawing cartoons at age 7, at first copying other drawings, but at 12 he realized that he needed "to be original and begin to work on his own things". Themo Lobos' first inspirations and influences came from the children's magazine El Peneca, of which he was a great fan - the Quintín el Aventurero ("Quentin the Adventurer") strip in particular. His first art studies were at the Chilean Academy of Fine Arts, but he quit because the school was not what he had expected. The same decade saw his work appear in the magazines Pobre Diablo, Flash, Humor de Hoy and Humanoide. The first episode of the titular Mampato comic series was initially written by Armstrong and illustrated by Óscar Vega, a renowned Chilean comics artist. It tells the story of a young Chilean boy who obtains a "space-time belt" and uses it to travel through time, seeking to experience history's greatest adventures. The character of Mampato was partly inspired by both Dennis the Menace by Hank Ketcham, and Goscinny and Uderzo's 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. and changed its schedule to weekly in April 1971.

Since 1973, Lobos encountered problems in producing the Mampato strip. Some people took issue with certain stories such as Los Tres ("The Three"), 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.

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

In 1986, Themo Lobos gathered the funds and rights needed to create a new publication called Cucalón. 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, 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 comic album format, with recolored art and new covers, which have been sold in South America and Europe. In 2002, the movie Ogu and Mampato in Rapa Nui was released, an animated motion picture by Chilean animation studio Cine Animadores, based on the storyline known as "Mata-ki-te-rangui".