Latinoamerican Comic Books

[Sijo]

Ok, it seems there is enough interest in this topic (and some related to it, like Movie versions of these comics) in this board, so I'll make a thread about it.

As a native Puerto Rican, I've had the good fortune of having access to both North American and Latino American cultures- especially comic books.

Please keep in mind that I'm no expert on the subject. I only know what I experienced myself as a child (in the 70's) and back then I didn't buy spanish comics regularly (the exceptions being Kaliman and Memin, of which more later.) Also, it's been a looong time since I bought any (I moved on to English ones). Then again, old comics is what this board is mostly about. So, this article CAN contain errors, and doesn't cover later decades. I welcome any corrections or further data that anyone can provide.

I fear this topic is too big for one post, so I'll start with a basic description of the latinoamerican comic book market, and post info on specific titles later.

Most comic books in Spanish were editions of American ones; mostly DC and Gold Key titles. (I know Marvel translations also existed, but were not available here. I assume that's because the company who distributed the translations -Editorial Novaro- had no dealings with Marvel.)

The Novaro editions had a different format from the standard American one: for one thing, comics were smaller- about two thirds as big- and had more pages. This caused two effects: one, the dialogue had to be simplified (as there was less room in the shrunken word ballons- the typeface was the same size.) For the most part this didn't matter, since most comics dialogue was either simple, or helped along by the art. But comics with really complex storylines could be hard to follow (particularly Justice League stories.)

The other effect was that one title couldn't fill all the pages, so backup stories had to be added. For DC comics, these were taken from their anthology titles. There seemed to be no rime or reason to what went were... I saw Superman comics with everything from Stanley and His Monster to House of Secrets stories as backups. (I remember the nasty surprise I got once when I read a Batman comic- and then found a story about a man killing his wife, only to be killed by his childhood boogieman! Scared me for days!)

There also existed plenty of original mexican comic titles. (Note: I'm ASSUMING they were mexican, as that was where Novaro was based. But they could've been from other latino countries.) They could be divided in three classes:

-Good quality comics, almost as good as the American editions, in similar format, with pretty good art. Fantomas (Thief-Hero, mentioned in another thread) was one of these. These were the rarest, however.

-"Movie Serial" kind of comics. I call them that because their structure resembled that of old movie serials. They were put out on a weekly basis (!) featured super-long stories (30 chapters or more) and almost always had every chapter end in a cliffhanger. The art was in brown-and-white (must have been due to the type of paper they were printed on- or maybe the ink used) but the covers were in color. These were by far the most common comics available. Examples include: Kaliman the Incredible Man (Hindu Superhero), Memin (a poor kid's adventures) and Samurai (anthology obviously inspired by SHOGUN.)

-Finally, there were more "normal" sort of comics, similar in size and page count to the American standard. They were in color, but the art usually was poor. Mostly they were humor titles. Examples include CHANOC (adventure-comedy, again mentioned in another thread), Hermelinda Linda (witch for hire) and Aniceto (male version of Hermelinda.)

More on the comics themselves later.

[Kotonishiki]

Interesting introduction, thanks. i've seen a few Mexican comics, but not too many, and my Spanish was never good enough to really do much with them. so one thing i would be curious about is if there are any comics where you have both the original U.S. edition and the Puerto Rican edition. since you mentioned story simplification, etc., could you give a summarized example? i.e., story elements that were in the original, but altered or removed for the Puerto Rican edition.

[Sijo]

I have found very few originals of the Spanish editions I got to read; mainly because the reprints were years behind the ones on sale in the US. Which may have been intentional.

One story I DO remember reading in both Spanish AND English was The Wedding of (the Earth-2) Superman. Mainly because it was reprinted in English years after I read the Spanish edition. (Btw, this was the first E-2 Superman story I ever read!)

Special Note: After a recent visit to a local drugstore, I was surprised to find some (relatively) new Spanish reprints of DC AND Marvel comics! I saw the Spider-Man 9-11 homage, and an issue of Aquaman (back in his hook-wearing days.) But as I said, I've been out of contact with these for years, so I can't tell you much about them. I did notice that the format (size, page count and, sadly, cost) is now the same as the American originals.

The story simplification in the old reprints did not alter the stories; they just made them harder to understand, because they had to use less words to explain things. I remember being particularly baffled by the "Mr. Xavier" storyline that ran in the Superman comics in the 70s (about an alien pretending to be Clark's next door neighbor; I think he was hired not to kill Superman, but rather to destroy the Earth -can't remember what for- using Supes' energies.) It ran for several issues. Another complex story made harder to understand was the Adaptoids saga in Justice League; bloblike aliens with the power to "adapt to anything" gained immunity to all the members of the JLA (I think) but where defeated when Hawkman brought Hawkwoman, who had been infected with the Thanagarian "Equalizer plague" to Earth so she could infect the Adaptoids and defeat them. But this left me with many questions- Wasn't that the plague that drove Katar and Shayera to stay on Earth? How did she get infected? If there was no known cure, why did Katar bring her to Earth, risking infection of humanity? How come it infected the adaptoids but not the JLA? Questions the reprint did not answer clearly. (BTw, I would appreciate any clarifications on these stories anyone can provide.)

Ok, to start with my reviews, I'll now describe CHANOC:

Chanoc was an adventure-comedy series -much more the latter- that originated with the main character as a Mexican Tarzan: a young man living in the jungle. Apparently, however, he was taken back to civilization by his godfather (not his uncle as I had previously said) Tsekub. By the time I discovered the comic, no references to his days in the jungle were being made. In fact I only found about those recently in the Net!
As far as I was aware back then, Chanoc was a young fisherman who, for whatever reason, was always finding himself rescuing people, either fixing the problems caused by his godfather or the other wacky characters from his hometown of Ixtac, or actually asked by the authorities to help with criminals in the jungle (!)
You see, Ixtac was a small fishing town, right next to the mexican jungle. It was filled with a very strange (but likeable) cast of characters. In fact, Chanoc came across as a secondary character in his own title. He was utterly stereotyped as a hero: Handsome, irresistible to women, capable of all sort of extreme actions from combat to sports (more on that later) ...and rather dull. He seemed to be there just to take care of the action. I don't even remember ever seeing him smile. The only standout feature of his was the tooth of a wild animal he killed that he carried in a necklace. (Can't remember whether it was a jaguar or a shark.) I guess the writers realized the old formula wasn't working anymore, and moved from jungle action to wacko comedy.

Other major characters in Chanoc included:
-Tsekub, his "godfather". Nicknamed "the aztec mummy" by his friends (on account of his being so old and skinny) Tsekub (his name, and the other unusual ones in the title, come from the old mexican indian tongue, still spoken by many people in Mexico) certainly didn't act his age; he was a skirtchaser (thought the ladies invariably preferred his godson) and had the stamina of a young man, as he proved in various sport competitions, and even in fistfights! Most of the humor in the comic was centered around him.
-Anclitas ("little anchors" in Spanish- a reference to his uniform) was the local Chief of the mexican Coast Guard. He doubled as the chief of police (since Ixtac had no cops) and usually took care of the investigations and criminals in the area. He was really proud of his role, even though it was Chanoc and Tsekub who did most of the work!
-There were several more characters whose exact names escape me now: Patalarga ("Long Leg", a pun on the fact he had only one leg) was Tsekub's best friend and partner in crime; The "Wood Nymphs" were two obese women that were obsessed with Tsekub, much to his chaggrin; there were also three jungle tribesmen (no, there are no real tribesmen in mexico) two of which were cannibals and wanted to eat Tsekub (but only him!) and the other was a Witch Doctor (his entire body covered by a HUGE african-llike mask) whose magical experiments always caused trouble (but ocassionally also helped things.) At one point a robot was added to the cast (!!). Oh yeah, and there was a monkey, too. Mainly there to, you guessed it, annoy Tsekub.
There were other characters, but I don't remember them all.

Most of the stories I saw where just plain wacky. Usually, Tsekub would come up with some scheme to make money or impress a lady, and it would backfire big time. Other stories would be more serious, and would have Chanoc and the others deal with real criminals, such as smugglers. But even then, there would be some humor in the story.
Curiously, there were lots of sport-oriented stories; mostly soccer (understandable, since that sport is very popular in Mexico) but the cast also competed (and won!) in everything from American Football to Baseball!

The only bad point of the series would have to be the art, which was rather crude; it was as if the artist didn't care to bother with much other than the characters, and the backgrounds looked empty often.

Chanoc starred in at least one live-action movie, in which he teamed up with the son of that other famous mexican hero, El Santo, to battle vampires!

For a look at Chanoc plus some more info (in English) go here:

http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/chanoc.htm

[Sijo]

ARRGH. My PC is giving me problems; I fear I'll have to go get it fixed, which means I'll be out of the Boards for a few days. I'll have to continue this later. My apologies.

[Scott Shaw!]

Sijo, when your computer is repaired, please offer an explanation regarding the apparent popularity of the comic book/comic strip CONDORITO.

It seems like half the cartoonists I know (including myself) have been approached to somehow "re-work" CONDORITO into a strip for the American market. But not only is the strip itself extremely odd in concept (a cartoon man with a funny animal condor head, plus other somewhat abstract supporting characters in a 1950's urban environment), the "gags" themselves are incredilby lame, apparently taken from a 1935 edition of JOE MILLER'S JOKE BOOK.

Yet, the other day, I was reading a Hispanic LA daily newspaper (LA OPINION) and was amazed to discover that CONDORITO is still running on the funny pages! Yow!

Aloha,

Scott!

[antonio7512]

sijo has been quite accurate in the description of the comic movement in Latinoamerica, so thanks sijo for that.

In Puerto Rico I guess only Novaro Editorial made its way over there, here in Mexico was Novedades Editores in the mid-80`s the one that started to publish Marvel comics, well in fact there where two previous companies in the mid seventies giving some translations of comics like Nik fury,Daredevil,spider Man, and later on Novaro was publishing I guess Hulk from Marvel, Novedades had almost reprinted all the work done from Spider Man and the related titles.Later on Vid continue to publish almost every possible title of Marvel.

The main problems with re-printings were the quality in the paper and the awful, awful translations....they make you vomit..honestly!!.
Well 7 years ago Marvel wanted to start their emporium here publishing some FF4,Spider Man and X-Men titles but never make it for real because they didn`t have the distribution system that was in need so I guess they lost interest.
Now the Monopoly that is printing mosly all the companies available (DC,Marvel,some manga,some Indy mexican work) is done via editorial vid, the only thing I can say is that the quality in the paper is superior to the american ones and the translations are much better .

sad the comic movement in Mexico is not that powerful, we can say is concentrate it mainly in Monterrey,Mexico city,Guadalajara and some nice experiments in the North part of the country.General audience seems to love more political cartoonist (I do not blame them we have exceptcional artist on the area),If you ask me look for political cartoons done by el fisgon,helguera,Hernandez,Rius,Naranjo etc....
One rare case is Trino Camacho and Jis, two nice fellas that had a parody of Wrestlers called "Santos and la Tetona Mendoza!.(Santos and the big Breasted mendoza)
A hilarious weekly comic strip that I guess is not produced anymore but worth to see it.


see ya and sorry for stepping on the topic...JESUS ANTONIO

[Sijo]

Don't be sorry, Antonio. You provided some good information on the subject while I was gone. Thank you.

Sadly, I'm STILL not fully back; my PC still has some bugs. If I can't fix them myself, I may have to bring it BACK to the shop! > < I'll just be doing a short post tonight.

Scott: Sorry, but Condorito's popularity escapes me too. The jokes are TERRIBLE! Even the format is different from most other comics: the comic book is just collection of one-page gags! It works better as a comic strip... but that's not saying much.

I suppose Condorito has two things going for it. First is name recognition: almost EVERYBODY in Latino America is at least familiar with the name. The other is a certain fascination in Latin America with old-style humor. Stuff like Laurel & Hardy, The Three Stooges, and even Laff In! Most hispanic comedies I've seen are obviously derived from them, thought most people here probably don't realize it. Mind you, most of these shows are actually funny, even if not terribly so, unlike Condorito.

Hopefully I'll be back soon with more reviews of Spanish Comics.

[MWGallaher]

I wish now that I'd sampled some of the home-grown comic books when I was in Mexico in 1975. The ones I remember were filled with swipes from US comics, which turned me off. Instead, I fed my fix with occasional translated DCs. I was amused that "Batman", at the time was translated literally into Spanish. I believe they have since changed to using his English name, but I can't help but wonder what kind of headaches a Spanish-speaking voice artist would have if he'd been forced to render Michael Keaton's memorable but brief opening line as "Soy Hombre Murcielago."

[Sijo]

Mike: Yes, the more famous American Heroes, Like Superman and Batman, kept their names in English in the translations, simply because their Spanish names just didn't have good rings to them. :D Besides, they had to use the American Cover Logos.

Well, a terrible head cold has kept me from taking the PC back to the shop today, so I might as well post again tonight. Let's look at what was probably the best original latino comic book ever, FANTOMAS.

Well, original in that it was entirely produced here. The character himself actually originated in a series of French novels from the turn of the (20th) century.

Fantomas, "The Elegant Menace" was a "Gentleman Thief" type of character, ala Arsene Lupin, who also originated in those novels. The difference was that Fantomas (from the French word Fantome, "phantom") wore a mask. (That's pretty much all I know about the original character; I assume more can be found in the Net.) How this character ended up in a Latino American comic book series, in a highly philosophical, sci-fi adventure series, has always been a mistery to me. I have a theory, tho: some latino writer probably liked the character, and simply used him to tell the stories HE wanted to tell, likely influenced by the revolutionary scientific and social movements of the 60's. Whether this was done with or without permission is unknown to me. (Perhaps the copyright had expired?) I'll have to research the comic more someday.

This is what I know for sure: Fantomas was (at least when compared with other latino comics) of very high quality. The art was great, with great attention paid to anatomy, both male and female. It was in full (four) color, too, another rarity. (It wasn't perfect, tho; action shots often looked awkward.) More importantly, the stories often had more substance to them than even most American superhero comics (of the time.)

I don't recall ever seeing a Fantomas origin story; all I know about it comes from a flashback sequence in one book. Supposedly, Fantomas (his true identity was NEVER revealed) grew up in a French orphanage. For some reason (maybe he was mistreated) he came to resent society as a whole, and began to wear a mask to hide his face all the time. (I know, that was ridiculous; WHY would they let him do that in the orphanage? Unless the staff decided it was good theraphy. Or just plain didn't care.) He revealed his face to only one person, another orphan, a girl he liked (who, of course, comes back years later as an adult to ask for his help in one story.)

As an adult, Fantomas became a cat burglar, comitting all sort of daring thefts in Paris, often jumping across rooftops in full Gentleman regalia! (Top hat, opera cloak, walking cane, etc. He often presented a Batman-like silhoutte in the night, probably NOT a coincidence) And of course, his distinctive white mask.

He never took the damn thing off. I mean NEVER! Not even when showering!! The thing was skintight and covered even his hair and lips; only his ears, eyes and the inside of his mouth were visible. When he put on a disguise, he would put a lifelike mask and wig OVER his white mask!! That can't be healthy! (Then again, he had a source for some very incredible resources, as you'll see in a moment.)

