Pablo Calvo
09/30/2020 - 18:54
Clarín.com
Culture
Quino missed the smell of ink.
Four years had passed since his goodbye to
Mafalda
and he was in Milan, escaping the cold of the south and
the bad weather of Argentina under dictatorship
.
His mind drew a scene of journalists in action, amidst cigarette clouds and keyboard concerts, while a diagrammer left him a blank space and invited him to pass.
Nostalgia became illusioned when
Hermenegildo Sábat
, the illustrator Clarín had hired in 1973, told him that one was missing from the team, a luxury reinforcement, and that they had thought of him for the challenge.
Quino's unpublished letter.
Photo Clarín.
Quino and Sábat loved each other, took care of each other, sent letters, with great care, because these were times of persecution
.
The envelopes that crossed the ocean said "Alicia" or "Blanca", a password inspired by the names of their wives, to prevent the censors from intercepting the messages.
It was one of those airmail letters that gave Quino the perfume of graphic workshops and the vital image of a newsroom.
He took a while to answer, but on May 25, 1977, on a sheet that still creaks, without lines, he wrote 38 lines without any letter falling into the abyss, with a perfect pulse and blue ink: “Dear Menchi: .. . ”.
What followed later describes how
an already consecrated man like Quino once again felt enthusiasm for working on what he liked the most
.
"Alicia told me what you told her about a possible interest on the part of your newspaper in having my things ... Of course the matter interests me very much.
Above all, because my magazine has become (according to the numbers that I have been able to see) really regrettable.
Also, working for a newspaper always pleased me more. "
He was even able to describe in words what his mind had already delineated: “Of course the beauty of seeing the newsroom with all its rampage of typewriters, telephones, papers, coffees, the smell of fresh ink and those things that, at least for now, I wouldn't have it at hand, but I still like the idea. "
Quino wanted to know everything, what his work would be like, when he could publish, the format.
He asked Sábat for details, who was happy about the possibility of drawing an artistic bridge with his friend in Lombardy land.
Even at the moment of farewell: “Well, I won't give you any more trouble, but I expect ample information from you about it.
And, also, of course, your opinion of how you see my drawings in the newspaper.
I mean if it seems to you that there will be limitations of topics, spaces to make stories in many squares, if on the contrary it would be a page with more fixed themes, I don't know, tell me as many details as you can think of.
I am waiting.
Many kisses for Blanca and the boys and a hug for you. "
The signature is the one everyone knows, even Wikipedia has it, but this four-hole page, kept by Menchi until the last moment, was only revealed today.
Quino
drew in the Clarín magazine until the late 1990s
.
He had a special loving relationship with
Norita Palacios
, Viva's historical secretary, and with
Eugenio Maestri
, his closing coordinator.
Eugenio recounts that one day he asked Quino for a text for a special on wines and new technologies and he, mischievous and contramano, like Mafalda, preferred to elaborate on the aromas of the old wineries.
Nora remembers him as "a charming being, with the humility of the great, extreme professionalism and a neatness in deliveries rarely seen".
He says that one day he, grateful, gave her a mother-of-pearl pendant bought in Milan and a little drawing folded in two.
A few hours ago, Nora opened it.
And a wind of fresh ink blew.
