Pepo (cartoonist)

René Ríos Boettiger (Concepción, 15 December 1911 — 14 July 2000), also known as Pepo, was a Chilean cartoonist, creator of the famous character Condorito.[1] He has been credited as the most prominent Chilean graphic humorist of the 20th century.[2][3][4]

Pepo
Self-caricature by Pepo
BornRené Rodolfo Ríos Boettiger
(1911-12-15)15 December 1911
Concepción, Chile
Died14 July 2000(2000-07-14) (aged 88)
Santiago, Chile
Area(s)Writer, Artist
Notable works
Condorito
Viborita
CanCan
Pobre Diablo
Pingüino
Children2

Biography

He was the son of the marriage of Amanda Boettiger Krause and the doctor René Ríos Guzmán.[5] He published his first cartoon at the age of 7 in the newspaper El Sur of Concepción.[5] Encouraged by his father, he continued with his drawings until he held his first exhibition, at the age of 10, at the Palet confectionery in his city.[6] Although he studied medicine at the Universidad de Concepción, Rios abandoned his studies in the early 1930s to devote all his time to creating his cartoons.[5][6] In 1932 he moved to Santiago to work as a cartoonist at the satirical magazine Topaze.[6] Adopting the pseudonym "Pepo" (from pepón, "little barrel", his childhood nickname), he created the comic strip Don Gabito for the magazine, a strip featuring a caricatured Chilean president Gabriel González Videla.[6] He also caricatured president Pedro Aguirre Cerda as Don Pedrito.[6]

In 1949[7][8] he created Condorito, his most famous character, taking the idea from the condor of the Chilean coat of arms.

Over the next sixty years Rios contributed cartoons to a great number of publications, including El Pingüino, Ganso, Pobre Diablo, Can Can, Pichanga, El Saquero, El Peneca, and branched out into other forms of illustration as well.[6][9] Rios died of cancer in 2000 at the age of 88.[10][11]

A great lover of the seaside, Rios often drew while looking at the sea at El Quisco on the Chilean Central Coast. A statue of Condorito now stands at the location. In 2000, an effort led by Omar Pérez Santiago (a scholar of Chilean cartooning and a co-founder of the academic Chilean Center for Comics) resulted in a sculpture of Condorito memorializing Rios being installed in the Chilean House of Culture in San Miguel.

References
  1. "Pepo". San Francisco: Goodreads, Inc. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  2. Lent, John A. (2005). Cartooning in Latin America. Hampton Press. p. 174. ISBN 9781572735606. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
  3. ""Pepo, mi hermano de oro"" (in Spanish). Revista Nos (Chile). Retrieved 1 February 2022.
  4. Rivas, Francisca (15 December 2012). "Pepo más allá de Condorito: conoce las otras revistas fundadas por el popular dibujante" (in Spanish). Radio Bío-Bío. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
  5. Yáñez Morales, Luis (2020). Pepo es de Conce (in Spanish). ISBN 978-956-401-421-0. Retrieved 9 June 2020.
  6. "Condorito (1949-)". Memoria Chilena. Retrieved 6 May 2011.
  7. "Pepo". Lambiek.net. Retrieved 16 February 2019.
  8. Gravett, Paul, "1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die", Universe, page 145.
  9. "René Rodolfo Ríos Boettinger "Pepo"". www.revistachilena.com. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
  10. La revista latinoamericana de estudios sobre la historieta Volumes 1-2. Pablo de la Torriente. 2001. p. 46. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
  11. L'Hoeste, H., ed. (2009). Redrawing The Nation National Identity in Latin/o American Comics. Palgrave Macmillan US. p. 36. ISBN 9780230103184. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
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