Cartoonist’s Cartoonists: Who influenced Pedro X. Molina
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Pedro X. Molina has spent more than 20 years drawing political cartoons skewering Nicaragua’s dictatorship and government. In 2018 the government hit back. After police killed one journalist, jailed two others, and pillaged the Confidencial’s offices, Pedro and his family were forced to flee his home country. With the assistance of Ithaca City of Asylum, he’s was able to settle in the United States. He continues to draw six editorial cartoons and one strip for Confidential. He also contributes to Counterpoint.com.
He’s also been recognized for the impact of his cartooning. He was recently a finalist for the Herblock Prize. He was also awarded the Courage in Editorial Cartoon Award and the Maria Moors Cabot Prize in 2019, and the Inter American Press Association bestowed the Excellence in Journalism Award to him in 2018.
If you’re not familiar with Pedro’s work, below are a sample of some of his cartoons.
Below, Pedro provides his inspirations and influences with his commentary. Note that for some of these artists, he included tribute or nods to his heroes.
Pedro’s 10 cartoonists who have inspired or influenced his work
Let’s start by saying I’m not just a cartoonist, but also a big cartoon, illustration, comics and art fan in general so the list of colleagues working right now that I admire and follow is sooo big that somehow it feels unfair to name just a few an exclude the rest, so in order to narrow it down to a manageable size of options, I will impose a rule on myself and name for these examples people who physically are no longer with us.
My first three choices come from my childhood, they were the very first guys whose work I recognized enough to follow wherever I could find it. I was seven years old when I started reading them, and even now they are still a huge influence in my work. The three of them are from Latin America.
Quino (Argentina)
The creator of the famous Mafalda comic strip and of thousands of single panel and comic pages more. He is an idol in Latin America and very, very well known in many other countries around the world, but weird enough, not that much in the US. Why? I have no idea, but he deserves to be in any Top 5 of cartoonists who have walked this earth. Many, especially Latin Americans, would tell you he is without discussion the GOAT.
Cartoon nod to Quino
Roberto Fontanarrosa (Argentina)
His wild cinematic comic stories and drawing style fueled in dark humor really connected with me. Especially the way his characters could “talk” with their hands. Most cartoonists hate drawing hands, well, this guy wasn’t just not afraid of drawing them, they were sometimes his main narrative device. To this day, the way I draw hands is still heavily influenced by what I have learned from his cartoons and comics.
Tribute to Fontanarrosa
Róger Sánchez (Nicaragua)
He was a genius, it doesn’t matter the topic of his cartoons and comics, his art and writing will always have this kind of naive and effortless look that would make them look so fresh and ‘easy’ to do. Cartoonists know this kind of ‘simplicity’ is VERY hard to achieve and he was great at it
Tribute to Róger
My next three come from the animation, editorial cartooning and alternative comic book world.
Chuck Jones
Master of animation. His two books Chuck Amuck and Chuck Reduck should be in the bookshelves of any artist.
Cartoon nod to Chuck Jones
Jeff Macnelly
Any editorial/comic strip cartoonist knows this name. There is nothing I could say about his brilliant work that any other cartoonist hasn’t said already.
Sergio Toppi (Italy)
His amazing sense of composition and the perfectly organized chaos he could create with his pens is out of this world. He is one of those authors whose comic pages not only deserve to be in his great books but on the walls of any prestigious art gallery.
For my last batch, I’m going with a sampling of artists beyond our profession. Why? Because many of my influences come from outside the cartooning world. Literature, music, movies, the “serious” art world, etc.
Francisco de Goya
One of my favorite painters AND cartoonists.His unapologetic drawings, his dark sense of humor, the raw energy of his brush and pen strokes, the anger, rage and frustration that he expressed in his work when dissecting the society that he had to live in and endure… I identify with all that.
Cartoon nod to Goya
Stanley Kubrick
By now, I sound like a broken record, but again, his dark sense of humor, his wild visual sense, his camera angles, his unsettling obsession with symmetry and close ups… Big influence without a doubt.
Cartoon nods to Kubrick
Nancy Fouts
I love doing ideas focused on ‘impossible’ objects, The sculptural work of Nancy Fouts is a great inspiration, why?… Well, at this point I think you all can guess but I’m going to repeat myself once more: Her wild and dark visual sense of humor.
Thank you, Pedro, for providing our readers with a glimpse into your influences. To follow Pedro, you can see his work on X/Twitter, Bluesky, his website, and of course the Nicaraguan newspaper CONFIDENCIAL.
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