His mother was Encarnación Rivas and his father was Eduardo López de Triana y Espina, one of the founding members of the Great Liberal Party of Venezuela.

[2] When he returned to Venezuela he started to work as a teacher of languages and professional drawing, but the autocratic government of president Antonio Guzmán Blanco motivated him to do something for freedom.

[3] In 1879 López Rivas returned to Venezuela and founded in Maracaibo El Fonógrafo (The Phonograph), a newspaper mainly aimed to defend social welfare.

This newspaper was also closed down several times by the government, but its moral prestige made it possible for El Fonógrafo to restart, over and over, and to survive 38 years of censorship and dictatorship.

[5] Due to its support to the Allies during World War I, Venezuelan president Juan Vicente Gómez, a German Empire sympathizer, closed El Fonógrafo permanently on 23 August 1917.

Every issue included drawings of local heroes, country landscapes or battles of the Venezuelan independence, all made by López Rivas himself.

[2] The government of Zulia State has honored the editor's memory, by giving the name of Eduardo López Rivas and his publications to important places and events in that region of Venezuela.