Vatin Pinchaleo, the creator of one of Thailand's oldest and best-loved magazines, ‘Tuay Toon’, died on Sunday. He was 85.
Details of his passing are not available from members of his family. It was reported that the cartoonist, founder and editor of Tuay Toon had been sick for a long while.
A bathing rite will be held on Monday at 4pm at Wat Thepsirin in Bangkok. The funeral rites will be held until Friday.
Vatin, whose nickname is Tuay, graduated from Chulalongkorn University, faculty of architecture in the 1950s but he had already started his publishing career when he was a freshman by drawing illustrations and cartoons for Siam Samai and Chao Krung magazines.
Vatin and a friend, who was a contributor at Chao Krung, founded a publishing company in 1966. In the early years, Vatin published a monthly pocket-book format magazine named Ruam Cartoon Khong Tuay -- "a collection of Tuay's cartoons" whose content combined his works that had been published in Chao Krung and short stories from acclaimed writers at that time, including the late MR Kukrit Pramoj.
Tuay is Vatin's nickname.
After seven issues Vatin found the title annoyingly long and decided to shorten it to Tuay Toon. He later turned it from a monthly to a bi-weekly publication on its tenth anniversary in 1980.
The magazine celebrated its 45th anniversary last month. It is still well-known today for its wit and humorous content. It contains diverse “edutainment" content that touches on everything from archeology, world history, science, art, poetry, as well as mystery and unexplained fact, and fiction, local and international.
Tuay Toon fans also enjoyed the publication’s guest writers, many of whom are well-known names in fields outside of literature.