Roberto Alfredo Fontanarrosa, known popularly as El Negro Fontanarrosa (November 26, 1944 in Rosario – July 19, 2007), was an Argentine cartoonist, comics artist and writer. During his extended career, Fontanarrosa became one of the most acclaimed historieta artists of his country, as well as a respected fiction and short story writer. He created two hugely popular comic strips, as well as their parodic protagonists: Inodoro Pereyra, a gaucho, and Boogie, el aceitoso, a gun-for-hire. He also created the comic book Los Clásicos según Fontanarrosa ("The Classics According to Fontanarrosa"), which contained a selection of humorous parodies of universal literature mainstays originally published in the magazine Chaupinela, in the 1970s. In 2013 an Argentine animated film directed by Juan José Campanella and loosely based on Fontanarrosa's short story Memorias de un wing derecho was released to box office success. Biography Early life Fontanarrosa was born in Rosario, province of Santa Fe, and he lived and worked there until his death. He was widely known by the affectionate nickname El Negro. Career Fontanarrosa began his career writing and drawing comic strips and later branched out into writing narratives with short stories, especially about football (soccer). His most famous strips are Inodoro Pereyra, featuring a gaucho and his talking dog Mendieta, and the hitman Boogie el Aceitoso, which came to life as a Dirty Harry parody. Simultaneously with his comic book career, Fontanarrosa went on to write three novels (Best Seller, El área 18 and La Gansada) and seven books of short stories (Los trenes matan a los autos, El mundo ha vivido equivocado, No sé si he sido claro, Nada del otro mundo, El mayor de mis defectos, Uno nunca sabe and La mesa de los galanes), all of them filled with a combination of subtle and broad humor. There are also a number of book compilations of his newspapers' strips. His work has been seen in different Latin American newspapers including Argentine Clarín, Colombian El tiempo, Uruguayan La República, and Mexican magazine Proceso. In 1977 he was approached by Les Luthiers (the famous Argentine humour/music group), who wanted him to collaborate on a script they were writing for a film starring the six group members; the film never bore fruit, but he instead became a creative partner, often writing jokes and situations for them, and most of their shows from 1979 onwards feature his input alongside Les Luthiers'. He was