René Ríos Boettiger (
Concepción, 15 December 1911 — 14 July 2000), also known as Pepo, was a Chilean cartoonist, creator of the famous character
Condorito. He has been credited as the most prominent Chilean graphic humorist of the 20th century.
Biography
He was the son of the marriage of Amanda Boettiger Krause and the doctor René Ríos Guzmán.
He published his first cartoon at the age of 7 in the newspaper ''
El Sur'' of Concepción.
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.
Although he studied medicine at the
Universidad de Concepción
Universidad (Spanish for "university") may refer to:
Places
* Universidad, San Juan, Puerto Rico
* Universidad (Madrid)
Football clubs
* Universidad SC, a Guatemalan football club that represents the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala
...
, Rios abandoned his studies in the early 1930s to devote all his time to creating his cartoons.
In 1932 he moved to
Santiago
Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile (), is the capital and largest city of Chile and one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is located in the country's central valley and is the center of the Santiago Metropolitan Regi ...
to work as a cartoonist at the satirical magazine ''Topaze''.
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
Gabriel Enrique González Videla (; 22 November 1898 – 22 August 1980) was a Chilean politician and lawyer who served as the 24th president of Chile from 1946 to 1952. He had previously been a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1930 ...
.
He also caricatured president
Pedro Aguirre Cerda
Pedro Abelino Aguirre Cerda (; February 6, 1879 – November 25, 1941) was a Chilean political figure, educator, and lawyer who served as the 22nd president of Chile from 1938 until his death in 1941. He was Political moderate, moderate.
A me ...
as ''Don Pedrito''.
In 1949 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.
Rios died of cancer in 2000 at the age of 88.
A great lover of the seaside, Rios often drew while looking at the sea at
El Quisco
El Quisco is a Chilean city and commune in San Antonio Province, Valparaíso Region. Located in the country's central coast, it serves as a popular summer resort for the population of Santiago and forms part of the Coast of Poets, a cultural sp ...
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
External links
Condorito official site
Condorito Video
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pepo
1911 births
2000 deaths
Chilean cartoonists
Chilean comics writers
Chilean comics artists
People from Concepción, Chile
University of Concepción alumni
Chilean people of German descent
Deaths from cancer in Chile