Diego Otero was born and raised in Colombia. When not in school, as a child, he watched more T.V. shows than he should and then would sit in front of a notebook trying to re-create the stories that captivated his attention. Later in Middle-school he discovered the series of books “The Adventures of Tin Tin” by Belgian author Herge and found the magic in stories told through comics. Diego spent all his recess time in the school library devouring these books. This led to writing and drawing many stories of his own, that sparkled in his mind and were drawn in comic book form, mostly for his friends in school. Even as study aids Diego would use drawings with dialogues to be able to remember the topics he’d seen in class, whether it be social studies, geography or history. He would come every Monday with a page or two and hope to entertain his friends. Argentinian comic strip “Boogie el aceitoso” with its dark humor and exaggerated violence was an important influence later in his teen years.
As he grew up, when faced with the question of which career to follow to later-on make a living, he chose architecture, based on his parents “advice” because in Colombia in the early 90s it was not very realistic to think you could make a living by drawing comic books. Diego graduated from the school of architecture in 1998.
After some years of architectural design practice, Diego had the opportunity to move with his wife Carolina to New York City, where he continued working as an architectural designer but he also continued drawing stories. The abundant art schools in the city lured him into taking art classes and the very active artistic activity in the city started to show him that making a living as an artist was a real possibility, so he took classes with world-renowned independent animator Bill Plympton at his Chelsea studio and also a summer program at Le Gobelin school of animation in Paris. He moved into the field of Architectural Illustrations and began to work on a portfolio of story illustrations while searching for an art program to continue his studies.
In the Spring of 2013, Diego moved to Portland, OR and was accepted into the Master’s program of Illustration at the University of Hartford where he continued to be inspired by talents such as C.F. Payne, Robert Hunt, Betsy Lewin and Gary Kelley. While attending art school, during vacation time in his home country Colombia, he met with his friend Carlos from elementary school. Carlos was visiting from Amsterdam, they discussed the possibility of working together on a strip about a cat who was a Buddhist monk. Diego always loved cats and loved the possibilities of humor, sarcasm, and wit that could result from working on this project, so without hesitation, he accepted his friend’s proposition. Although not a Buddhist practitioner, Diego felt connected with some elements from Buddhism as he himself was in search of a spirituality that could ground his now frequent adult questionings.
Since 2014, Diego and Carlos have been collaborating in creating the strip that is published online every Sunday at www.chuckthemonk.com and also in magazines in the U.S., Australia, and The Netherlands. Besides Chuck The Monk, his cartoons were featured in a billboard in Times Square, told stories for U.N. comics and scientific organizations such as CIAT, children’s books and personal projects in the form of comic books and films.
Diego now lives in Colombia with his wife and 2 boys and spends his days drawing cartoons, comics, and some other story pictures, including, of course, Chuck. You can see more of his work at www.diegoferotero.com