Cuban cartoonist Humberto Lázaro Miranda Ramírez (Laz) dies at 64

Havana/Cuban cartoonist Humberto Lázaro Miranda Ramírez, known for his artistic firm like Laz, died this Sunday in Havana, at age 64, a victim of cancer, a disease that he faced three times throughout his life. His death deprives Cuban graphic humor of one of his most acute voices, capable of mocking censorship even from the official means themselves.

Laz began very young in the weekly Pioneerpressing curious the beat of an intolerant country to criticism. With the group Aspirin First, and then in Dedetéhe cultivated a work that sailed among all the genres of graphic humor: personal cartoon, political satire and an acute vision of urban costumbrismo. As he himself stated: “The street speaks; drawing translates it.”

His path was not simple. He graduated as a qualified worker in adolescence, reached the level of average technician already in maturity and finally obtained his degree in Visual Arts in 2024. His graduation thesis addressed censorship in the cartoon, and his exhibition was composed of works that, “for one reason or another – or for many – were not published.”

His work was characterized by a sagacious and, sometimes, of frontal criticism of national reality: bureaucratic absurdities, subtle repression, institutional double morals. His was an art that avoided the pamphlet but did not avoid the complaint.

Although their cartoons were published in official media such as Rebel youthLaz maintained its own editorial line and without concessions. In a media ecosystem marked by self -censorship and editorial surveillance, their vignettes infiltrated a cracks in a monolithic speech. With a clean stroke and a humor that oscillated between the scathing and the contemplative, he portrayed street characters, borderline situations, minimum dialogues and visual metaphors that did not require explanation.

“The street is hard, my brother, even whites are asking for documents”

His colleagues and friends remember him as a generous, intelligent and rebellious man. Adam Iglesias, director of Dedetéhe wrote on social networks: “His strength made two previous manifestations of that painful disease survive, but this third defeated him.” Other Cuban cartoonists also regretted their departure and highlighted their legacy. “My friend Laz, Lord Caricaturista, has died, friend among friends, Master of Humor … He fought against bad luck, he didn’t cross his arms,” Francisnet Díaz Rondón wrote. For his part, César Carrizo cited one of his phrases with hurt humor: “The street is hard, my brother, even whites are asking for documents.”

Laz’s professional career covered more than four decades, during which he participated in dozens of individual and collective exhibitions, both inside and outside Cuba. He received about a hundred national awards and more than twenty international awards. His work was distinguished in competitions in Italy, Mexico, Greece, Colombia, Brazil and the United States, which he was also invited as a workshop and jury. His scope crossed borders, but his work was never disconnected from Cuban reality. As he said in an interview: “One draws what he sees, and in Cuba what one sees many times does not need exaggeration.”

Beyond graphic talent, Laz cultivated an ethic consistent with his art. He did not tolerate censorship or folded the official correction. One of his most remembered anecdotes occurred in the writing of Rebel youthwhen he presented a vignette on the Havana market of 3rd and 70, in which the return of the purchase was given in candies. An editor warned him that the drawing would probably not be published. Laz insisted, delivered it anyway and remained faithful to its maxim: “Let them take it.”

In his last years he remained active, although less present in the state media. His illness did not separate him from humor or reflection. “Death is not a taboo subject for a cartoonist,” he said in one of his last interviews.

His colleague Gustavo Rodríguez, known as Garrincha, wrote on his Facebook wall: “He had little patience for the shoes and communists. Humberto Lázaro Miranda Ramírez died, and that has spoiled me the day. Rest, black. You deserve it.”