1) Loaquín Salvador Lavado is a very famous cartoonist which is better known by his pen name Quino. As to his works, the most popular one is a comic strip about a girl named 6-year-old girl Mafalda. Mafalda is meant to show the main social issues of Argentine middle class and progressive youth through innocent child's eyes. In her own manner, Mafalda is concerned of world problems.
2) Mafalda does not really differs from any regular child of that age. he is a dark haired girl with a red bow on her hair. The only thing which really makes her different is that she expresses a great concern for the state of humanity and always makes her parents shocked by asking too mature questions.
3) Mafalda is in her bad, trying to sleep by counting sheep. Her head is filled with major human problems so she finds is hard to fall asleep and stop thinking of things. Her parents decided to help her and advised to count sheep jumping over the barriers.
4) Seems like this method really works, Matilda lies peacefully in her bed and counts sheep on the field. But who would have thought that even in her dreams she does not give up thinking about everything that happens around her?
5). In the third picture the 26th sheep hesitates to keep on jumping after all the sheep. When it comes to its turn, it just becomes numb and can’t make itself to make a move. So, in her dream she sees a sheep, that is trembling of fear and can not jump down from the barrier.
6) It seems that Mafalda, even though she is already asleep, still analyzing the situation. This actually reveals the true nature of her as a character, as she still be concerned of every living thing. Mafalda comes up with the fact that the sheep can be scared, and the picture 4 proves it as sheep starts making sounds as if it asks for help.
7-8.) When Mafalda totally realises what has just happened, she opens her eyes and encourages the sheep to move on by shouting ‘veintiséis’ which is 26 in Spanish. So the number which corresponds to the sheep in panel 5 is 26.
9-10.) In the last panel you can see that Mafalda has just completely fallen asleep. She helped the sheep to get over its fear and, filled with blissful feeling, she closes her yes. Now she is not seeing dreams anymore as she fulfilled her duty and can calm down with a clear conscience.
