Diego Molano
Creator, Victor and Valentino Cartoon Network
Diego Molano’s mother treasures a framed portrait of Ernie and Bert that her son drew when he was only four years old. “I just recently saw it, and it wasn’t too off model!” says the talented artist, whose new animated series Victor and Valentino premiered on Cartoon Network last month. “I just loved drawing characters that had great appeal, like Kermit, Mario or Daffy Duck.”
These days, the 36-year-old Miami native is heavily entrenched in his own charming animated world of Victor and Valentino, which follows the adventures of two half-brothers seeking out the supernatural creatures of Mesoamerican folklore in their small town of Monte Macabre.“I love how deep I get to dive into my favorite subject, mythology,” says Molano. “I’ve always been inspired by the great mythologies of the world, but especially the Mesoamerican mythologies of pre-Hispanic indigenous people of the Americas. I think
these myths and legends are so cool and so not talked about compared to Greek/Roman/Egyptian/Norse myths. So, I am grateful I get to share my enthusiasm and affection for these stories with people that might not have heard of them.”
Molano, who has worked on shows such as The Powerpuff Girls and Black Dynamite, says the biggest challenge was wrangling large, epic scale, sometimes adult-themed myths/stories, into small, 11-minute, digestible content rated for kids. “Sometimes the myths are so abstract and so ethereal, that it’s hard to tie them down to a more realistic tangible world … but that’s where the fun lies!”
The talented toon creator names Peter Chung, Mike Judge, Shinichiro Watanabe, Hiroyuki Imaishi, Matt Groening, Henry Selick, Jamie Hewlett, Tim Burton and Jim Henson as some of his heroes and influences. He got his first big break in the business when he landed an internship at L.A. studio Titmouse. “I packed my stuff and flew to California, and after a while, they offered me an official gig as a clean-up artist on this amazing show called Superjail!. That’s where I had to draw and track all the tattoos on all the inmates. It was a lot of work, but in the end, it was worth it!”
As for general animation career tips, he advises, “Make sure you choose subject matter that you find irresistible and that you have an almost insatiable lust for. If you do this, your creative gasoline will be infinite, and you will never get tired of it. For example, If I wasn’t an artist, I’d probably be an archaeologist out there somewhere on an excavation, on the brink of discovering new things to add to the mythology of Mesoamerica!”