Christmas century, Saint Nicholas was well known in the Netherlands, and the practice of gift-giving in his name spread to other parts of central and southern Europe. At the Reformation in 16th–17th-century Europe, many Protestants changed the gift bringer to the Christ Child or "Christkindl", corrupted in English to Kris Kringle, and the date of giving gifts changed from December 6 to Christmas Eve. The modern popular image of Santa Claus, however, was created in the United States, and in particular in New York. The transformation was accomplished with the aid of notable contributors including Washington Irving and the German-American cartoonist
Pepo (cartoonist) Pepo (cartoonist) René Ríos Boettiger (Concepción, 15 December 1911 - 14 July 2000), also known as Pepo, was a Chilean cartoonist, creator of the famous character Condorito. Although he studied medicine at the Universidad de Concepción, Rios abandoned his studies in the early 1930s to devote all his time to creating his cartoons. In 1932 he moved to Santiago to work as a cartoonist at the satirical magazine "Topaze". Adopting the pseudonym "Pepo" (from "pepón", "little barrel", his childhood nickname), he created the comic strip "Don Gabito" for the magazine, a strip featuring a caricatured Chilean president Gabriel González Videla.