Fantomas stole, not really to hurt society, but rather to mock it, and for the thrill of the challenge. His main nemesis in his Paris days was one Inspector Gerard, of the Sureté (French Police). I suspect he may be a character from the original novels as well; however, Gerard was really no match for Fantomas. Honestly, he was reduced to a comic relief. Not that he was a bumbling fool, but Fantomas had him going around in circles. The detective's attempts to capture him amused him, and he often tricked him with false leads and the like.

Eventually, tho, the stories moved to a wider scope. Fantomas started having adventures around the World (leaving poor Gerard behind.) He was revealed to be a multimillionaire (owning several companies under false identities.) He had a high-tech headquarters, where he was attended by the "Zodiac Girls"- 12 stunningly beautiful women, each known only by her Sign, who did EVERYTHING for him! (I think the Bond Movie influence here is obvious.) His relationship to them was foggy; they appear to have been some sort of groupies, utterly loyal to him. Yet, he wasn't in love with any of them, and they seemed to accept the fact calmly. Also, they were all highly skilled in some area, and he often took one of them along in an adventure. (Obviously, the Girls were there for sex appeal, but it still felt kinda insulting to have 12 supposedly modern women slaving over one guy. Did they have sex? That was never shown, but could've been just typical comic book censorship.)

Speaking of women, it's important to point out that Fantomas had no true love. He had numerous affairs with women, and in one story actually fell in love; but invariably, something spoiled things, or his would-be paramour ended up dead. (More Bond influence?)

Other than the Z Girls, Fantomas' only other recurring character was his cat. It was one of those rare felines with beautiful fur (but it was male.) I don't recall his name, other than that it was named after a famous historical figure. Fantomas almost always ended his adventures by telling his opinions to the cat- who would actually respond to them in his thoughts! (This was just a cute feature the author used to insert his opinions into the story; it was a normal cat, not a talking one.)

As for his adventures, Fantomas, while continuing with the ocassional theft, pretty much turned into a Doc Savage type adventurer, solving mysteries, exploring the world, and, oh yes, saving the World from criminals and madmen. Very often offering definitely unconservative comments in the process (he would often quote people like Karl Marx, for example.)

While not appearing in EVERY Fantomas story, another very important character was one Professor Zemo. Looking something like Santa Claus in a lab coat, Zemo was a superscientist who could invent almost anything, and often provided Fantomas with the means to pull out difficult missions or defeat enemies. He lived in an invisible floating island (with a force field, too!) of his own creation. (OK, by this point, Fantomas' adventures were getting decidedly fantastic.) Zemo even had an issue dedicated to telling a story from his youth- which apparently was in Victorian England!- in which he and a fellow inventor played pranks on their teachers, but their friendship ended after his friend tried to trick him into falling in love with an android woman he'd created.
(I never did found out how Zemo became Fantomas' ally, btw.)

Zemo's only companion in his island was a robot called C-19. This truly bizarre machine was a man-sized metal egg with three wheels, arms like the robot from Lost in Space, and a transparent top, in wich his head (wich resembled a metallic Staypuft Man's) resided. C-19 was superstrong, but it had the personality of a child. It loved Zemo like a father, but for some reason was NEVER able to pronounce his name right, always calling him variations like "Chemo" or "Remo". Which really annoyed the old codger. (But helped save the day in one story where an alien shapeshifter replaced C-19, and was discovered when he called Zemo by his correct name!) :D

Some of Fantomas' stories introduced me to some very cool scifi ideas. In one, Fantomas investigated a rare, supersmart dog with a ducklike beak, who turned out to be an alien observing the human race (his transformation power failed it, thus the "defect.") There was one where a satellite that connected ALL the computers of the world (remember this was way before the internet) ended up creating a "supermind" that almost destroyed humanity; in another, Fantomas agreed to ride in an egg-shaped time machine (what's with Zemo and eggs, anyway??) to go into the future and observe the End of the Universe!

But perhaps the most shocking -certainly the longest- Fantomas story was the "Son of Hitler" Saga, which ran for SEVERAL issues. It was in this story that I learned the horrors of the Holocaust. I can't remember if this was inspired by the movie "The Boys from Brazil" or not, but it had a similar premise, with Hitler's Son appearing, starting the Fourth Reich, and conquering France! (Gerard actually started a new French Resistance to oppose him!) The Son suceeded were so many had failed- he captured Fantomas and tortured him! However, he had secretly fallen in love with Taurus of the Z Girls, a BLACK woman, which for him was an unbearable shame. Sadly, I never got to see the end of this story- the Fantomas comics suddenly disappeared from the local newstands. To this day, I don't know if the title was cancelled, or if it simply stopped being imported here.

I still believe the mexican Fantomas comic book stands out among the crowd, even with all the comics I've read since then (in both languages).

Edit: I just found this site with more information (in English!) and some art from the Fantomas comic book (I LOVE the Net!:D ) It's part of a Website on the original French character, too. I also realized I misspelled Professor Semo's name too! Hah!

http://www.fantomas-lives.com/

Oh, and the cat's name is Iago, from Othello, I believe.

More later.

[Shevek]

Thanks for the info, Sijo. FANTOMAS sounds very interesting - do you know if it has been reprinted in English?

The mask concept and the anti-establishment angle make me wonder if FANTOMAS might have been an influence on V FOR VENDETTA...

[Rod G]

So Sijo,does the name Turey mean anything to you?

[Sijo]

Shevek: You're welcome. No, I don't know if any of the Fantomas mexican comics were ever translated into English, althought I certainly would love to read reprints of it! I'm going to keep researching the comic online and let you know if I find more information.

I, too, suspect a connection between Fantomas and V for Vendetta, but more with the original version of the character, who was more of an anarchist. But we would have to find an article with Alan Moore talking about his inspirations to make sure.

Rod G: I'm definitely going to comment on TUREY THE TAINO and other Puerto Rican comics in this thread, after I'm done reviewing the mexican ones. Right now I'm preparing a review of KALIMAN for my next post.

[Rod G]

Shevek: You're welcome. No, I don't know if any of the Fantomas mexican comics were ever translated into English, althought I certainly would love to read reprints of it! I'm going to keep researching the comic online and let you know if I find more information.

I, too, suspect a connection between Fantomas and V for Vendetta, but more with the original version of the character, who was more of an anarchist. But we would have to find an article with Alan Moore talking about his inspirations to make sure.

Rod G: I'm definitely going to comment on TUREY THE TAINO and other Puerto Rican comics in this thread, after I'm done reviewing the mexican ones. Right now I'm preparing a review of KALIMAN for my next post.


Go for it,my man!

[Indigo Al]

I actually have a few Mexican Marvel translations from the early 80's. The great thing about them is that they are translations of beginning of Marvel issues (FF Lee/Kirby, Daredevil, Spider Woman, Avengers).

What about Patoruzu from Argentina?

[antonio7512]

thanks Sijo for the words and making me feel welcomed!!!
I was investigating and I guess there were not translations to English in the Fantomas issues, I might be wrong but it seems that Fantomas was more based on Mandrake and previous work like Santo.
Hey you haven`t comment on Santo "El enmascarado de Plata".
I can`t wait to see your review on Kaliman.

I will add something about translation names of some of the marvel and DC characters If you know more please help to have a good list.


Spider man was in the early eighties El hombre Araña .
Captain america was Capitan America
Wolverine was Lobezno (I guess in Spain) or Gloton (for a short time was used in Mexico).
Daredevil was Diabolico that means in English Diabolic (I got to be honest but I loved the name in Spanish more than the one in English)
X- Men was Hombres X and in Spain where Patrulla X (Patrol X)
Avengers was Vengadores

Bruce Wayne was for a ong long time in the seventies and eighties Bruno Diaz
Punisher was El castigador.
Superman was superman but also they used El Hombre de Acero.
Green Lantern was Linterna Verde.


see ya!! JESUS ANTONIO

[Sijo]

Indigo Al: Thanks for the information on the Marvel translations, as I said I never got to see any here.

I also have never heard of Patoruzu, so if you can provide info on it I think we'll all be grateful.

Antonio: You're welcome. And you know, I HAD forgotten that there was a Santo comic book as well, I remember him mostly from the movies. Thanks, I'll comment on him later.

Oh, and the correct translation of Wolverine's name is indeed Gloton, but that's also the Spanish word for someone who eats too much. :D Another name for that type of animal is Gulo, but that sounds dangerously close to our word for "butt." :D Lobezno means "wolf cub", not an exact translation but certainly better than the other two.

Hopefully I'll be posting my Kaliman Review tonight.

[Sijo]

Ok, now for my review of what was doubtlessly, the most famous Latino American Super Hero: KALIMAN THE INCREDIBLE MAN.

After a little research online, I found out that Kaliman originally began as a Cuban Radio Play, back in the days before TV replaced Radio as the main form of entertainment. I suspect that The Shadow radio show may have been an inspiration; both characters (and many other heroes from the turn of the century, such as Mandrake the Magician) had origins involving eastern mysticism. The character was adapted into a comic book series in the 70's (of the "Movie Serial" type I described above, which fit him perfectly, as Kaliman was always going from one cliffhanger to another.) There were also a couple of Live Action Kaliman movies.

According to the comics, Kaliman was "The seventh descendant of the seventh dinasty" of Kali, the Hindu goddess of justice. As such, he was raised in a tibetan temple, trained to master the powers of the mind and body, and then sent to wander the World fighting evil, an Oath he must return to the Temple of Kali every seven years to renew.

OK now, those of you with a familiarity with Hinduism might have noticed something wrong with this story: Kali is the Hindu goddess of DEATH, not justice. In fact, the cult of assassins called the Thugees (from which the word "thug" comes) worshipped her. I suspect the creator(s) of the character only had a passing familiarity with Hinduism and simply used a familiar name and made up the rest. On the other hand, Hinduism is very complex; deities like Shiva the destroyer are worshipped under more benevolent "aspects" so it might not be too far off to assume that Kali also had a more benevolent version.

Another thing that felt out of place with the character is that he looked caucasian, not Hindu. He even had blue eyes! It's pretty obvious to me that his looks were based on American Super Heroes like Superman. The comics themselves never explained this discrepancy, that I remember. Of course, it might very well have been that Kaliman was adopted into the House of Kali. (One website I visited mentions that Kaliman was a halfbreed, which I assume is also a possibility; I followed the Kaliman comics very slavishly but I did miss several issues, so I could have missed the revelation.)

In any case: Kaliman (who apparently had no civilian identity) did indeed wander the world, alone except for his companion, an arab boy named Solin (who was orphaned in Kaliman's very first adventure) who became the Robin to his Batman. Solin was no fighter, tho; he was there mostly so that Kaliman could explain things to him (and thus to the readers.) Kaliman also had various contacts in everything from the scientific community to Interpol, whom he called on when he needed help. In addition, Kaliman was internationally famous for his deeds, and the local authorities usually welcomed him when he arrived in the area.

Kaliman was always dressed in his costume, which resembled a Hindu Prince's, complete with turban, cape, and dagger (which he ONLY used as a tool, NEVER as a weapon!) The suit was completely white, except for the emerald in his turban (which he ocassionally gave as a gift to people who needed money!) ^^ Solin looked almost identical to Disney's Aladdin, right down to the fez hat, except his hair was curlier. (As you may guess, they usually attracted attention wherever they went; they rarely ever put on modern clothes, even when it was convenient for them!)

Kaliman's powers included: The strenght of 50 men (supposedly; being a pacifist, and humble to boot, Kaliman hardly ever performed feats of strenght. Not that he didn't get into fights often; but he simply outfought his enemies with martial arts most of the time.) He also had:Telepathy, mostly for mental communication; Astral Projection; Hypnotism (which required eye contact), the "Actus Mortus" (Latin for Dead Act) which allowed him to pretend to be dead (but would cause him to die for real if mantained too long) and the curious ability to contort his muscles at will, so that he could change his face, or even compress his body into looking like an old man's!
Solin was being trained by Kaliman, but as far as I know, the only power he learned was telepathy... and only to contact Kaliman in emergencies!
Kaliman also sported a curious weapon: a blowpipe, which shot darts tipped with curare (a poison from a tropical plant, that causes paralysis.)

Kaliman is one of the, if not THE, most phylosophical heroes of all time. Keeping his composure at all except the most shocking moments, he was fond of giving people advice, in particular by citing lots of proverbs, most of them invented in his comics. His favorite line was, "Serenity, serenity and patience, much patience." Fortunately, he wasn't stuck up; he was humble, and could even joke or laugh in the right situation. That's why I, and many people, admired him; he came across as truly wise, a non-violent hero who always knew the right thing to do, but still came across as likeable. If he had one defect, it might be that he was a LITTLE too sure of himself at times. In his adventure in Transilvania, he continued to dismiss the possibility that the vampires he was fighting against could be real... until he was faced with undeniable evidence of it (in his battle with the Vampire Lord, who, curiously, wasn't Dracula.) Afterwards, he had a very cool attitude about it- no big shock, no big "Gee, Solin, sorry I didn't believe you." That always annoyed me.

Kaliman's adventures were VERY cliched, as were the characters in them. In each serial, you could be sure that:
-There would be some VERY vile villain- usually VERY ugly as well.
-There would be at least one BEAUTIFUL woman -good or evil- who would fall for Kaliman, HARD.
-Kaliman wouldn't be able to even step out of a hotel without falling into dangerous situation.
-Everything would be neatly tied up in the last episode, with the main villain being killed and, If Kaliman had been transported to another time and place, he was returned home.
Still, the stories managed to be entertaining, even when they lasted for several months (of weekly episodes!) because it was always cool to see how Kaliman would escape the latest deathtrap he found himself in. Plus, some of the stories featured some original, even bizarre, concepts.

Oh BTW, Kaliman himself, if I remember correctly, only fell in love twice; first with a woman from ancient greece, and another with a female warrior from ancient china. In both ocassions he was taken back home just as he was going to declare his love.

Kaliman's adventures spanned the globe. Among those I remember:
-In Brazil, he battled Humanon, a mad scientist who loved to transplant human heads into animals (and vice versa!)
-In Transilvania, as I mentioned, he met a family of vampires who wanted his blood to return their master to life. (Btw, this vampire returned in a later adventure; among the few Kaliman foes to do so. They usually ended up D-E-A-D.)
-In Egypt, he dealt with the cult of a would-be pharaoh.
-In Africa, he investigated the legend of The White Witch, a Sheena-like savage woman, and encountered everything from talking apes to a giant gorilla.
-In Greece, he angered the god Neptune accidentally, and was transported to the time of the Greek Legends as a result. BTW, in this story he met Hercules, and was defeated by him!! (This story contained a big error, in that it featured Poseidon as a villain... when that is just Neptune's greek name!) (Neptune is his roman name.)
-In India, Kaliman fought his opposite number, Karma, a fellow disciple of Kali who went evil; They competed over possession of the White Book of Wisdom, which Kaliman won but Karma stole; it taught him how to activate a "hidden part of the brain" that gave Karma even greater powers, like shapeshifting. (I understand that Karma also returned in another adventure, but I missed it.)
-In China, Kaliman accidentally disrupted the resurrection of an ancient chinese princess, and as a result, was sent back in time to prevent her death in the first place. In the process, he battled the "Black Knight" an armored figured that turned out to be a woman (inspired by Mulan?) and who, you guessed it, falls in love with him.

