City of Rats

Born in Buenos Aires in 1939, Raúl Damonte Botana derived his sobriquet COPI from a nickname his grandmother gave him, “copita de nieve,” or “little snowflake.” At 17, he went into exile in Haiti, Uruguay, and New York before finally settling in Paris, where he was a cartoonist, performer, playwright, and novelist. Copi co-founded the Panic movement with Alejandro Jodorowski and wrote a nationally syndicated comic strip. He died of an AIDS-related illness in 1987.