Latin American icon: Condorito

Condorito is a Chilean comic which was launched on 13^th August 1949 and it was created by René Ríos, known as Pepo. His creation was a bird, exactly a condor that lives in a fictitious town named Pelotillehue which is a typical small Chilean provincial town. Condorito character is considered part of the general popular Latin American culture and the comic strip is popular around Latin American.

The structure of the comic strip is very simple, each page is an independent joke and they don’t have any sequence with others. The Condorito’s style is white humor and satire. The humor is not smart but it’s direct and the language is normal which uses the ordinary people. The names of the characters and their characteristics are not only product of the Pepo’s imagination; he uses his observation over the Chilean reality. The main feature of the comic strip is that the character that goes through the embarrassing moment always falls backwards to the floor in the final panel and all histories use only black and orange color.

The characters in the comic usually are Condorito, Condorito’s nephew, Coné, and some of the friends or family of Condorito with which it develops much of the dialogue in the comic strip. But still there are other characters, such as: Yayita (Condorito’s girlfriend), Pepe Cortisona (Condorito’s enemy), Doña Tremebunda (Condorito’s mother in law), Don Cuasimodo(Condorito’s father in law), Yuyito (Yayita’s niece), Che Copete, Tomate, Chuleta, Titicaco, Garganta de Lata, Comegato, Don Chuma, (Condorito’s friends), and others.  Obviously Condorito is the main character and he is popular person, simple and autochthonous Latin American. He doesn’t have money because he doesn’t have a job but he is a person with a lot of friends and imagination, so, always resolves his problem. Other merit of the comic is not deliver political messages, or religious, so, the comic doesn’t produce problem between the people