The reason I missed some Kaliman serials is because, apparently, the comics I read were reprints of earlier Kaliman comics, and not all the stories were reprinted. Still, I greatly enjoyed those I read, and, as with Fantomas, I feel this character deserves to stand right next to more famous ones like Superman or Spider-Man.

For art and more information on Kaliman, go here:
http://www.kaliman.com.mx/kal_16.html

[antonio7512]

hey Sijo some stuff to comment, Kaliman was never a cuban radio program I guess in fact transmitted by Latinoamerican radio stations ,there were some extraordinary radio dramas produced in Cuba the same as "Tres patines" (I have no logical translation to tres patines2) that was an incredible talk show from the 60`s and still airs in many stations of Mexico the same as Kaliman,
In fact Kaliman was the invention of Victor Fox , let me translate this about the radio programs, In fact this started as aradio program and then it was produced as a comic and had some movies (cult movies by the way).
The comic is still produced well the right word is that the reprints still on the market and not original work from Kaliman due to some circunstances that I will explain later on..(also some incredible radio shows where "El ojo de vidrio" (eye glass..the story of a mexican hitman)

translation
The radio shows where broadcasted since 1963, via RAdio Cadena Nacional in Distrito Federal (now is called Radio Red) and using other stations inside the Mexican Republic, Luis Manuel Pelayo was the voice of Kaliman (this guy was also a very well know tv broadcaster from the 70`s),Luis de Alba was the voice of Solin (He was the voice when He was a child now He is a very funny comedy man),isidro Olace the narrator,Marcos Ortiz was the director,Scripts by Victo Fox over some ideas by Navarro and Vazquez and after the Death of Fox, the scripts were done by Clem uribe.


Los programas fueron transmitidos desde 1963, por Radio Cadena Nacional en el Distrito Federal (actualmente Radio RED ) y a traves de muchas otras estaciones en el interior de la república, con Luis Manuel Pelayo en la voz de Kalimán , Luis de Alba como Solin , Isidro Olace en la narración; Marcos Ortiz dirección. Guiones de Victor Fox , sobre argumentos de Navarro y Vázquez y a la muerte de Fox, los guiones fueron realizados por Clem Uribe.

Now the problem of not having original work from kaliman is more about who has the copyrights of Kaliman, Victor Fox got married in an elderly age with a young girl (Victor fox was previously married I guess), the problem is that Fox inherited the rights to this Girl and well I guess she thinks "do not fix what is not broken" and haven`t tried to do some original stuff based on the ideas of Victor Fox, a real shame!!.

JESUS ANTONIO

[antonio7512]

I gotta say also that probably there where many cuban people involved in theradio programs but I am not sure that it was a cuban radio program.

Take care all of you!!1...JESUS ANTONIO

[Mike Kuypers]

As a fan of old time radio it fascinates -- and frustrates -- me to know other countries are still producing original content more than forty years after we abandoned the format.

[Sijo]

Antonio: It seems I misread the article in the Friends of Kaliman website. It says that one of his CREATORS was from Cuba. But the character definitely started as a Radio Play. However, it seems Victor Fox was NOT one of the creators. It could be that Fox wrote the COMIC book adventures, or perhaps he gained the copyrights from the original creators. In any case, thanks for the aditional information! (please read the link I posted for more about Kaliman's creation.)

[antonio7512]

Hey Sijo good to hear from you!!

You are right about the creators I guess Victor Fox got the copyrights of KalimaN..how ? I have no idea, but It sems He always got them since the production of the comic andthe radio program because I remember they always said in the radio program "it has been a production of Victor Fox"....JESUS ANTONIO


I am reading the link so in case you need me to give some info let me know...

[Sijo]

Jesus Antonio: Copyrights can be a mess to understand, especially in the old days when many creators didn't understand their ramifications (Have you ever heard the story of how Superman's creators SOLD AWAY all rights to their creation to DC comics, and thus missed on a gold mine?) My guess is that someone sold or legally passed on the rights to Fox. I'll have to read more about that someday. And sure, feel free to add any information you have on the topics, that's what message boards are for.

Ok, to continue with my Hispanic Comics reviews, I now turn to the superhero who was, possibly, even more popular than Kaliman... except it was a comedy, not a serious adventure series- but is still known and beloved across Latino America: EL CHAPULIN COLORADO.

Actually, this character is far better known for his live action TV show, and not for his comic book (of which I saw only one issue, and was NOT impressed.) Still, I would be remiss not to mention him, since he is such an influential part of latinoamerican pop culture.

El Chapulin Colorado (that's mexican slang for "The Red Grasshopper"- an obvious take on "The Green Hornet") was a character created in the 70s by mexican comedian and director Roberto Gomez Bolaños, better known by the stage name "Chespirito" (No, I don't know what that means; there were many mexican words used in his shows. Anybody know?) Along with his other creation, EL CHAVO DEL OCHO ('The Kid from (house) Eight') this show became a smash hit in Mexico and many other Latino countries, and was a childhood favorite of mine. The show is so popular, in fact, that it is STILL being rerun in several countries (including Puerto Rico) and has been dubbed into other languages, such as Portuguese and Italian. It is even run on US hispanic tv stations (In fact, I believe that The Simpsons' Bumbleebee Man was based on him- note how Homer watches BBM in a Spanish TV show.) As far as I know, there never was an English dub, however.

Who was El Chapulin? That I can't tell you, for it was never revealed. In fact, virtually NOTHING was revealed about the character's origin or personal life. I think in one episode it was explained that CC came into existence because the people of Mexico wanted a hero and *poof* he appeared. (Yeah, pretty lame, but I've seen worse origins. :D ) The Chapulin alluded several times to having a house somewhere, but it was never shown.

The format of the show was an anthology: you see, for some reason, EVERY time somebody- no matter WHERE in time or space- uttered the words, "Oh! And now, WHO can help??" aloud (and ACTUALLY needed help) the Chapulin would immediately show up, shouting, "ME!!" and come in thru the nearest convenient opening- a window, chimney, barrel, even sometimes (gasp!) a door!-
...and would immediately trip and fall over, only to pick himself up and say, "I did that intentionally to (insert lame excuse)". In fact, Chapulin had a long list of personal sayings, that became as famous as the character himself: "No contaban con mi astucia!" ("They didn't count with my wits!"), "Siganme los buenos!" ("Good guys follow me!"), "Se aprovechan the mi nobleza!" (They're taking advantage of my nobility!") and several others.

El Chapulin had an incredible reputation as a hero; EVERYBODY recognized him, whether he popped up in Ancient Egypt or the planet Venus. However, he was believed to be a fearless, invincible hero... when in fact he was a mousy weakling. That didn't stop him from bragging, though he would often regret it. To his credit, Chapulin always tried to help people, and insisted on facing enemies even when he was deathly afraid of them, which Bolaños explained was why he felt he was more heroic than other, mightier heroes. He always succeeded thru insistence- and sometimes by sheer luck.

Not that Chapulin was powerless. He had an array of powers/gadgets (sometimes it was hard to tell which were wich.) These included:
-"El Chipote Chillon" ("The Squeaky Mallet.") One of those harmless toy hammers that squeak when you hit something with it. Except Chapulin's actually hit hard! Which was odd, considering how weak he was. The Chipote would return to his hands when he whistled, too.
-"Antenitas de Vinil" ("Little Vinyl Antennae") Bouncy toy antennas that would start beeping whenever an enemy was near, in an obvious parody of Spider-Man's tingling Spider-Sense. Problem was, they did not tell him WHERE the danger was coming from, and he would invariably hit the wrong person!
-"Pastillas de Chiquitolina" ("Smalloline Pills") Pills he carried in a bottle, that when swallowed, caused him to shrink to the size of a grasshopper! (Shades of Ant-Man!) In reduced size he still had his normal-sized strenght, which was useful to have even if he wasn't that strong. The effect only lasted for 5 minutes, and you can bet he would snap back to normal size in the wrong place at the wrong time!
-"La Chicharra Paralizadora" (The Paralizing Bugle") One of those old bicycle horns, that had the power to freeze in time anything it was sounded at; one honk would freeze a target, two would unfreeze it. As you can imagine, Chapulin would often freeze a villain and then arrange for something painful or embarrasing to happen to him on being released.

As you can gather, CC was mainly an old-style comedy show; the humor came from such things as mistaken identities, sight gags, puns, and pratfalls. Bolaños was a fan of such classic comedians as Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy, and the influence was obvious. The shows might come across as lame today, especially to american audiences used to smarter and more cynical comedy, but the show was played with such gusto by the cast that we couldn't help but laugh with them.

Speaking of the cast, El Chapulin (played by Bolaños himself) was the only regular character; however, since Bolaños used mainly the same stable of actors to play all the other parts, they always felt familiar even when they were playing different characters. (It didn't hurt that these actors were also known for playing specific characters in Bolaños' other hit, El Chavo.) About the only recurring characters were a gangster named Tripaseca ("Drygut") and his gang. In one episode, they tried to lure Chapulin to a trap and kill him, tough they had to hurt one of their own members (with a beer bottle to the head!) to get the "summons" to work! The trap failed, however, because the gangster's moll, Primorous Rose, fell for Chapulin and helped him!
In addition, there was Super Sam, who was, well, Uncle Sam in a Superman costume. This character embodied American super heroes and American Politics; he worked for money, and his only power was hitting enemies with a bag full of money! His motto (in English- he spoke a hodgepodge of Spanish and English) was "Time is money! Oh yeah!" Althought Chapulin and Sam hated each other, Sam WAS a hero and did help at times.

Most of the episodes where about terribly mundane situations, like a wife trying to get her lazybones husband to work, or a father trying to stop his spoiled brat of a daughter from throwing away her toys (hey, I said the person needed to REALLY need help for the summons to work; I never said it HAD to be with something dangerous! :D ) There were episodes with more action, however. Bolaños made a point of never showing too much violence, however, other than the ocassional beating a crook got (or gave to) El Chapulin. Among the best episodes I remember:
-El Chapulin vs The Frankestein Monster!
-Chapulin versus a man who THOUGHT he was a vampire.
-An adaptation of Madame Butterfly (!) with Chapulin trying to stop Butterfly's arranged marriage.
-Chapulin vs Hitler! (also played by Bolaños!)
-An excellent (wacky) adaptation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (with Chapulin only as the narrator).
-Chapulin also narrated the story of Samson, again played by Bolaños.
-Chapulin in Venus, summoned by two cavewomen who were trying to avoid the unwelcome advances of two astronauts (Shades of Planet of the Dinosaurs!)
The show's "special" effects were often poor, but again, the acting made up for it.

A while ago I heard that Disney had bought the rights to El Chapulin, but for what (dubbing the show, or making a cartoon based on it) I never found out. If anybody knows if this rumor is true, please let me know.

Next Post I'll cover El Chavo, and describe Bolaños' crew better.

For visuals on the show, plus a lot more information (also on El Chavo) go here:
http://www.chavodel8.com/elchapulin.html

The site is in Spanish, though.

[bartl]

Jesus Antonio: Copyrights can be a mess to understand, especially in the old days when many creators didn't understand their ramifications (Have you ever heard the story of how Superman's creators SOLD AWAY all rights to their creation to DC comics, and thus missed on a gold mine?)
Missed out, nothing! They were tricked into accepting oral guarantees that were not written into the contract.

[Sijo]

Bartl: That's what I meant- people were easily tricked back then, since they did business that way. Today people are MUCH more careful with their creation's rights.

[Scott Shaw!]

The popularity of EL CHAPULIN COLORADO is still in ample evidence, at least here in Southern California. A few weeks ago, I picked up a DVD of THE BEST OF EL CHAPULIN COLORADO at a local Tower Records! It's in Spanish, of course, but I had no trouble following the vaudeville-style plots.

I really must thank you for all the information you've presented here, Sijo. I find this sort of information to be utterly fascinating and you're doing a fine job of educating us. ¡Muchas gracias, mi amigo!

Aloha,

Scott!

P.S.: I've been receiving e-mailed comic strips from the extremely talented Puerto Rican cartoonist Dave Alvarez (who's done a remarkable job drawing many of DC's Warner Bros. cartoon-based comics). His feature is called "Yenny", and although the gags are a bit hit-and-miss (it may be the strip's translations), his "good girl art" is very appealing (in a decidedly non-sleazy way!) Here's an example:

http://www.comicssherpa.com/site/feature?uc_comic=csaeb

-- SS!

[Sijo]

Whoa, praise from The Man himself!! :eek: De nada, Scott! But it's *ME* who should be thanking you (and the good people at CBR) for giving me the chance to talk about stuff I love so much, and share it with others.

I recently discovered Yenny on local newpapers myself. I haven't seen enough to judge the quality of the jokes, but the art certainly is good! In fact, if I'm not mistaken, Alvarez was the author of CHANGAY, a local comic book which could be best described as the Puerto Rican version of Darkwing Duck. I'm going to research it a little, and then post about it in here very soon.

[MDG]

This is only tangentailly related, but in the early 80s, some video company was selling dubbed versions of a Mexican Cantinflas cartoon series under the title "Amigo and Friends". Always made me wonder about the quality of the translations.

[Scott Shaw!]

Believe it or not, some of those Cantinflas cartoons were produced through Hanna-Barbera...and I worked on 'em -- a fact I'd completely forgotten about!

Aloha,

Scott!

[Sijo]

I know of the "Amigo" cartoons but I never saw them, so I can't really comment on them. However, since translating humor is SO difficult (due to cultural differences) I bet the jokes were not translated exactly. (An recent example of this was the SHREK 2 movie- almost ALL the verbal humor had to be rewritten for the Latino audience.)

Gee, Scott, is there ANY cartoon that you're not connected to in some way!? (It's like "SIX DEGREES OF SCOTT SHAW!" :D )

Oh, and for those who don't know, Cantinflas was the character played by Mario Moreno, the greatest Mexican comedian ever, in movies during the 50s and 60s. Cantinflas (the character) was a poor but gold-hearted man, who embodied mexican culture. Moreno was wealthy, but equally kind, who spent his life helping the needy, and is thus fondly remembered in all of Latino America. (Note: he played Passepartout in the original AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS movie, his only english role ever.)

[Rod G]

I know of the "Amigo" cartoons but I never saw them, so I can't really comment on them. However, since translating humor is SO difficult (due to cultural differences) I bet the jokes were not translated exactly. (An recent example of this was the SHREK 2 movie- almost ALL the verbal humor had to be rewritten for the Latino audience.)

Gee, Scott, is there ANY cartoon that you're not connected to in some way!? (It's like "SIX DEGREES OF SCOTT SHAW!" :D )

Oh, and for those who don't know, Cantinflas was the character played by Mario Moreno, the greatest Mexican comedian ever, in movies during the 50s and 60s. Cantinflas (the character) was a poor but gold-hearted man, who embodied mexican culture. Moreno was wealthy, but equally kind, who spent his life helping the needy, and is thus fondly remembered in all of Latino America. (Note: he played Passepartout in the original AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS movie, his only english role ever.)
Believe it or not he appeared in another english language film,Pepe,I think it was called.

[antonio7512]

Well some information to add about Chespirito.


