Thank you, Themo

A few months ago I met Ada, the daughter of Themo Lobos, the great Chilean cartoonist. We met one midday in the cafeteria of a university where she teaches. The reason for our meeting was to ask permission to use the image of Ogú as the mascot for an open source project I wanted to start.

I never met Themo; the closest I got to him was this contact with Ada. Themo’s generosity surprised me. He understood the idea of the project perfectly and “gave” me one of his “monitos”, his little cartoon characters, to be used as the first logo of Ogu, that programming language I am developing (if any of you feel like helping me, we can finish it soon).

I promised Themo that the main use of this project would be to teach young people to program, and he loved that idea. At the time he was in rather delicate health, but through his daughter I learned that he was following with interest several projects around his creations, and the publication of the collection of his main comics, along with some unpublished ones, such as “Ogú y Mampato en el Tíbet” and “Ogú y Mampato en la ciudad azteca”, the latter due out in the coming months. So with great humility and joy I received his little character and promised to use it properly. Unfortunately, the time and dedication have not been everything I would have liked. That’s why I feel bad at the sad news of his death. I’m sorry I couldn’t move the project further along and show it to him while he was alive. My dream was to go meet him and show him what I was doing.

For many of the men and women of my generation Themo is a very important figure. We grew up reading Mampato, a magazine created by Eduardo Armtrong and published between 1968 and 1977. Of all its interesting and educational reading, the things we remember most by far are the adventures of Mampato, Ogú and Rena, the last two characters being Themo’s creations.

His style is remarkable, full of humor, and very well researched. It’s impossible to forget his take on history in the saga about the Reconquista, or the trip to Rapa Nui’s past. The adventure I like best is the story of the Giant Tree and the Mutants’ Rebellion that followed. But there are many, and in the 80s Themo published several of them in his own magazine, Cucalón, and later in several books, which are now in my library and are read by all my children. They too learned to appreciate this great artist.

Themo was much more than the adventures of Mampato. He drew several different characters for other publications, such as Alaraco (who was brought to television by Fernando Alarcón), Cucufato, Máximo Chambonez and his Grandfather, Ferrilo the automaton, Ñeclito, Nick Obre, Martin Conejin, Dokan el Barbaro, etc. There is a legend that says the true creator of Condorito was him.

Themo was very generous, and unfortunately many people took advantage of his good nature. Be that as it may, I believe he owned a far greater wealth: the love all of us feel for him, those of us who read his works, which kept us company in childhood. You have no idea how much the news of his passing saddens me. I want to leave you with an image he sent to a blog called generación Mampato:

So thank you, Themo. It feels like a friend is leaving. Thank you for the act of generosity you showed me without even knowing me. I promise I will do something good with it. Thank you for teaching me that “creativity is informed”. In your honor I raise my glass, to remember you. Goodbye, friend. Goodbye, maestro.