U.S. cartoonist Gus Arriola, who was celebrated for championing Hispanic culture in his syndicated comic strip Gordo, has died at age 90.

Arriola had suffered from Parkinson's disease and died at home in Carmel, Calif., on Saturday, according to his publicist, Alan Richman.

Born in Arizona to parents from Mexico and raised in a large Spanish-speaking home in Los Angeles, Arriola learned about Mexico from his father.

In 1941, he began exploring this background in his comic strip Gordo, which follows the life of a bean farmer-turned-tour guide with an eye for attractive, female tourists.

His work was interrupted just a year later for a 3½-year stint animating training films for the U.S. Army during the Second World War.

Many praised Arriola for creating a character who helped educate Americans about life in Mexico, and dispel stereotypes about Mexicans and their culture. Gordo ran for 44 years in more than 250 newspapers.

"He became an accidental ambassador," Arriola said of his character in 2002.

"People would write and tell me that they went to Mexico because of reading about it in the strip."

A former Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animator, Arriola had originally created Gordo as a stereotypically lazy Bandito — a common depiction during that era. However, a few readers complained that his depiction was insulting to fellow Hispanics.

"I realized that I'm depicting a real group of people here. I was caught, and I had to go with what I had created," he said.

Arriola, who retired Gordo in 1985, is survived by his wife, Mary Frances, a former ink-and-paint artist at MGM. Their son, Carlin Arriola, died in 1980.

Accidental Ambassador Gordo: The Comic Strip Art of Gus Arriola was published in 2000 and the Bancroft Library at the University of California-Berkeley acquired the artist's Gordo collection last year.
 

With files from the Associated Press