His name fo Chespirito and according to what he says in some interviews He was called "the little Shakespeare of comedy" so I guess you can imagine that little Shakespeare became Chespier and finally to Chespirito, he began as a comedy writer from some very popular comedy and musical programs of Viruta and Capulina and in fact was the official writer of the majority of the Movies done by Capulina and Viruta.
According to him the costume of Chapulin was more based in Superman and Batman than the green Hornet, in fact He has a kind of little hate to those characters that is why he decided to mock the superheroes with his satiric program Chapulin colorado.
He in fact wrote incredible and solid scripts basically el Chavo del Ocho (The boy of number 8)(the name was born because the character was introduced in a program transmitted initially in channel 8 that with the time transformed itself into channel 4 (that continues airing programs), also a nice progrma called Los caballeros de la mesa cuadrada (the knights of the squared table).
As you can recognize the majority of his ideas came from silent movies and in my personal opinion i gues his favorite ideas came from Chaplin,Stan Laurel and hardy (He even made a nice parody acting as Stan) and I am almost sure that Buster Keaton.there were also some comics based on his characters, the problem is that the quality was terrible.
I have more to say about Cantiflas but I guess next post..have a ncie time all of you!!!..JESUS ANTONIO

[Sijo]

Thanks for the trivia on Chespirito, Antonio. So, Chespirito means "Little Shakespeare?" Humble, wasn't he? :D But he certainly was talented. I also had no knowledge of the real-life origin of El Chavo's title (although there WAS an explanation for it inside the show- more on that on my next post.)

BTW Bolaños didn't so much hate superheroes as he hated what he perceived as their standoffishness, and he certainly wasn't the only person to see them that way. (I disagree, but different people see things differently.) I think Super Sam was his REAL criticism of Self-important Heroes and American political influences.

More on EL CHAVO next post.

[Sijo]

El CHAVO DEL OCHO (The Kid from (house) Eight) was Roberto Gomez Bolaños' other big TV hit, along with EL CHAPULIN COLORADO. However, most people may think of the former rather than the latter when thinking about Bolaños and his stable of actors, simply because it had a regular cast of characters, unlike Chapulin. You can say that Bolaños and crew, like many actors who portrayed famous characters, became forever associated with the characters they played.

El Chavo was basically a sitcom, focusing on the misadventures of a poor kid living in a mexican neighborhood, his friends, and their relatives. The one thing anybody who watches the show immediately notices is that all the "kid" parts are played BY ADULTS!! However, they were played SO convincingly, from the voices to the mannerisms (and the stories were so funny and charming) that it was easy to forget that fact (just like we comic book fans forget all the scientific impossibilities in Super Hero comics and just enjoy the stories.) Also noticeable is that the characters rarely ever changed their clothes or their hairstyles; they were identifying marks.

The characters in the show were:
-El Chavo, played by Bolaños himself. Known only as "The Kid" (his name was never revealed) he was apparently a homeless child that just showed up in the neighborhood one day, and stayed. However, unlike some people on the show believe, Chavo does NOT live in a barrel! That's just his favorite hiding place. He lives in house number eight (thus the title.) This house was never shown in the show, nor was the person he lived with; and, whenever somebody asked who was his guardian, something would interrupt the conversation. Why was his home life never shown? Maybe to keep the illusion that he was homeless. But Chavo DID go to school, so he HAD to have a home.
Chavo was not... terribly bright. Most of the humor in the show was based on misunderstandings he commited (or was tricked into.) He was, however, a nice enough kid, unlike most of his friends. His innocence was the show's main charm.
-La Chilindrina: Played by Maria Antonieta de las Nieves. Chavo's best friend- technically- was a girl, known only as Chilindrina. Like Chavo, her real name was not revealed (that I know.) A Chilindrina is a type of mexican sweet, covered in cinnamon (I believe.) The name is a reference to her freckles. Chilindrina was the Lucy to Chavo's Charlie Brown; she was smarter than him (but still had only a child's comprehension of the World) and would often try to trick him, either to get him to do something for her, or just for the heck of it. Still, she DID care about him, and while she would never admit it, she kinda considered Chavo her boyfriend, and would get jealous if she saw him looking at prettier girls. (Chilindrina was considered homely by the boys, because of her freckles and glasses.)
-Don Ramon: Played by Ramon Valdez, was Chilindrina's father. A single dad -I don't think it was ever explained what happened to Chilindrina's mother, but I assume she was dead- Ramon had a hard time raising her, both because of her bratty attitude and because of being so short on money. Ramon tried his hand at a lot of jobs, such as shining shoes or even a lemonade stand, but something (usually the kids) would always ruin things. Ramon had a VERY short temper, and would often shout at the easiest provocation. He even would hit Chavo, making him cry; but often he would end up hitting Quico by mistake, which got HIM hurt by his mother!
-Quico (Keeko) played by Carlos Villagran, was the "snotty rich kid" in the neighborhood. (Actually I don't think he and his mother were THAT rich; I don't think they would live in such a poor neighborhood if they could avoid it. They DID have more money to spend than the others, thought.) Quico was a pretty annoying character; he spent a lot of his time boasting about the things his mother bought for him, or teasing Chavo and Chilindrina for being poor. As you can guess, this often resulted in a lot of arguments, which in turn led to the kids getting in trouble. For all his boasting, Quico was almost as dumb as Chavo; he was just more malicious. But Quico often got what he deserved in the end, either being hit by Chavo, Chilindrina, or (accidentally) by Don Ramon; or having a prank backfire or him; or sometimes even by sheer accident. Despite everything, Quico DID hang out and play with the other kids; whether he admitted it or not, they were his friends.
Note: Quico was the only kid whose real name was revealed in the show: Federico, a name only his mother called him, and ONLY when she was mad at him- causing him to cry!
-Doña Florinda: Quico's mother, played by Florinda Mesa. A foul-tempered woman, with a very poor attitude towards poor people. She and Don Ramon did NOT get along well with each other. The fact she always caught him either hitting Quico or otherwise (seemingly) doing something bad to him, didn't help things. She never gave him time to explain, and just slapped the wits out of him! Then she would say to Quico, "Vamonos, Tesoro! No the juntes con esta chusma!!" ("Let's go, dear, don't hang around this scum!") and storm off indignantly, with Quico following her AFTER calling the still-dazed Ramon chusma, giving him a raspberry AND a shove. One of the show's repetitive gags, but it never got old. ^^
Florinda wasn't always mean, thought. She had a BIG crush on Prof. Jirafales;she would melt at the sigth of him, and become all smiles and sweetness around him. I think she was even more annoying that way.
And no, I have no idea why her hair always had curlers in it.
-Professor Jirafales (played by Ruben Aguirre) was the kids' schoolteacher. The name may be a play on the word "Jirafa" (Giraffee) since Jirafales was VERY tall, for which he sometimes got made fun of. Jirafales was a learned man, and a very concerned teacher; he did his best to instruct the kids, and found it frustratingly hard. He also had a huge crush on Florinda, and he would often visit her, going all googly-eyed- until someone or something interrupted his romantic moment.
-Señor Barriga ("Mister Belly") played by Edgar Vivar, was the owner of the neighborhood. All the houses were rented, and he would often come to collect the rent. (Barriga was his real last name, btw, not a nickname, but it was funny because he WAS a very fat man.) Barriga was a humorless man (and apparently very wealthy) and seemed to have no mercy for anyone. Don Ramon was his Eternal foil; he was ALWAYS trying to get Ramon to pay his rent, but Ramon would always either come up with an excuse, or slink away before Barriga could demand his money.
(Note, however, that in the one episode that Barriga threatened to have Ramon and Chilindrina evicted, he failed to do so in the end; he didn't have the heart to send them to live on the streets.)
-Ñoño: Señor Barriga's son, also played by Vivar. The name means "spoiled" thought he wasn't much of that. In fact, he didn't have much of a personality; other than his always being hungry, he was just another dumb kid. Not a very regular character.
-La Bruja del 71: ("The Witch from (house) 71"). Played by Angelines Fernandez. An old lady with a reputation as a witch. The kids were afraid of her. It seems she actually encouraged the rumors as a way to gain respect. But In reality she was a lonely old woman. With a BIG crush on Don Ramon! A fact that freaked him out! (Because she was older than him- he didn't believe in witchcraft.)

There were a few other characters, but none were regular enough for me to remember right now.

As with El Chapulin, most of the humor was vadeuville-style; unlike that show, all the adventures in Chavo were mundane- no magic or anything, but I guess that made them feel more realistic. Also, as mentioned above, some of the episodes had nice, emotive twists to them.

Sadly, this great group of comedians eventually broke up, due to internal arguments; mainly over rights to the characters. They drifted apart, except Bolaños and Mesa, who got married.

I believe that there was a Chavo comic book as well, but I never got to see it.

For visuals of El Chavo characters, please check the link I posted on the Chapulin Review, above.

Next time, I'll wrap up the section on mexican comics.

[Rod G]

-"Movie Serial" kind of comics. I call them that because their structure resembled that of old movie serials. They were put out on a weekly basis (!) featured super-long stories (30 chapters or more) and almost always had every chapter end in a cliffhanger. The art was in brown-and-white (must have been due to the type of paper they were printed on- or maybe the ink used) but the covers were in color. These were by far the most common comics available. Examples include: Kaliman the Incredible Man (Hindu Superhero), Memin (a poor kid's adventures) and Samurai (anthology obviously inspired by SHOGUN.)


There are two you forgot to mention : The Fearless Fugitive (a man on the run from a corrupt murderous millionaire who coveted the man's wife) and Lone Eagle (a native american who had wings strapped to his arms which enabled him to glide.He sought to avenge the slaughter of his tribe)

[Sijo]

Rod G: I remember Aguila Solitaria and El Fugitivo Temerario, but not enough to describe them. So, thanks for mentioning them for me!

Here's some interesting news! I have been doing some online research and discovered THIS site http://www.geocities.com/ffrancots/novhist.html that covers the history of Editorial Novaro, the company that brought most of the comics I read as a child to Puerto Rico!! This is a VERY interesting read, especially for those of you curious as to how American comics were translated and edited in Spanish. HOWEVER, the site is in Spanish.

By reading that article, I was able to find out many things I never knew about the Novaro comics. For one thing, the NAMES of the artists and writers who created original Hispanic comics! (The actual comics themselves rarely ever had credits!!) I also found out that originally, all comics were produced in a size similar to the american one, but were shrunk as a way to save costs during the economic recession of the 70s. And the reason for the unfittingly large type size in the word balloons? A mexican commision had determined that comics with hand-drawn lettering were bad for children's sight!! :eek:

My eternal gratitude to the KINGDOM website for the article (and Fernando Franco Quiroz for having written it! :) )

I'm sure some of you may be wondering, "Why didn't Sijo research this before writing this article?" Because I'm trying to recall my childhood comic book memories first, is all. But I also want to be as correct as possible, so don't be surprised if more corrections or additions pop up later.

OK, now I'm going to to start describing several comics on each post. Not because I'm on a hurry to finish, but because I'm getting to the ones I don't know as well as the previous ones.

Another four-color comic, ala Fantomas, that I remember reading was JOYAS DE LA MITOLOGIA (Gems of Mythology) which, as you can likely guess, retold classic legends in comic-book style stories. Mostly Greek ones, but I remember seeing some from Arabia and Japan. As a mythology fan I enjoyed the stories, thougth most of them were not terribly consistent with the actual myths. Still, they were enjoyable. The artwork oscillated between good and crude (it reminded me of the artwork of MIGHTY SAMSON, an American comic translated by Novaro.) I once heard that an original serial, called EL DESTINO DE ARALIA (Aralia's destiny) about a woman caught in the games of the greek gods, began running in the pages of Joyas, but the comic stopped coming to my area at the time, so I never got a chance to read it.

To continue with the Movie-serial comics, the only one I collected faithfully (besides KALIMAN) was MEMIN, a series about the adventures of a poor black mexican kid named Memin and his friends. (I think I STILL have near-complete runs of both titles somewhere in my house! I wonder if there's a speculator market for Latino Comics?) :evilsmile
Althought the concept for Memin was similar to El Chavo's, there was a BIG difference: El Chavo was pure comedy, while Memin was a comedy-drama, with some poignant moments among the silly stuff. Most of the stories were about how Memin and his friends met, or dealt with personal problems.
One very unfortunate fact was that the only regular black characters in the title- Memin and his mother- were drawn in the same caricature style that early cartoons portrayed blacks as: huge eyes, huge mouths, etc. Memin's mother even dressed like Aunt Jemima! ALL the other characters were drawn realistically, so this was not just a coincidence of style. Why was this done? I don't know. But I do NOT think that offense towards blacks was meant; in fact, one of the stories dealt with racial prejudice (in a very funny way: Memin, who is rather naive, is tricked by mean kids into believing Blacks are not allowed in heaven, since there are no pictures of Black angels at the local church! Memin, heartbroken, decides that, if he's going to Hell anyway, then he'll be KING of Hell, by commiting the worst evils possible!! Of course, being only 10, his ideas of evil were things like insulting his Mama, throwing stones at people, and the like...) :rolleyes:
Other Memin stories included one where his friend Carlos (a very tough kid, originally the local bully, who was being raised by his mother on her own) found out that she was working as a cabaret girl (and maybe a prostitute? The comic wasn't explicit, but one wonders...) which led to a fistfight with a gangster (which he WON!) (You know, I'm starting to notice a resemblance to the Newsboy Legion here. A possible influence?) and another introducing Ricardo, a stuck-up rich boy who eventually admits that he's lonely (his parents have no time for him) and he ends up joining Memin's posse.

POSESION DIABOLICA was a VERY unusual comic. The main character was an Agent of Satan!! That's even more shocking if you consider that Latino America is profoundly Catholic. Then again, this was produced at the time when Satanism was in "vogue" thanks to movies like The Omen, or Rock Bands like KISS.
The story involved a female archeologist who, while exploring the ruins of a desecrated Church (against the warnings of a local priest) meets a mysterious man who seduces her... and you can guess who THAT really was. It must have been some GREAT sex, because she then agrees to become the Devil's agent on Earth!! From that day on, she tried to carry out several plots to bring about the damnation of humanity, but the priest who had originally befriended her pursued her, to stop her plans and try to save her soul. He always succeded with the first goal but never with the second. (You ever notice that, in stories like these, the bad guys ALWAYS get the cool supernatural powers, and the good guys, other than the ocassional miracle, are pretty much on their own?) I stopped following PD after a while, both because the story was creepy and because it was getting repetitive, so I have no idea how it concluded.

SAMURAI was, supposedly, an anthology comic based on Ancient Japan. I say "supposedly" because as far as I know, it ALWAYS featured the same serial: John Barry, a pretty obvious SHOGUN take-off. Like Shogun, it is the story of the first Englishman in Japan, who ends up becoming a samurai, and falls for a japanese lady; unlike James Clavell's novel, it lacked depth and direction, made up for it with a lot of carnage. It did feature some GREAT artwork, tho; possibly the best of any Latino comic, thought it was, like the other serials, in brown-and-white.

LA CAPITANA ("The She-Captain") was another serial comic that starred, as you can guess, a female pirate as the hero. However I never cared for pirate stories, so I pretty muich ignored it.

More mexican comic reviews next post.

[Sijo]

Continuing with Mexican comics: so far we have seen that many of these, despite being made in Mexico, do not necessarily have to make references to its culture. Titles like FANTOMAS could just as well have been written in the US. The quality was just as good. Even Memin was sufficiently 'culture-neutral' that, despite its mexican setting, it allowed the readers to empathize with it across national borders.

