The DW reports award-winning cartoonist Guillermo Mordillo, who was most famous for his characters’ trademark bulbous noses, has passed away in Mallorca, Spain, at the age of 86.
Born August 4, 1932 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mordillo developed an early interest in drawing: he said he was inspired to take up art by Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, which inspired his manner of drawing noses. In the 1960s, he moved to New York, where he worked for Paramount Pictures Studios as a Popeye film cartoonist. Afterwards, he moved to Paris, where he developed the signature drawing style that would eventually make him famous.
His humorous comic strips often featured protagonists that did not speak, and therefore were not accompanied by speech bubbles. In addition to bulbous noses and a lack of speech bubbles, Mordillo’s comics frequently included famous city landmarks like Big Ben and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. He also themed many of his strips around football and animals, two of his main interests.
Publication in international magazines like France’s Paris Match and Germany’s Stern led to increased recognition of Mordillo’s work; by the 1970s, he was one of the most widely-published cartoonists in the world. He went on to create over 2,000 drawings without words over the span of his career.
In the 1980s, he moved to Spain and was named President of the International Association of Authors of Comics and Cartoons, which is based in Geneva, Switzerland. His last exhibition was in Palma, Mallorca, in 1989.
