Hernán Muleiro: De la Flor, much more than a comic book label...

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On Friday, August 1st, Daniel Divinsky, founder of the Argentine publishing house De la Flor, passed away. He is known worldwide for publishing Quino's comic book Mafalda and for the variety and quality of his work. Divinsky had been away from the publishing house since 2015, when the label was taken over by Ana María Kuki Miller, his partner and former partner. De la Flor maintains a family structure, a rare occurrence considering the concentration of small and large publishing houses in the hands of multinational labels.

The name of the publishing house De la Flor cannot be separated from that of Mafalda. Divinsky and Miller invested so much in Quino's creations that, in addition to compiling his strips in different volumes, they also compiled them into a large anthology called Todo Mafalda , at a time when compiling the works of a cartoonist was a novel task.

Mafalda 's success was so great that its author needed to distance himself from it, to the point that he almost never drew it again, not even when lines formed for miles to get a dedication from her at the stand at the Buenos Aires International Book Fair.

Among the cartoonists edited by De la Flor are Fernando Sendra, author of Yo Matías , and Roberto Fontanarrosa, also recognized for his career as a writer. Cartoonist Miguel Rep bid him farewell via social media: “Divinsky, we all wanted to publish with you, for having so thoughtfully chosen Quino, Negro Fontanarrosa... so, when you laid eyes on someone's work and they published books, you felt like you had reached a kind of Olympus. And a friendship also began. Safe travels and good readings.”

Exiled during Argentina's last military dictatorship, which objected to the publication of a children's book with a raised fist on its cover, De la Flor published books that fused opposing sides of the left: for example, they published the poetry collection Pomelo by Yoko Ono, translated by Piri Lugones, a revolutionary activist. Her grandfather made celebrated contributions to local literature, while her father invented a fearsome torture device, the electric cattle prod. Both shared the same first name: Leopoldo. Piri Lugones was murdered by the dictatorship in December 1977.

De la Flor also edited the late writer Rodolfo Walsh, whose journalistic nonfiction novel, Operation Massacre , predates Truman Capote's In Cold Blood by nearly a decade and marks a historic moment in politics. Divinsky and Miller continued their work from Caracas, Venezuela, working the imprint remotely between 1978 and 1983.

In 2011, De la Flor had the pleasure of editing the great cartoonist and screenwriter Robert Crumb, with a key book: the first Spanish version of his comic book adaptation of Genesis .

A renowned collector of 78-reel jazz and blues records, his comic style changed radically after Crumb was transformed by lysergic acid. Despite his musical dissidence, he became an icon of the rock counterculture. As a music seeker, Crumb was known for what was then called "digging ," that is, searching door to door, combing through other people's discographies until he found a desired or unexpected record.

In 2017, Crumb was interviewed for the first time by Mexican journalist Jorge Flores-Oliver for Replicante magazine, and they discussed his version of Genesis : “I was raised Catholic in school, and I'm still recovering, although one never fully recovers from such brainwashing. And yes, I discovered many things while working on Genesis ; a lot about the Bible.”

The main thing is that it is completely insane that it is being used as a moral guide.

Among the voices that recognized the editor's work in Mexico, the UNAM statement stood out: "He was the editor of Mafalda and paved the way for great Argentine comic artists such as Fontanarrosa, Maitena, and Liniers. Daniel Divinsky (1942-2025) left an indelible mark on Latin American publishing and cultural history, which lasted for more than half a century."

Some of De la Flor's other books were: Every Time We Say Goodbye by John Berger, Noah's Ark by Brazilian musician Vinicius de Moraes, many comic book adaptations of stories such as The Owners of the Earth by David Viñas, turned into cartoons by Juan Carlos Kreimer, The Century and Forgiveness by French essayist Jacques Derrida, Anti-Aesthetics by painter Luis Felipe Noé, The Girl Who Illuminated the Night by Ray Bradbury, and Theatre by Jean Genet.