But of course, there were also comics that captured Mexican culture -particularly its quirky side- very well. CHANOC was one of these. Two more were the even wackier books starring two Mexican Witches, Hermelinda Linda and Aniceto.

Mexican Witches are not exactly like the traditional ones. They don't cast magic spells, nor fly on brooms. However, they CAN work magic with potions and the like. I guess they could be considered alchemists. They were just as ugly, tho! :D Both of them worked for hire, which made me wonder if they couldn't just whip up something to make THEMSELVES rich (or beautiful!)

Hermelinda Linda (the name is a pun- "Linda" is Spanish for "pretty!") was a fat old hag with one good eye. Most of her adventures were about her being hired for various "jobs" wich usually backfired badly. I saw only a few Hermelinda comics myself. In one story I remember, she was hired by aliens (!!) to help them cure a plague that was killing them. She found out that the only cure for it was... sex, something the female-dominated alien society would not accept! They ended up dying off, except for one couple that had fallen in love! :D Another story had Hermelinda pissed at the son of the local Police Chief (in a story that obviously criticized corruption among mexican authorities) who kept riding his motorcycle around her neighborhood, causing a big ruckus. Hermelinda ended up putting something in his byke that caused it to run superfast, eventually crashing and killing him! But, that wasn't the end of it- Herme actually BROUGHT HIM BACK TO LIFE, minus a leg; one she promised to restore IF he stopped riding his bike. (Uh, why didn't she just leave him dead? I think she was trying to squeeze some money out of the Police Chief.) Instead, the guy got a mini-motorcycle inplanted instead!!! :D

Aniceto was pretty much a male version of Hermelinda. Even uglier than her, if that's possible. I saw even less of him than I did Linda; I only remember this story were he was hired by a mexican movie producer who wanted to make his own "Jaws" rip off. First, Aniceto had to give a REAL shark a potion that caused it to FALL IN LOVE with the movie's main actress; and then, when the prissy gal decided to get out of the picture, Aniceto had to TAKE HER PLACE by drinking a potion that made him her double (a busty blonde!!) The story ended with the shark swimming away with his "love" (Aniceto) on its back, the poor brujo worrying about what would happen when either potion wore off...

Another cathegory of comics I forgot to mention at the beginning were photocomics. Like Italian fumetti, these were "comics" made up from pictures taken of live-action actors. I remember seeing one or two starring Santo, El Enmascarado de Plata, ("Saint, the Silver-Mask Man") a famous real-life mexican wrestler. Santo's gimmick was that he NEVER took his mask off (supposedly :rolleyes: ) He was one of many such "Wrestling Heroes" such as Blue Demon. In the comic, Santo was supposedly a REAL crimefighter, "blessed" by a Lama for his dedication to fight evil, so that anyone who tried to see his face without his permission would DIE! (Uh, creepy blessing if you ask me.) Santo's adventures were VERY fantastic; he's known more for his movies (which featured vampires and mad scientists) than the comics (tho' I do remember one where he got shrunk to the size of a microbe!)

This site http://www.angelfire.com/comics/latinoamerica/hermelinda_linda.html has images not only about Hermelinda and Aniceto, but also El Santo and several other Latino comics. However, the site is in Spanish, and I had trouble viewing it (some pictures would appear over the text, etc.)

Next Post, I'll cover that rarest of birds: PUERTO RICAN Comics!

[Buzz Dixon]

I remember seeing some of the Hermelinda Linda comics in a junior market (i.e., neighbor-size grocery bigger than a 7-11 as opposed to a supermarket) about 20 years ago. They looked pretty wild! Now I know who she was.
-----
added later
Scott!, I know you frown on people running covers about books you may write up in the future, but since I think it's unlikely you be doing any Hermelinda Linda columns, I'm taking the liberty of offering a couple of oddball covers!

[Scott Shaw!]

Thanks, Sijo; I hoped you would cover HERMELINDA LINDA, a strip that's always fascinated me.

And worry not, Buzz. I DO have some issues of HERMELINDA LINDA in my Oddball collection -- ones I eventually plan to feature in my column -- but none of 'em are duplicated in your scans. What's more, mine are even ODDER!

I'm REALLY enjoying this thread. I love learning new information about comics!

Aloha,

Scott!

[antonio7512]

Sijo and everybody!!! have you heard of "La familia Burron" (the Burron family)(I am stil not sure if the burron is a derivation of burro that means Donkey)?
Familia burron is an icon of comics strips in my country...I hope to have some time (I have a dealine to cover) and investigate about it!!!...JESUS ANTONIO

[Sijo]

Buzz: Thanks for the cover shots, they show how wacky Hermelinda was!

Scott: Again, you're welcome. I'm really enjoying writing this as well. Oh by the way, if you ever need help with that Hermelinda column (or any other dealing with Latino comics) feel free to ask me, I'd be glad to help!

Antonio: I haven't seen Famila Burron, so I would appreciate any information very much! ("Burron" sounds like it means "Big Burro" but I'm not sure.)

I still have some research to do before I can do that Puerto Rican Comics post, so I'll take this one to describe another Serial Comic that I just remembered (I only saw a few issues of it.) One I think my fellow oddballs will appreciate, if only for the title: STARMAN!

No, not the (multiple) DC characters by that name; nor the character in the movie starring Jeff Bridges. Starman was a superhero on a futuristic setting; kinda like one of those DC Sci-Fi characters from the 50's, like Space Ranger (who btw I did get a chance to see in Spanish reprints!) except that the stories were much darker.

Oh, and I WAS aware of the DC comics Starman (the original one) at the time, from reading Spanish reprints of Justice League-Justice Society crossovers. I always wondered how DC comics let this character use the same name (in English, too- the Spanish equivalent would be Hombre Estrella.) I guess they never found out about it.

STARMAN took place in the far future, where Earth's solar system had fallen under a tyrannical rule. Worse, much of humanity had been mutated (I never found out how) into creatures called "tarhumanos" (No, I don't know what that means, either) each a bizarre but inteligent monster. In fact, one of the Hero's friends was a Tarhuman named Ojon (Big Eye) who was, well, a big eye with arms and legs, ala Mike from Monsters Inc. Starman was some sort of prophesied messiah; he was trained by a man called Liberio to someday lead a revolt against the tyrant (whose name escapes me now, darnit!) Starman was, in art and story, very similar to Kaliman; he even had inspiring phrases to give to the opressed, such as "La Libertad es la Esencia de la vida" ("Freedom is the essence of Life".) Also like Kaliman, I never saw Starman without his costume (whose most curious detail was a mask with eye- and mouth holes that resembled a star.) I don't remember his powers well, but I know he was strong, could shoot a beam from the star on his chest, and (I think) could also manipulate his molecular structure for certain effects. He also had a starship shaped like- a star! (Subtle, huh?) :) More likely, he had even more powers and gizmos I never got to see (for some reason, this title was very scarce around these parts). Oh, and he had a robot called Gatonico (who resembled a metal ball with catlike features and legs!) as an assistant. :D Another similarity to the Kaliman comics was the use of nasty villains and utterly sexy women. However, the tone was darker; I actually saw an issue were a villain cursed Starman so that, when he kissed a former villainess that had fallen for him (a Black woman, curiosly) she turned into a skeleton!!

I just found out this thread in the Kaliman Forums that discusses this character, but I haven't read it yet (nor did I want to read it without first posting what *I* remember of the character). The thread is in Spanish, but features a LOT of excellent cover postings! Check it out!!
http://www.kaliman.com.mx/discus/messages/41/5498.html?1088648339

Oh, I just remembered ANOTHER comic serial- one I only saw a single issue of- and thank goodness, because it was the most depressing comic I had read at the time: ARRABALERA (Slum girl) about the sufferings of an abandoned little girl in the streets of mexico, a dog her only companion. (Actually, she wasn't abandoned, her mother suffered amnesia for some reason, and didn't even remember she existed; but was slowly starting to remember.) In the issue I saw, a woman found the girl (I don't recall her name) and tried to take care of her, but her abusive boyfriend forced her to throw her off. I suspect other stories were like this too.This title was as depressing as Posesion Diabolica was scary; the title character looked emaciated, and the artwork featured a lot of shadows and other scary vistas. Not a comic I miss.

More later.

[Buzz Dixon]

Cantinflas trivia update:

Cantinflas actually made two English language films, the aforementioned AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS and PEPE, an attempt to cash in on his sudden popularity after DAYS. PEPE is a pretty standard story about a country boy who comes to town, the country boy being Cantinflas. The film has a fistfulla big star cameos (Bing Crosby, etc.) and a wild fantasy dance number based on "Tequila!" involving a giant telephone.

[Buzz Dixon]

Y'know, this may just about be the single most perfect comic book cover ever...

[Sijo]

Buzz: Ohh, a "Threatened Female" cover! The spirit of Dr. Wertham will haunt you!! :D

Yeah, I noticed many Latino comics of the the time (except the funny ones) often had covers like that. I suspect an influence from 60's-70's sexploitation movie posters. You gotta handle it to the artist, tho- those are some FINE looking barely-dressed ladies! (The monsters I can do without.) :D

Still doing research for my next post.

[antonio7512]

Buzz according to what I know one of the reasons behind Cantinflas filming two movies in USA were because in the time when the movies were filmed He used to be the president of the Actor's Guild in my country, so his contacts were so powerful to have the right movies, some americans wanted to really have Cantinflas to get a real big crossover in terms of getting him famous over USA but I guess one of the reasons he couldn`t make it big time was because his level of English was basic.The only good mexican actors that I know hit big time over those years were Dolores del Rio, Pedro Armendariz and Cathy Jurado the last one even got married with Orson Wells.

Sijo... I am preparing the post over Familia Burron and also a trivia about Cantinflas.see ya soon!!...JESUS ANTONIO

[Sijo]

Sorry about the delay, folks. Been busy. Real Life has a way of getting in the way of ones' fun. :p

You'd think that, what with my being a native-born Puerto Rican, I'd know a LOT about Puerto Rican comics. But I don't. I focused mostly on foreign comics. In any case, boricua comics are a real rarity; there have been a few, but most disappeared soon. Probably because they had to compete with more popular titles. ALSO, I suspect the distributors didn't really put much of an effort behind them; as Small Press comics creators in the US know, it's tough to compete in the market. And some boricua comics just had the bad luck of coming out after our comics market, just like the US's, shrank from public newstands to comic specialty stores, where they had to compete for attention with glitzier American comics, and deal with fans (mostly college students) who wanted ONLY American comics in English.

This doesn't mean that they were no good, however. Some impressed me with their quality, enough that I followed them even in the Comics Store era.

By far the most successful Boricua comic character is TUREY THE TAINO, created by writer-artist Ricardo Alvarez Rivon. Turey (the name means "Sky" in the Taino language- I THINK) told the adventures of a portly, lovable Taino indian (the original inhabitants of the island) along with his family, which included his equally portly wife and their two chubby children. The art was simple and cute; it always had a Mark Evanier (or Sergio Aragones) charm, in my opinion. (Possible influences?) Turey was mainly a domestic comedy, with much of the humor coming from Turey getting henpecked by his wife. There were some action adventures, tho. I remember one in particular, that was actually a guest story made by a fan who was also an independent comics artist/writer from the US (I forget his name now). In this tale, Turey had to help his tribe's shaman deal with an evil spirit that threatened their people. It was odd to see Turey fighting such horrible monsters, but the story worked. The story featured excellent art (Turey still looked funny but believable as part of the grim going-ons).

The TUREY comic was actually more of a comic-magazine. In addition to the stories (in black and white, with ocassional color specials) there were sections for fans to write and contribute art, minigames, etc. Turey really achieved fame as a local comic strip character, however. He even graduated to having his own color Sunday Pages. The character still exists in comic strip format, thought it moved into more "anachronistic comedy" ala strips like B. C., with jokes such as Turey using lawyers to stop the Spanish conquest of the island, or Turey hosting a TV show.

For a bit mre information on Turey (in English) go here: http://www.4reference.net/encyclopedias/wikipedia/Turey.html For Turey strips (in Spanish) posted online, go here: http://www.zonai.com/turey/

Turey was fun to read, but the one comic that REALLY impressed me was CHANGAY (now known as Changuy, which is the way Changay is pronounced in Spanish... probably because the author must have realized American readers would think it incorporated the word GAY in it!) :D (On the other hand, Changuy is pronounced "Changooey" in Spanish, which also sounds funny!) :rolleyes:

CHANGUY was about the adventures of a Batman-type crimefighter in a Funny Animal world. The character was a blackbird, which in Puerto Rico are called "changos". (The word also means "showoff", which also fits the character! Note also that in Mexico, a chango is a type of monkey! Strange how words vary among cultures, eh?) The name is also obviously a takeoff on "Shangai", thought it had nothing to do with that Chinese city, other than sounding cool.

The story was about this chango called Arturo Mozambique (mozambique being another word for chango) who worked as a poor electrician. A female mouse scientist called Julie created a battlesuit (That looked a LOT like the one used by Batman in THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS) that she wanted used to fight crime. But other scientists, in a clear show of sexism, derided the idea. Pissed, she decided to find someone to wear the suit... and she chose Arturo, NOT because she was impressed by him, but quite the opposite- she wanted to prove ANY loser could wear the suit effectively!! And she was right about him, thought he was convinced that she chose him because of his charm and manliness! Julie wasn't there to be his romantic interest, however; she is the true brains behind the team, giving him advice by computer connection, ala Oracle. Without her, he would've just screwed up the missions, despite the power of the suit.

Still, it was Arturo who created the Changuy identity, and you have to handle it to him, at least he was enthusiastic about his job! He also altered the suit's look, making it look ridiculous (one of the comic's running gags was that people would confuse the huge Thor-style wings on his mask with reindeer horns!) Other characters in the comic included his talking car (who often mocked Changuy) and his buddy Tigroberto, a tiger electrician, who, err, wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. (He ended up inheriting the suit of his late great granfather, who was a "golden Age" hero called the Rocketiger!) The main villain in the series was Mukarom, sort of an owl version of the Kingpin. (Mucaro is boricua speak for Owl. The correct word is Buho.)

If you notice any resemblance to DARKWING DUCK... you wouldn't be the only one. Not only were there character and story similarities, the ART itself had a strong Disney influence. They even joked about it in the comic! However, the title -done by the team of Puerto Rican artist David Alvarez and his friend David Martinez- had a different feeling from DD; it was more a superhero parody in the style of Ninja Turtles, filled with humor but with serious action (and, as noted by our man Scott, on his comments on Alvarez's YENNY strip earlier in this thread) some SEXY female characters!! There were also more than a few homages to comics characters like Spawn, as well as a few boricuan culture references that would've been lost on foreigners.

Changuy survives today as an online comic. Alvarez is also currently working as an artist in DC's Warner Brothers comic line. And he has Yenny running in local papers and online. Check his work here: (It's in English!) http://www.changuy.com/

While doing research for this post, I ran into THIS site http://www.urstudio.8m.com/ which apparently means that there's a new comic book movement in the island I wasn't aware of! I'll check it out and comment on it later. But hey, check it out yourselves as well, it's in English!

[Scott Shaw!]

