The 10 Cartoonists Who Influenced Liniers
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Ricardo Siri, better known by his pen name (and middle name) Liniers, is an Argentinian cartoonist and illustrator with an international audience. His first comic, Bonjour, started in 1999.
His big breakthrough came with the launch of his signature comic, Macanudo, in 2002 which currently runs in La Nación (Argentina) and El País (Spain). Macanudo is described as “funny and fanciful and whimsical and philosophical in the best sense” (Matt Groening).
King Features picked up the strip for syndication in 2018 expanding his audience into North America.
He’s published more than 30 books that have been translated into more than a dozen languages. Sixteen are Macanudo collections.
In his career, Liniers has racked up a prestigious list of honors. A few of the big ones:
- Liniers was awarded the Inkpot award for his contributions to the world of comics in 2018.
- His children’s book Good Night, Planet won an Eisner award for Best Publication for Early Readers (up to age 8) in 2018
- Macanudo was awarded Best newspaper comic strip in 2020, 2024, and 2025 by members of the National Cartoonists Society.
- He’s also won the National Cartoonists Society’s Advertising Illustration category in 2025.
- Macanudo, volume 4 was selected by the Angoulême International Comic Strip Festival as one of the best comic books published in French in 2014.
Outside of comics, he’s been touring with long-time friend and singer songwriter Kevin Johansen for a stage performance of song and live drawing.
Lastly, this profile is being published on November 15—his birthday. Happy birthday, Liniers! 🎉 🎂
Now that we know who Liniers is, let’s see his…
The 10 Cartoonists Who Influenced Liniers
Quino
“I always explain Quino’s Mafalda to my friends in the United States as Peanuts + Socialism. His humor pages are more surreal and his obsession with power dynamics is on constant display. When you read his humor pages you laugh all the way through and when you put the book down you feel depressed. I think Vonnegut would have liked him.”
R. Crumb
“I discovered Crumb in the early nineties and was obsessed with his drawing style and his brand of satire.”
Matt Groening (Life in Hell)
“Life in Hell was a perfect weekly comic. I didn’t realize when I started drawing myself as a bunny (I do that, I’m sorry) that I was channeling his bunnies. When I figured it out I thought maybe I should find a different animal… then I thought: “He’ll never find out. I’m way away in Buenos Aires!”… Sometime later my sister tells me he’s dating her friend from school (in Buenos Aires!) and that he wanted to meet me (they’re still together). Turns out he’s a helluva guy and not litigious at all. I love The Simpsons too!”
Hergé
“Tintin was so much fun when I was a little kid. Those characters felt so alive that I would forget they were just a bunch of drawings. Had the same feeling with Asterix.”
Bill Watterson
“He drew the perfect strip in every way. I included Hobbes in a series of strips that I did of William Blake’s The Tyger and got word that he was fine with it. Blew my mind.”
Gary Larson
“I learned from him that drawing funny is a more rare talent than drawing well. And no one draws as funny as him.”
Alberto Montt
“We have worked together for a while and he’s the funniest human being I know. And he finds amazing ways to attach his weird obsessions and worldview to the paper.”
Cartoons from Instagram. © Alberto Montt
Chris Ware
“I think he’s to comics what James Joyce is to literature. Constantly reimagining the medium formally, and approaches characters from the most acute humanistic point of view.”
Max Cachimba
“He’s incredible. His work has been a constant motion machine. He reinvents himself over and over. I discovered his work in the eighties and my young brain couldn’t understand the way he created the world he drew. Sadly his work is hard to find, but when you do it’s incredibly rewarding.”
George Herriman
“Our poet saint.”
Bonus: The 3 Cartoonists Liniers Admires
Art Spiegelman
“I read Maus many times. I gave many copies to friends and family. I think that book belongs in the same category as Moby Dick, Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Great Gatsby. It’s the great American graphic novel.”
Daniel Clowes
“I would read anything he publishes. Supermarket lists, his teenage poems, telephone doodles, anything.”
Jeff Smith
“Some of my favorite memories consist of nights reading the Bone books to my daughter Matilda. Thanks, Jeff.”
Follow Liniers on the socials (Instagram, Patreon, Threads, Tiktok) and his website.
Thank you, Liniers, for sharing with us your list of individuals that influenced you and those you currently admire.
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