Sixto Valencia Burgos (March 28, 1934 – April 23, 2015) was a Mexican cartoon artist based in

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

, best known for taking over the responsibility of drawing famed

Mexican Mexican may refer to: Mexico and its culture *Being related to, from, or connected to the country of Mexico, in North America ** People *** Mexicans, inhabitants of the country Mexico and their descendants *** Mexica, ancient indigenous people ...

cartoon character

Memín Pinguín Memín Pinguín was a Mexican comic book character. He was created in 1943 by writer Yolanda Vargas Dulché. Alberto Cabrera took over drawing from 1953 until 1962, followed by Sixto Valencia Burgos. The original series had 372 chapters print ...

. This cartoon was very criticized by the USA media as it was considered racist because Memín, the main character, was drawn with a very gross black racist stereotype.

Early life and career

Valencia was born in

Tezontepec Villa de Tezontepec is a town and one of the 84 municipalities of Hidalgo, in central-eastern Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders t ...

Hidalgo Hidalgo may refer to: People * Hidalgo (nobility), members of the Spanish nobility * Hidalgo (surname) Places Mexico :''Most, if not all, named for Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (1753–1811)'' * Hidalgo (state), in central Mexico * Hidalgo, Coah ...

, Mexico in 1934. He started sketching characters at age 11, when he and his family moved to

. Valencia started working as a caricature artist early and never went to high school. In 1963, Valencia began drawing the best-selling ''Memín Pinguín'', a

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...

comic book A comic book, comic-magazine, or simply comic is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and wri ...

that sold 700,000 copies by 1977. Between 1992 and 1993, Valencia was the editor of the

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

version of the '' Mad''

magazine A magazine is a periodical literature, periodical publication, print or digital, produced on a regular schedule, that contains any of a variety of subject-oriented textual and visual content (media), content forms. Magazines are generally fin ...

. Valencia had been the president of SOMEHI (Syndicate of Mexican comic book artists) since 1998.

External links

Lambiek Comiclopedia biography.Cartoonist defends stereotyped image on new Mexican stamps
Mexican comics writers Mexican comics artists 1934 births 2015 deaths Mexican male writers People from Hidalgo (state) Writers from Mexico City {{Comics-artist-stub