One thing that I really like about Dave Alvarez' YENNY is that the character may have a "sexy" design (and it's nice to see a bottom-heavy "good girl" for a change), but she's also portrayed as being cute, sweet and rather intelligent, rather than sleazy. And although her proportions are exaggerated, they aren't done in a particulary exploitive way. Dave isn't afraid to put Yenny through typical cartoon slapstick, either. I like her reptilian sidekick, too, although he looks unlike any iguana I've ever seen.

(I should mention that I'm NOT one of those guys who go ga-ga over the perceived "sexiness" of comic book or cartoon characters; as R. Crumb said, they're just lines on paper to me.)

I don't always "get" the gags (probably due to the translation), and the computer coloring is too "raw" for my tastes, but in general, I think that YENNY deserves wider exposure. (NO pun intended!) After all, Dave must be one of the only "good girl" cartoonists who's actually created a "good" girl as his star character!

I wonder if he's ever seen Del Connell and Jack Manning's THE CLOSE SHAVES OF PAULINE PERIL? (I've featured all four issues here at ODDBALL COMICS.) He'd certainly be the ideal choice to draw it if new adventures of PAULINE were ever published!

Aloha,

Scott!

[Rod G]

Sorry about the delay, folks. Been busy. Real Life has a way of getting in the way of ones' fun. :p

You'd think that, what with my being a native-born Puerto Rican, I'd know a LOT about Puerto Rican comics. But I don't. I focused mostly on foreign comics. In any case, boricua comics are a real rarity; there have been a few, but most disappeared soon. Probably because they had to compete with more popular titles. ALSO, I suspect the distributors didn't really put much of an effort behind them; as Small Press comics creators in the US know, it's tough to compete in the market. And some boricua comics just had the bad luck of coming out after our comics market, just like the US's, shrank from public newstands to comic specialty stores, where they had to compete for attention with glitzier American comics, and deal with fans (mostly college students) who wanted ONLY American comics in English.

This doesn't mean that they were no good, however. Some impressed me with their quality, enough that I followed them even in the Comics Store era.

By far the most successful Boricua comic character is TUREY THE TAINO, created by writer-artist Ricardo Alvarez Rivon. Turey (the name means "Sky" in the Taino language- I THINK) told the adventures of a portly, lovable Taino indian (the original inhabitants of the island) along with his family, which included his equally portly wife and their two chubby children. The art was simple and cute; it always had a Mark Evanier (or Sergio Aragones) charm, in my opinion. (Possible influences?) Turey was mainly a domestic comedy, with much of the humor coming from Turey getting henpecked by his wife. There were some action adventures, tho. I remember one in particular, that was actually a guest story made by a fan who was also an independent comics artist/writer from the US (I forget his name now). In this tale, Turey had to help his tribe's shaman deal with an evil spirit that threatened their people. It was odd to see Turey fighting such horrible monsters, but the story worked. The story featured excellent art (Turey still looked funny but believable as part of the grim going-ons).

The TUREY comic was actually more of a comic-magazine. In addition to the stories (in black and white, with ocassional color specials) there were sections for fans to write and contribute art, minigames, etc. Turey really achieved fame as a local comic strip character, however. He even graduated to having his own color Sunday Pages. The character still exists in comic strip format, thought it moved into more "anachronistic comedy" ala strips like B. C., with jokes such as Turey using lawyers to stop the Spanish conquest of the island, or Turey hosting a TV show.

For a bit mre information on Turey (in English) go here: http://www.4reference.net/encyclopedias/wikipedia/Turey.html For Turey strips (in Spanish) posted online, go here: http://www.zonai.com/turey/


As a Turey fan,it seemed (to me,at least)that the strip was slightly influenced by ASTERIX.Turey's portly buddy,Batu,was essentially Obelix to Turey's Asterix.
As for the shaman,(his name was Baracutey,who seemed like a rather dark and mysterious version of Panoramix/Getafix,but still a good guy),the story involved his villanous sister seeking revenge for their mother being buried alive with her husband,the previous chief(The story's title,Atebane tequen,I think,means a woman buried alive with her dead husband).As the translated tagline for that story goes :
" There are those who lose everything in life.He lost so much more . . . "

[Sir Tim Drake]

Sijo, this is all very interesting. Thanks a bunch. Do you have any information on Quino and/or Mafalda?

And speaking of Fantomas, here (http://www.cbc.umn.edu/~ernesto/Cortazar/Fantomas/f1.html) is the Spanish text of a story about Fantomas by the great Julio Cortazar. It also features illustrations by I know not who. I wonder if this story has ever been translated into English. (I can read Spanish, but I'm just curious.)

[Sijo]

Scott: I haven't seen much of Yenny yet (I don't read newspapers regularly anymore) but I suspect that she may have been inspired by Changuy's Julie (who, in turn, may have been inspired by Gadget from Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers- err, the basic idea, anyway! :D ) Julie, too, was sexy but inteligent and headstrong, and the interplay between her and the cantankerous (but good-hearted) Arturo made the comic truly good, in my opinion. I agree that Alvarez is a very talented artist, and I hope he goes far in the business. And I'm very happy to see he's brought back Changuy on the Net; hopefully he'll do a Changuy comic again- maybe even in English?

Oh, and Scott- Yenny's iguana is a SHE. :p

Rod: Interesting theory about Turey and Asterix. However, I know almost nothing of European comics, so I can't confirm that. (I HAVE to do something about that someday- especially with regard to comics from Spain.) Thanks also for the details of the Turey story; I have that issue, but it's buried under tons of old furniture in my house's cellar (along most of my old latino comics collection) so I don't have easy access to it. Say, you wouldn't remember the name of that issue's guest-author, would you? (I like to give credit were due.)

Sir Tim: You're welcome. I do remember Mafalda, a comic strip that can be considered the South American equivalent to Nancy or Peanuts, but not enough to describe it now. I happen to be doing some research on Puerto Rican comic strips for my next post, so I'll do some on Mafalda along the way.

Oh, and thanks for the link to the Fantomas story- which, if I remember correctly, was actually a denounciation of the corruption and crime affecting South America in the seventies, as experienced by the author. Definitely a landmark moment in Latino comic history.

Speaking of Puerto Rican strips, anybody reading this knows the name of the Super Hero Team strip that used to run as a Sunday Page on one of the local Major newspapers years ago? Or its author's? I think it was TITANES, but I'm not sure. It would be unfair of me not to cover it here as well.

[Buzz Dixon]

I like YENNY; it isn't great but it's funny and well done. Dave's certainly toned down the more fetishistic bent of the earliest strips.

A new YENNY storyline is starting soon at Modern Tales.

http://www.moderntales.com/

Buzz

[Sir Tim Drake]

I should probably be doing some research on Mafalda myself. I'm planning to write an undergraduate thesis on the links between magical realism and comics, and my thesis advisor suggested that I look into Mafalda. I'd heard of this strip before, but not read much of it. So I got out the "10 anos con Mafalda" volume from the library, and it turns out to be a very interesting strip. It seems kind of similar to Peanuts, but with a greater focus on politics and social commentary rather than psychology.

Incidentally, I think my thesis advisor (Julio Ortega) is mentioned in that Cortazar story I linked to.

[Rod G]

Rod: Interesting theory about Turey and Asterix. However, I know almost nothing of European comics, so I can't confirm that. (I HAVE to do something about that someday- especially with regard to comics from Spain.) Thanks also for the details of the Turey story; I have that issue, but it's buried under tons of old furniture in my house's cellar (along most of my old latino comics collection) so I don't have easy access to it. Say, you wouldn't remember the name of that issue's guest-author, would you? (I like to give credit were due.)

The guest author of the "Atebane Nequen" story is called Arturo Vilmenay.Hope that helps.

[Sir Tim Drake]

I found this book by Ana Merino entitled "El comic hispanico," which is a study of various Latin American comics. In one chapter she compares the Cortazar story I linked to above with Dorfman and Mattelart's book How to Read Donald Duck. There's also a chapter on Breccia and Oesterheld's Mort Cinder. The book is in Spanish, as its title indicates. I haven't read the whole thing yet, but it appears to be worth looking into if you can read Spanish and are interested in this topic.

[Sijo]

Rod: Thank you.

Again, sorry about the delay, foks. But I managed to find out information on that Puerto Rican Superhero Comic Strip I mentioned. The title is PALADIN THE CACIQUE and the BORICUA CHAMPIONS (Cacique means 'tribal chief'.)

According to a site I just found, the strip was started by one Nick Unnone (I think- it's hard to read his signature on the site) who grew up reading American comics, and was worried about the high crime rates the island suffers from. He decided to help lift people's spirits with a strip about a Puerto Rican Superhero, with help from his wife, a native-born boricua who spoke better Spanish. The strip ran as a full page on Sundays on El Nuevo Dia ("The New Day") the major local newspaper, from 1992 to 1996. Ironically, I only discovered it on its later issues, since I had stopped reading newspapers regularly years before.

I was very surprised by Paladin; although, by then I was reading mostly American comics, and, by comparison, the strip looked rather average, in art and story, from the POV of a local reader (and when compared to many Latino comics) it certainly stood out. Far as I know, it was the first, and only, local superhero strip, and probably the only one dealing with action and serious themes like crime; quite a departure from the usual imported comic strip, or the few other local ones, which were mainly comedies. I'm glad it survived as long as it did.

According to the site, Paladin's origin was similar to Batman's; A rich man named Ramon Castillo ("Castle") gets accidentally involved with criminals, and their attempt to kill him kills his wife and baby son instead. Inspired by a legend about one of his ancestors being a Spaniard who defended the Taino indians, earning the name Cacique, Ramon allowed society to believe him dead, and used his fortune to set up his Paladin identity, complete with bulletproof costume full of crime-fighting gadgets, and a secret base under his burned-down hacienda. (To be honest, I never liked the costume much; it looks too Power-Rangerish, and he used a collapsible propellor on his back to fly. Why not a jet pack?) His gadgets, on the other hand, were pretty cool- from a voice modulator on his mask (ALL masked heroes should have one!) to- spying devices shaped like geckos? (That makes more sense if you take into account that PR is a tropical island and those critters are everywhere; nobody pays them any attention.)

By the time I found the strip, the series had expanded greatly. Besides Paladin, several heroes, the Boricua Champions, had gathered around him. One was Gavilan ("Chickenhawk"- uhh, that doesn't have the bad connotation in Spanish that it has in English) sort of Paladin's Robin, a teenager martial artist whose family was also victimized by crime, and, accidentally finding Paldin's base, decided to be his sidekick; there were also two more heroes, a flying woman and a giant man (sorry, don't remember their names) about whom I never found out much. The adventure I saw them involved with had them dealing with a corrupt businessman who had added an addictive food additive to his products, causing people to become hooked on them. (Although this seems a rather mundane adventure, from what I heard from other people, there were far more fantastic ones.)

And then, there was the Chupacabras story...

OK, I'm pretty sure most of you must have heard of the Chupacabras ("Goatsucker") Legend, about a monster that preys on livestock. Well, I'll have you all know that the myth started HERE, in Puerto Rico; not in Mexico (despite what the Scooby Doo movie about it says) or any other Latino American country. I know the truth behind the legend, and I'll take the chance to explain it here a moment before getting back to Paladin.

Some of you might remember the mysterious rash of cattle slayings that affected the American Southwest in the 70's; they've become an Urban Legend by now, and were attributed to Aliens doing experiments on farm animals. Well, we ALSO had a rash of cattle slayings here at the same time. Except we attributed them to "The Moca Vampire" (After Moca, a local town were the slayings first started) a supposed creature that sucked the animal's blood dry. My family had several animals and pets, and I remember being very scared at night as a child, because of the legend. Eventually, however, the slaying suddenly stopped, and were left unresolved, just like the American ones.

Well, ten yers later, in the 80's, the slayings started again. This time, the idea that they were the work of Aliens had come all the way here; one local UFO magazine (little more than a tabloid, actually) printed an article suggesting the killer was a creature created and unleashed, or lost, by aliens; they included a picture of a reptillian monster, clearly labeled as an artist's rendition. BUT, people immediatelly accepted the article (and the picture!) as true, and the Chupacabras legend was born. Good thing I was less gullible by then. The idea eventually spread around latinoamerica. (BTW, the slayings were eventually attributed to wild dog attacks.)

What does this have to do with Paladin? Well, the author, too smart not to exploit the popular story but apparently leery of actually using the silly myth in his comics, instead wrote about the Champions discovering a group of poachers preying on the local woods, and decided to scare them off permanently by disguising themselves as Chupacabras! This unusually funny Paladin story was even narrated by The Chupacabras himself! (Obviously meant as an imaginary host character, ala Mopee.)

The strip ended soon after, denying me the opportunity to learn more about the characters. Fortunately, as with Changuy, the Net has allowed the strip to resurface; the site I found is posting the original, color Sunday pages both in Spanish and English! Check them out!

http://www.paladinpr.com/

Next time, more on latino comic strips.

[Dynomutt]

Okay.... So you've been talking ABOUT me but not WITH me!! (My Grandpa used to say that).
I'm glad that many of you like my Yenny and Changuy work. I'll try to read everything you've posted when I have the chance.
In the meantime... Yenny was not drawn after Julie. She was drawn before Julie even existed back in 1985. Yenny was called "Anyelin" and was published in a home town newspaper. :p
-Dave

[Buzz Dixon]

Awriiiiight! YENNY rox! Glad to have you onboard!

[Sijo]

Hey, Dave, welcome! Did you get the message I left you at the Changuy website? In any case, it's great to have you here, you can fill us in all the details of how your work evolved. This is one friendly MB, let me tell you, and you've already got BOTH Scott Shaw! and Buzz Dixon impressed with your work (WOW!) But... Dynomutt? Why not Changuy? (Hey, you can design your own Avatar!)

Btw, folks, I've been doing some research on Mafalda; it's interesting stuff, and I'll be posting it soon.

[Scott Shaw!]

Dave, as you can read, I'm a big fan of YENNY and your work. I also think that your stuff on the Warner Bros. characters is excellent. The latest issue of LOONEY TUNES is an all-DUCK DODGERS issue, and it features stories by you and my pal Neal Sternecky (who did storyboard cleanup on the show's first season), both written by yet another friend of mine, Earl Kress. For that matter, I worked on the DUCK DODGERS cartoon show (first season) doing character designs, and Dave Bennett (who posts here whenever he can) is doing storyboards for the currently in-production third season. Small world, ain't it?

Anyway, keep up the excellent work and by all means, make yourself home here at ODDBALL COMICS.

(And I really think that you need to take a look at Jack Manning's CLOSE SHAVES OF PAULINE PERIL comic. Go through my Oddball Comics Archives to find all four issues. If I ever got the rights to do new PAULINE stories, you'd be my first choice for drawing it. I think you'll REALLY dig Jack Manning's great, funny, refreshingly non-exploitive "good girl" cartooning!)

Aloha,

Scott!

