Víctor José Arriagada Rios, 1934-2012

The prominent and highly-regarded Chilean Disney comics cartoonist Víctor José Arriagada Rios, known to multiple generations of fans as Vicar, died on January 3. One of the most highly-regarded cartoonists working in that specific and rich comics-making territory, he was 77 years old.

Víctor José Arriagada Rios was born in Santiago in 1934. His journey into comics, specifically the duck comics for which he was best known, was a long and involved one. He attended to the Universidad Técnica del Estado, the newest of that country's public universities, in order to study electronic engineering. His first major comic assignment was the Mampato feature in El Mercurio's supplement of the same name in the mid 1950s. He then created the features Hipolito y Camilo and Locutin for the magazine Barrabases. By the 1960s, Rios, now ensconced at Bardon Art Studios, had become one of the more popular and dependable talent in Chilean newspaper and magazine comics -- some of which were also published in European markets such as Spain and Germany. His clients within Chile included the magazine Topaze, El Saquero and Viejo Verde; he also worked a number of art gigs for foreign publishers through the his studio contacts, including clients in Denmark.

Rios was hired by Egmont in 1971 for the specific assignment of working on that company's various duck comics. He would develop a facile style that hewed closely to the general look and timing favored by legendary Disney comics cartoonist Carl Barks. Barks would later specifically cite Rios' comics as among the best ever done on the various duck characters. His reputation may have varied more among duck comics fans, particularly as his career continued into the 1990s and 2000s, but certainly the sheer number of comics bearing his imprimatur made him an artist to be reckoned with by readers of those books. Rios was even for his most sever critics a reliable, professional presence; his work's general high level of craft and its connection to classic Disney comics art gave it a legitimacy that a more stylized approach might not have enjoyed.

Rios proved popular enough early on in his duck career he was able to create a studio around his Disney work, forming Vic-Art in Santiago and eventually producing a few hundred pages in a year. His most popular addition to the duck canon character-wise was probably found in his role as the first, primary illustrator for Princess Oona. At the time of his passing, Vicar had by one count created the second most stories in Disney comics history, and was in the top 10 in terms of number of pages (11,200) bearing his name.

Rios continued work throughout the latter phase of his career for non-Disney clients, including strips in the humor magazine Ganso and collections of his El Huaso Ramon feature.

Rios suffered from leukemia, which is believed to be the cause of death. He was living in the Netherlands at the time of his passing.


 
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