Mauro Malang Santos (January 20, 1928 – June 10, 2017), commonly known by the

mononym A mononym is a name composed of only one word. An individual who is known and addressed by a mononym is a mononymous person. A mononym may be the person's only name, given to them at birth. This was routine in most ancient societies, and remains ...

Malang, was a Filipino and award-winning

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comics illustrators/artists in that they produce both the litera ...

illustrator An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicate ...

, and

fine arts In European academic traditions, fine art (or, fine arts) is made primarily for aesthetics or creativity, creative expression, distinguishing it from popular art, decorative art or applied art, which also either serve some practical function ...

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

. As a comics artist he is best known for the series ''Kosme the Cop'', ''Chain Gang Charlie'' and ''Beelzebub''.

Family

Malang was the son of Dan Santos and Juliana Malang. He married Mary San Pedro, with whom he has four children including painters Steve Santos and Soler Santos.

Education

Malang started learning how to draw from Teodoro Buenaventura, a private tutor, when he was ten years old. He studied at the Antonio Regidor Elementary School in 1934, and attended Arellano High School in 1941. For one semester, Malang studied at the College of Fine Arts of the

University of the Philippines The University of the Philippines (UP; ) is a Higher education in the Philippines#State universities and colleges, state university system in the Philippines. It is the country's national university, as mandated by List of Philippine laws, Re ...

in 1946. He stopped attending formal school at the age of 19 in order to work for the art department of the

Manila Chronicle The ''Manila Chronicle'' was a newspaper in the Philippines founded in 1945. Its founding newspapermen sold it to Eugenio López, Sr. It was closed down when martial law was imposed by Ferdinand Marcos in 1972. It was published daily by the Ma ...

. While with the newspaper, he apprenticed under

Liborio "Gat" Gatbonton. During 1972, Malang attended art classes at the Otis Art Institute in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, under a three-month scholarship

Career

At the Manila Chronicles, Malang created ''Kosme, the Cop, Retired'' (1947-1965), the country's first

English-language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

daily comic strip, for the evening edition of the newspaper. In 1955, Malang established the ''Bughouse'', a gallery specializing in cartoons. Malang established the gallery together with cartoonist colleagues such as Liborio Gatbonton,

Larry Alcala Lauro "Larry" Zarate Alcala ONA (August 18, 1926 – June 24, 2002) was a well-known editorial cartoonist and illustrator in the Philippines."The hiLARRYous Art of Alcala", by Ruben Defeo, Today (August 22, 1995), p. 20"Slices of Larry Alcala ...

, Hugo Yonzon, and Elmer Abustan. In 1966, Malang launched ''Art for the Masses'', a project that brought

printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating work of art, artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand proces ...

to a larger number of artwork enthusiasts at affordable prices.

Awards

In 1957, Philippine Art Gallery founder, Lyd Arguilla, included Malang in the Twelve Artists in the Philippines-Who's Who. In 1958, the Art Directors Guild of the Philippines conferred Malang the Award for Editorial Design. Malang won in competitions sponsored by the Society of Philippine Illustrators and Cartoonists. In 1964, the Society of Philippine Illustrators and Cartoonists named Malang as the Artist of the Year. Malang won awards in the annual art competitions held by the Art Association of the Philippines, namely for his ''Street Fight'' (Second Prize, 1951), ''Traffic'' (Third Prize, 1953), ''The Yellow Sky'' (Honorable Mention, 1959), ''Quarter Moon'' (Second Prize), and ''Gate to Intramuros'' (Honorable Mention, 1963). In 1963, Malang was included among the Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Philippines. In 1981, the

City of Manila Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City, with a population of 1,846,513 people in 2020. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on the island of Luzon, it is ...

awarded him the ''Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan'' ("Guide of Arts and Culture") award.

References

External links