[Buzz Dixon]

Dave, don't be bashful! Let the folks here know where your stuff can be found!

http://www.comicssherpa.com/site/feature?uc_comic=csbum

[Rod G]

Sijo,while we're on the subject of PR comics,I know of some from publishers both defunct and currently active :

SUPER DEFENSORES(Super Defenders) (Boricua Comics,defunct)-this was an interesting,if rather crudely drawn superhero team comic from one Jose Sanchez.There were three isssues that I know of.
CAPITAN CARIBE (Captain Caribbean) -a superhero created by Ruben Figueroa Rodriguez.One issue.
DARION (Dual Reality,current)-created by Antonio Rivera,there's a site for more information : http://www.darioncomic.com
From Ink Stain Comics come two manga-styled science fantasy titles :
COLD RACE and ZAHIRA the Chosen Flame
And from Sato Cartoon Studio come the following:
TATO & KENEPO ("The Crazy Adventures of a Cat and a Blackbird",a kids' funny animal strip)
SATO PERRO POLICIA (Mutt,Police Dog,an anthropomorphized canine cop who's part of the paramilitary police called the National Force)
SPANTO (Fantasy based on the myth of Pandora's Box)
(There's also a few comics featuring Remi,a clown who's a kids' show host.The first of these is called "The Princess with the Sad Eyes")
Hope this helps.

[Dynomutt]

Sijo: I did checked the page. That's how I learned about this. Thanks for choosing my work as a discussion theme. I'll be glad to share some info.

Scott: You da'man! I'm glad that you like my work. I checked the thread and found the CLOSE SHAVES OF PAULINE PERIL comic samples and I must say they are incredible. She was ahead of her days.

Buzz: You da'man! (Oh..deja vu!) I'm honored that guys like you give good words about my work. And... well my work can be found at:

www.yennycomics.com (Yenny's webpage)

www.changuy.com (Good ol' bird in the mask!)

http://www.comicssherpa.com/site/feature?uc_comic=csbum (Leo & Ovejo!New cartoon)

http://www.comicssherpa.com/site/feature?uc_comic=csaeb (Yenny's daily strip

http://www.moderntales.com/series.php?name=yenny (Yenny's Modern Tales adventure)

Man, I'm busy!!!
-Dave

[Sijo]

Rod: Muchas gracias!! I was looking precisely for those titles. Will need to do more research on them before I can comment, tho. As I said, I found a link that I hope will help me learn more on these new boricua comics. I'm WAAAY out of touch!

Dave: You da'm- nahh, just kidding! :D Glad to know you're busy, I knew you'd go far with your talent, even back in Changuy's early days. Nice to see El Chango as your Avatar- thought I don't think he'll be happy you're using Dynomutt as a name! Why, I can already hear him...

"WHAT?? DYNOMUTT?? Who does that Alvarez guy think he is!! First he sticks me as an Avatar without permission, then he doesn't even bother to use my name!? And of all the stupid names!! Even Darkwing Duck would have been better! But NO, he names himself after that idiotic robot dog!! This is so *censored, censored, censored!!* :D

Still working on the Mafalda stuff, guys. Be patient. (I'll let Dave explain Changuy, Yenny and the rest of his characters now.)

[Sijo]

Well, it turned out that there's plenty of information about Mafalda online, even in English; not bad for a comic strip that stopped being made in 1974! It keeps getting introduced to new generations via reprints. That will give you folks some idea of its popularity among latinoamerican people.


Mafalda is the creation of the Argentinian artist Quino ("Keeno") (real name: Joaquin Salvador Labado). The strip was about a little girl called Mafalda, her family and friends. In many ways, it was similar to Peanuts: mostly about kids playing around. A big difference, however, was that the comic was full of sociopolitical commentary. While Charlie Brown was complaining about a tree eating his kite, Mafalda was complaining about south american dictatorships (a topic very close to home for the author and many of its fans), war in the middle east, the oil crisis, etc. It was really odd to see children spout such comments. And yet, the strip WAS funny. The characters all had the charm you'd expect child characters to have; and Quino certainly knew how to make a daily strip work, from the art to the pacing to the delivery of the jokes. And no, not all the humor was politics-based; but that's certainly what most people remember Mafalda by. The characters were also well developed. Maybe Mafalda spent a lot of her time worrying about world crises, but she still had plenty of quirks, like a love for the Beatles and a deep hate for soup! :D As a kid, I didn't like Mafalda that much, because, unlike many kids my age, I UNDERSTOOD what she was talking about (I always was an inquisitive child) and I didn't want to read about it in a comic strip. Now, as an adult- and especially after doing this research- I've come to truly appreciate it. I guess most people find the series bittersweet- Besides the on-cue commentary, they found the characters cute, and possibly hopeful- Mafalda's dream was to grow up to be- a Translator at the ONU! That way, she hoped, she could help World Peace by translating insults into compliments. :)

Quino stopped the Mafalda strip because, in his words, "I had no more things to say". My guess is that, like Seinfield, he wanted to retire while still on top. Asked recently about the current state of World Affairs, Quino said, "It's still all the same thing."

I honestly cannot do justice to Mafalda in this short post. Instead, I'll direct you to this Mafalda site, which not only describes the characters but translates many of the strips into English! Enjoy!
http://www.turning-pages.com/mafalda/

Here is Quino's Official Home Page, but the English section is still not up:
http://www.quino.com.ar/

CORRECTION! The English section IS up!! It just looks a little empty, but it does feature subpages with information.

[Rod G]

I'm quite familiar with that particular strip.I understand there were a few animated Mafalda shorts,right?

[bartl]

I'm quite familiar with that particular strip.I understand there were a few animated Mafalda shorts,right?
But who would want to WEAR animated shorts?

[Sijo]

Rod: Indeed, I recall seeing some Mafalda animation years ago... don't remember much about it. Let me see if I can find about it online...

[antonio7512]

Sijo In the same link you provided form Argentina there is a section that says Trabajos (works) and inside the page there is a part where it says Fragmentos de Video (video shorts).

also I am translating something there related to the cartoons
In 1993,over 20 years after the premiere of the animated fil based on Maflada,Quino took again his idea to take the adventures of mafalda into the screen.This time the shorts were directed by Juan Padron who was the same who develop the Quinoscopios.In a similar output are not using any alnguage at all, so in this way they gave a solution to the problem of the sound voices so everybody can imagine their voices by their own.all the jokes or gag are visual, as a diference to the previous version in which the dialogue ws the colum of the animation.

(I have to add that the spanish versions were delightful ones and very well done with the voices...and the scripts...very smart and intellignet humor)
Spanish.
En 1993, más de 20 años después del estreno del film de dibujos animados de Mafalda, Quino retomó la idea de llevar las aventuras de su personaje a la pantalla. Esta vez los cortos están dirigidos por el cubano Juan Padrón, quien anteriormente también realizó los Quinoscopios. Al igual que éstos, no están hablados en ninguna lengua, de esta manera se solucionó el problema de las voces que cada uno imagina que deben tener los personajes. Por otra parte todos los gags son visuales, a diferencia de la versión anterior en la que las tiras se sostenían por los diálogos.

Serie:104 episodes based on the original 1 minute duration.

Serie: 104 episodios basados en la obra original de 1 minuto de duración
Idioma: Internacional
Selección de episodios: Quino
Guiones: Quino y Juan Padrón
Dirección: Juan Padrón
Música: José María Vitier
If i can add somebody has to give the entire scope into the work of Quino because his gags and cartoons besides mafalda are awesome!!

I am a little busy with some tight deadlines but as soon as I am done I will sent the post with the mexican cartoon I promised to write about!!!..Best to all of you...JESUS ANTONIO

[Mike Kuypers]

But who would want to WEAR animated shorts?

Mickey Mouse?

[Sijo]

Antonio: Muchas gracias for the Mafalda animation info, you saved me the work of looking for it! I also hope to see your comments on Mexican comic strips soon. :)

[Buzz Dixon]

Hey, Dave! Loved the tot & teen versions of YENNY in today's strip.

http://www.comicssherpa.com/site/feature?uc_comic=csaeb

[Dynomutt]

Hey, Dave! Loved the tot & teen versions of YENNY in today's strip.

http://www.comicssherpa.com/site/feature?uc_comic=csaeb

Thanks Buzz! In ye olde tradition of baby toons like the Muppet Babies.... and the Tiny Toons.... and the Disney Babies..... and the.....Looney Tunes Babies.... and ...Betty Boop.....and....... BAH! NEVER MIND!

Hey, by the way! Look out for Yenny's first comic book this month in Previews published by Shanda Fantasy Arts! (Page 331 in Previews)

[Sir Tim Drake]

All right, I'm going to harp on this Fantomas contra los vampiros multinacionales (http://www.literatura.org/Cortazar/Fantomas/f1.html) business even more. Please excuse my monomania. :)

I get the impression that Cortazar didn't write the Fantomas story that's excerpted in "Vampiros multinacionales," but that it's actually a partial reprint of a story from Fantomas #201, written by Gonzalo Martre and drawn by Victor Cruz. Do those names sound familiar to anyone? And how might I go about finding that issue of Fantomas?

[Shevek]

MAFALDA sounds very similar to THE BOONDOCKS (http://www.ucomics.com/boondocks) ...

[Sijo]

Sir Drake: Sadly, I never saw the issue of Fantomas you refer to. I can tell you, however, that, from what I read at the Fantomas website I posted, Cortazar claims that the ideas for the story came from his own experience writing against crime and corruption in South America; it is possible, however, that Cortazar might have seen the issue you mention, saw similarities, and then wrote his story that way, perhaps hoping to use a popular fictional character to "hook" in readers who otherwise might not read the kind of expose he had in mind.

As for where to find it, I've seen a few people selling their old hispanic comics collections in EBAY and similar websites. I suggest you Google for it, or, failing that, that you put up a request for it in a spanish comics message board.

[Sir Tim Drake]

Sir Drake: Sadly, I never saw the issue of Fantomas you refer to. I can tell you, however, that, from what I read at the Fantomas website I posted, Cortazar claims that the ideas for the story came from his own experience writing against crime and corruption in South America; it is possible, however, that Cortazar might have seen the issue you mention, saw similarities, and then wrote his story that way, perhaps hoping to use a popular fictional character to "hook" in readers who otherwise might not read the kind of expose he had in mind.

Yeah, according to some critical articles I read, that might have been what he was trying to do. I don't know how successful he was. I read one article that implied that his story was a failure because it was too subtle for the kind of people who read comic books! (Elitism at its finest! :))

As for where to find it, I've seen a few people selling their old hispanic comics collections in EBAY and similar websites. I suggest you Google for it, or, failing that, that you put up a request for it in a spanish comics message board.

Thanks for the advice.

[antonio7512]

I gotta confess that I never expect to investigate about Gabriel Vargas work, and the funny part is that after watching a program and a promise I made to look for work of Gabriel Vargas I was more a more interested in what He has been to my society in terms of art.
A little summary of what He has done just to enter into his major creation and the motif to make me look for (La Familia Burron).
Gabriel Vargas was a comic book author from the 50's in fact Familia Burron his creation started to be published around 1948, but before that He had a long, long way to follow.
He starts publishing his work in Jueves de Excelsior around 1932 (a very important right wing newspaper form my country) , and it was called the "precoz dibujante" because He started in a very young age (14 to be exact), in one of his interviews he says that his mother didn`t want him to be a cartoonist in fact his mother was a little mortified by seeing that the little boy liked to draw monitos (cartoons).
He starts his first comic in the pages of this newspaper and called it "Frank Piernas Largas"(Frank Long Legs) that was a detective thriller pretty realistic I might say, and drew some other realistic comics like El Caballero Rojo (The Red Knight) and a little adaption of Sherlock Holmes.
His first funny strip was Virola and Piolita (seems that virola is when a person has "a lazy eye" and Piolita is a way to say "a little smart girl").
Paquito that was a very famous comic magazine started a contest looking for some competence to Los supersabios and also to look for new blood into its force line.
Gabriel won the contest with Los Superlocos (The supercrazy guys) and didn`t get published in Paquito instead of that appears in Pepin that was a new magazine line from Garcia Valseca.
The main character was Don Jilemon (that is the image I posted) some people consider that this is indeed the prior concept to develop La Familia Burron.
Don Jilemon Metralla y Bomba is an old revolutionary that is the anti-thesis of a nice guy in fact He is corrupted,pompuous and slacker in all the sense, but incidentally he is just a lucky guy that obtains what He wants.Lucky in love and gambling becomes the owner of an Dance Academy and a cabaret called "Cirilos" called like that to make fun of a very important bar in the city called "Cirlos".
The superlocos was published in 1947 in the pages of the Pepin and in the sunday section of Esto.When is recognized by the audience the strip moves to Paquito that was the strong magazine of the line made by the publisher Garcia Valseca.
There is a moment of big importance of Gabriel Vargas that He was even publishing Los Superlocos,Virola y Piolita and La Familia Burron at the same time.
He also did some minor work like Paquito and Pinocho and los Chiflados, and a long serie called Poncho Lopez that was very popular in the early fifities.

I am including a link in Spanish that has some important information on La Familia Burron and Gabriel Vargas.
I need to translate some stuff from this site and also some other work I have in my hands so I need some other time to start with Familia Burron but I really wanted to give an overall vies to the work of Gabriel Vargas before entering into the topic.

http://www.supermexicanos.com/vargas


Have a great time!..JESUS ANTONIO

[antonio7512]

sorry I just couldn`t post the image here..seems I am very dumb with technology, I hope in the next part to set some images...:)...JESUS ANTONIO

[Sijo]

Good to see you again, Jesus! And thanks for the information on Mister Vargas, and the link to the Burron homepage. He sounds like a talented man, and the Burrons sound like lovable characters. I'm eagerly awaiting for your translation of the information, as I'm sure are the rest of the people reading this.

Hey, you should post on the Supermexicanos website and let them know we're talking about the characters in this one!

[antonio7512]

hey Sijo and guys!!!...good you liked my review I am working on the other one I promised and I will give more info abour mexican comics...Have a great time all of you?
BTW someone ask about Victor Cruz...I will investigate about it!!have a great time all of you!!!
JESUS ANTONIO

[Jeff O.]

Dave, as you can read, I'm a big fan of YENNY and your work. I also think that your stuff on the Warner Bros. characters is excellent....

Anyway, keep up the excellent work and by all means, make yourself home here at ODDBALL COMICS.

(And I really think that you need to take a look at Jack Manning's CLOSE SHAVES OF PAULINE PERIL comic. Go through my Oddball Comics Archives to find all four issues. If I ever got the rights to do new PAULINE stories, you'd be my first choice for drawing it. I think you'll REALLY dig Jack Manning's great, funny, refreshingly non-exploitive "good girl" cartooning!)



Scott: You da'man! I'm glad that you like my work. I checked the thread and found the CLOSE SHAVES OF PAULINE PERIL comic samples and I must say they are incredible. She was ahead of her days.


For new people reading through this topic in the future, here are the PAULINE PERIL links that Scott! and Dave are discussing.

THE CLOSE SHAVES OF PAULINE PERIL No. 1 (http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/oddball/index.cgi?date=2001-12-18)

THE CLOSE SHAVES OF PAULINE PERIL No. 2 (http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/oddball/index.cgi?date=2004-03-16)

THE CLOSE SHAVES OF PAULINE PERIL No. 3 (http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/oddball/index.cgi?date=2002-06-18)

THE CLOSE SHAVES OF PAULINE PERIL No. 4 (http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/oddball/index.cgi?date=2003-02-11)

[Dynomutt]

Here's a lil' something for Scott.
Enjoy!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v417/muppetmonkey/PAULINE.jpg

[Buzz Dixon]

Dave, while we've got you here, what's the difference between POOTIE TANG and NUEBA YOL? What's the translation of the latter?








