'Los Amigos de Tambar'.
Omar Valenzuela is a Costa Rican comic artist, best-known as the original artist of 'Los Amigos de Tambor' in the children's magazine Tambor (1986-1991). He later worked on religious cartoons and comics about tourism.
La Pluma Sonriente
Omar Valenzuela was one of the young cartoonists that emerged from La Pluma Sonriente. Founded by Oscar Sierra Quintero (Oki) in 1980, this non-profit artists' organization promoted Costa Rican cartoonists in expositions throughout South America and Central America, but also in Spain, Portugal and South Korea.
Tambor
In 1986, Valenzuela was hired as cartoonist and illustrator by Tambor, a new fortnightly children's magazine published by La Nación. Focused on education and entertainment, the magazine's pages covered everything from history to (fictional) interviews with TV series characters, movie stars, and celebrities, while also containing comic strips, cartoons and activity pages.
Working with magazine director and comic scriptwriter Ana Victoria "Toyi" Fernández, Omar Valenzuela created the title comic 'Los Amigos de Tambor' (1986-1991), about the adventures of a group of kids. Additional writers between 1986 and 1988 were Orontes Herrera and Marietta Oviedo. Between 1989 and 1992, the feature was written by Ana Coralia "Anacora" Fernández and Carlos Rubio, with Omar Valenzuela as co-writer. Valenzuela worked on the comic, which usually appeared in the back of the magazine, until 1991. From 1992 on, Alex Corrales was the artist of the feature, and continued it with writer Anacora Fernández until May 1997. During the Corrales years, the characters were transitioned from children to teenagers, and the feature was renamed 'Tambor y sus Amigos' (1992-1997). Tambor magazine came to an end during the year 1998.
'Tour Guide Show' comic from The Tico Times.
Other cartoons
After Tambor, Omar Valenzuela moved on to work on comics of a religious and educational nature. For Eco Católico magazine, he created a weekly cartoon that promoted the values of the Christian faith. His tourism-themed comic 'Tour Guide Show' was featured in The Tico Times, an English-language weekly distributed in Costa Rica. Other comic/cartoon features in The Tico Times were Oscar Sierra's 'Myths and Legends of Costa Rica' and David Norman and Chris Montero's 'Nature and Tropical Trivia'. The Tico Times ended its print publication in 2012.
'Biological Reserves'.