(For those wondering what this is all about, check the Sept. 30 YENNY)

[Scott Shaw!]

Dave, that's absolutely terrific! I love it, and I'm sure that if he could see it, Jack Manning, PAULINE PERIL's original artist, would dig it as well. Thanks so much!

Aloha,

Scott!

P.S.: Not to sound nervy, but is there any chance you might trade your original for one of my own? -- SS!

[Sijo]

Jesus: If you have problems translating some stuff for your next post just let me know and I'll give you a hand (I AM a translator, you know) :D

Sijo@CentennialPR.net

Jeff: Thanks for the links.

Dave: Whoa! OK, I'm starting to believe that Scott's idea of bring back Pauline Peril might actually work!

Buzz: "Nueba yol" is badly-spoken Spanish for "New York" (It's supposed to be NUEVA YORK). In this case, it refers to a puertorrican comedy movie. Obviously Dave changed it into something the American audience would recognize.

Now would someone explain to me what the frick is a "Pootie Tang?" I don't speak gangsta. ~_^

[antonio7512]

Sijo...no problems happens that I am also a translator in fact I am an English teacher in my country, but in case I need help I will let you know..happens also that I am in a tight deadline for a comic proposal I need to send. did I mention I draw and write comics?..
I am also preparing comments on mexican comics that I am sure nobody knows or hear about...
Dynomutt:lovely piece you got!!
Scott and everybody else:hello!!!!

JESUS ANTONIO

[Rod G]

Here's a lil' something for Scott.
Enjoy!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v417/muppetmonkey/PAULINE.jpg
I must say,Dave,could you obtain the rights to Pauline Peril?

[Dynomutt]

BUZZ: Dave, while we've got you here, what's the difference between POOTIE TANG and NUEBA YOL? What's the translation of the latter?

-The idea was to mention a funny low budget movie in each language. Yenny appears daily in puertorican newspaper "Primera Hora", so basically I had to use a movie that everyone remembers locally. In that case, "Nueba Yol", and just like Sijo said: "Nueba Yol" is badly-spoken Spanish for "New York"

SCOTT:Dave, that's absolutely terrific! I love it, and I'm sure that if he could see it, Jack Manning, PAULINE PERIL's original artist, would dig it as well. Thanks so much!

Aloha,

Scott!

P.S.: Not to sound nervy, but is there any chance you might trade your original for one of my own? -- SS!

-I'm, glad you like it, Scott! Somehow I'm used to draw girls with bare legs. Hmmm... :p
And of course we can trade originals! Send me your mailing address to dastudio@caribe.net . :D

SIJO: Whoa! OK, I'm starting to believe that Scott's idea of bring back Pauline Peril might actually work!

- Curiously enough, I was prompted a couple of weeks ago by Cracked Magazine to bring back Nanny Dickering. I think the issue will be out in January or something like that.
So you see, there are comebacks everywhere!
Classic characters seem to follow me everywhere. I've been drawing the Looney Tunes comics for almost 8 years and I'm still hoping they let me draw and write an issue where the Looney Tunes act like what they are, WILD CARTOON CHARACTERS. But...they are classified as kids comics ya' now... Now, if I only had a chance to draw a Woody Woodpecker issue.

ROD G: I must say,Dave,could you obtain the rights to Pauline Peril?

-Me? I tought Scott was. :confused:

By the way, guys...don't forget to get your copy of Yenny #1 in Previews now. Here's what the cover looks like:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v417/muppetmonkey/Yenny/portadapreviews.gif

Nos vemos!

[Scott Shaw!]

Dave, I've got one foot out the door to the airport, but I just wanted to say "Thanks!" We'll trade contact info upon my return. Who would you like a drawing of?

And as a fellow cartoonist, I've gotta warn you about Dick Tulpa and CRACKED. Mike Kazaleh and Gary Fields are both good friends of mine (Mike even posts here occasionally) and both are former contributors to CRACKED. Both of 'em have had a very hard time getting Dick to pay 'em for published material of theirs. (Dick may be as honest as the day is long, but he's financing the magazine all by himself, which supposedly accounts for this.) That may also explain the mag's all-new, relatively inexperienced -- other than yourself -- group of young contributors. Writer Carson Demmans also has "sold" stuff to CRACKED (he posts here too)...but has he gotten paid yet? Let's hope so!

Oh, Carson...?

Aloha,

Scott!

[Dynomutt]

And as a fellow cartoonist, I've gotta warn you about Dick Tulpa and CRACKED. Mike Kazaleh and Gary Fields are both good friends of mine (Mike even posts here occasionally) and both are former contributors to CRACKED. Both of 'em have had a very hard time getting Dick to pay 'em for published material of theirs. (Dick may be as honest as the day is long, but he's financing the magazine all by himself, which supposedly accounts for this.) That may also explain the mag's all-new, relatively inexperienced -- other than yourself -- group of young contributors. Writer Carson Demmans also has "sold" stuff to CRACKED (he posts here too)...but has he gotten paid yet? Let's hope so!

Oh, Carson...?

Aloha,

Scott!


Hmmm......(reaches inside pocket...moth comes out flying)....

[antonio7512]

I continue with the incredible work of Gabriel Vargas.
In fact the most significative work has been La Familia Burron.
The main characters are Regino (a quasi-portrait of Vargas by itself) and Borola that is the subversive heroine in all the stories done onthe tittle.
The place of interaction is the Barrio or Callejon del Cuajo a place full of marginated people living in the poor suburbs of the city.
The title starts its publication on 1948 in Pepin (a magazine of the line of the Paquitos).The first chapter is called "El señor Burron o vida de perro" (Mr. Burron or dog`s life) that in fact gives the central theme of the series, I still do not why but my mexican culture is full of sorrow and a mixed of irony and joy for living in depresive situations, well the Mexican history speaks by itself.
Into the topic the story is based by Mr. Burron that is having a dominating and bossy wife (Borola Tacuche that was a preppy rich girl who lost her money all of a sudden ), what Vargas has refered is that the characters are based on the family of a friend.
El Señor Burron has a daugther called Macuca and his son Tecojote (Tecojote is a fruit used in a drink "ponche" mostly served at the end of the year).Probably some people can make a relation with the work of Mcmanus but in fact is based mainly in a family strip called Mamerto y sus conocencias (Mamerto and his Knowledge).
The important aspect in the comic is that He smartly used the barrio slang (my mom says that this kind of slang is a result of old Spanish used in the farm and the country, so people settling in big cities started to develop a new way to speak using many of the vocabulary learn in the farm), it is even impossible to translate the work because to give the right word is almost impossible, by translating it it loses part of its magic,this way of speech is very different from the pocho lingo, in fact is a way we speak in Mexico having a lot of connotations, some sexual,some childish, a perfect way to say many things but at the same time nothing.
He never used "albur" that is a way to use doble sense and mostly sexually, in fact the quality in the stories where the funny way to make references to people and events using a very colorful speech, as an example I will mention the word "empacho" ,empacho is the sensation you get after eating something but in big quantities so there is a moment you can not even want to smell that food, or for example "nomas" that is no more,"tantear" that is to try to investigate first before doing something, so you can imagine the complexity of the work of Vargas.
As Vargas defined Regino, Regino is a loser in spanish terms is an "apachurrado" "depresive man" controled by Borolas his wife.
Regino`s profession is to be a hair dresser and always trying to educate Borolas to be the perfect wife but He never did it because Borolas as a free selfish spirit got always in trouble, organizing strikes, marching against injustice, so you can imagine the laughable moments from Familia Burron.
Imagine how hilarious the comic was in 1954 Borolas declare herself "the new mexican star" and became and "ombliguista" a dancer that shows her belly bottom dancing, I guess it was the old stereotype of a stripper of her times, an exotica dancer "exotic dancer" like Tongolele ( an american dancer that made all her career in Mexico).
The comic knew how to adapt to its times in fact is a good gauge of the mexican society.
About Vargas 9 or 8 years ago suffered and embolia but continue writing the scripts of all the comics, many cartoonist work over the years drawing the incredible characters of Vargas and Vargas after retiring won the prize of journalism in 1983.The comic still in print by his family with different artists on the chores.
I guess he died recently but I am not sure......Have a great day!!!...JESUS ANTONIO

I still need to translate some stuff from the link I sent last time, as you can see I really did my homework...Have a great day all of you.

[Sijo]

Jesus: Thank you very much! That was very enjoyable. I'm amazed Vargas is (or was) still writing his comics even after all those years. That is admirable dedication.

As a translator, I know how tricky it is to translate cultural references, especially jokes and slang words. But, it is not impossible; it does take a deep knowledge of both cultures, thought. Some topics are shared by many cultures, and sometimes you CAN substitute a comment from one culture for a different one in the other that still has the effect that the original writer intended. I try to do that myself (and I hope I can find work as an international translator.)

And speaking of cultures, let me take the chance to say: I've always admired Mexican culture. I've been exposed to it from my childhood, thanks to movies (like Cantinflas') and TV shows (Like El Chavo del Ocho's). Jesus is right, Mexico (and other Central and South American nations) have suffered unfairly for a long time, due to everything from government corruption to wars, revolutions, organized crime, failed economic plans, intervention by foreign SuperPowers... and yet, the people still remain god-fearing, hopeful, and friendly; in fact, a famous Mexican saying is, "Somos pobres, pero honrados!" (We are poor, but honest!) They adopt an attitude of "making the best with what you have". And MAN, have they done a LOT! Their artists, from comedians to singers, are among the best in the World; and while I have never personally been to Mexico, people very close to me (my sister and my best friend) have been there, and they greatly enjoyed their stay. I hope to visit myself some day.

It sounds like Familia Burron embodies that spirit of perseverance on the face of poor odds that is so typical of Mexican culture. Jesus, if you have any more information on them (and other Mexican cartoons) I'm sure we'd all like to see it.

[antonio7512]

Hey Sijo, thanks for the words about my country, in fact I love my culture a lot, in fact this thread helps me in a way to let people of all the great work that is and has being done over the years, with problems and no problems (I could give you some scary stories to the matter to what I am having now..but as you said We have to do what we can with the things We have).

About translation you are absolutely right there is always a way to give the idea, but believe me to translate the comic because of the usage of mexicanisms (mexican way of speaking) will be a titanical effort.
I know pretty well my culture so I can tell you that will be very difficult not to lose the magic and rythm in the words and scripst done by Vargas.if someday you dorp by Mexico let me know I can invite the enchiladas, or tacos, or mole,barbacoa,or anything you want and beer!! :)
(I include the girls for sure!!!)
I have many other authors some of them political ones but with a beautiful strong work...have a great day all of you and see you later...JESUS ANTONIO

[antonio7512]

Hey Sijo , me and my manners I forgot to wish you the best on the translation aspect I want to see you doing it in the future...and I hope also to have my big break into comics soon!!!... :D ...JESUS ANTONIO

[antonio7512]

Hello to you all!!

I am using a book to help me stablish the work of one of the most important comic creators of all the times in Mexico, well some people consider the work of Los SuperSabios as simple comedy or even some adventures a little vain when in fact is one of the cruelest presentations of regular life and lifestyle.
As the book says there is a relation that it could be consider sado-masoquist among th main characters Panza (Chubby or Belly), Doña Pepita and el abuelo (grampa).
Even in a way a resemblance in some aspects to the work done by George Herriman in Krazy Kat, where the simple violence is part but not everything in the life of this comic, many topics are used in this comic(sci-fi, adventures,exotics ambiences and dictatorial villians) and was about 30 years publishing original work.
Panza is a regular guy who wants desperately to evade or ignore his normal life by trying to solve the world.
Work done by German includes Pepe el inquieto (Pepe the mischevous)in 1946 and many advertising campaigns as an example some work done to High Life(a clothing store),General Popo (a tires company) or Adams (a chewing gum company) and well the supersabios is called his first profesional work, German is born in mexico city in 1912 another student of the Academia de San Carlos and having also private tutors, let me tell how important is German that is in fact is the best storyteller that the country has given in terms of elements like writing,paneling and drawing for a comic.
He would be easily compared to the work of Will Eisner specially because He doesn`t want the art to be great instead of that he focuses all his attention in the narrative and the form to set the enviroment.He is the perfect artist combining his writing and artistic skills,there is a point you can not select one or the other, his work is solid in all the terms.
In case that you see a relation of his work to the Katsenjammer Kids of Rudolh Dirks you are absoutely in fact is his favorite comic the version in spanish was called el Capitan tiburon y sus sobrinos (Captain Shark and his nephews).
The supersabios starts in 1936 in weekly plates in Novedades (a very prestigious newspaper from my country) and little by little became daily his work.
Later on appears in Chamaco a competence of Paquito, as you might imagine it became to be a complete magazine with the adventures of Los Supersabios but now more oriented to the mature reading in fact in 1953 the format of the comic was 32 pages in c olor and bi-montly so there it was a big challenge to face the deadlines for German that even in 1962 stop the comic because of the health problems He had.
Paco,Pepe and Panza(the regular characters of the comic having psicodelic adventures all over the world) continue their adventures from 1936 till 1962 after some circulatory problems He reduced the amount of new work (the doctors even wanted to cut his legs)and it was combined with re-prints of previous adventures till He died.
Los supersabios were published by other companies from 19369 to 1972 like Joma or Editorial Posada. ...Have a great Day!!..JESUS ANTONIO

if I get some links I post them later on!! to show the work done by him if someone can help me post some images of The supersabios i woul appreciate it!!!

[Sijo]

Jesus Antonio: Once again, thank you for the interesting information on mexican cartoons. I would help you post those links, except right now my PC has been infected with several viruses for the past few days :mad: and I'm still trying to clean them all out. But I'll get back to you later!

[antonio7512]

Sijo i hope the problems are solved soon with your computer...I will try to attach and image of an old comic I have from them, but in a couple of days!! a warme hello to you all!!...JESUS ANTONIO

[Scott Shaw!]

Hey amigos, I've been enjoying this thread so much that I just nominated it for a "Corrie" award!

http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?p=545049#post545049

Thanks and good luck!

Aloha,

¡Scott!

[Sijo]

:eek: WHOA!! Thanks, Scott! I'm... really surprised! Even if the thread doesn't win, it's still cool to have a REAL Pro like you enjoy my stuff enough to recommend it to others!

(And nobody's more surprised at the popularity of this thread than I am!)

Of course, I'm grateful to you, and everybody else who has participated, especially to Jesus Antonio who made such valuable contributions about those Mexican comics I didn't know about.

I still have some stuff to talk about, but I STILL have at least one Trojan in my PC; however, I've been receiving help from the nice folks over at the Gladiator Security Forums, so expect me to return to yakkin' away with you folks very soon!

Oh, and btw, I guess it's about time I reveal my true name to you people: I'm Wilfredo Martinez, 38, and at your service.
:)

[Sijo]

Well, my PC seems to be back to normal; I'm still going to check it throughly to make sure, but I'm not going to wait to post any longer.

As promised, here's a picture of Los SuperSabios:
http://geocities.com/capitan_3d/supersabios/los3.gif
From left to right: Paco, Panza and Pepe.

I also found THIS site:

http://portaveritas.blogspot.com/2004/10/la-familia-burron-gabriel-vargas-work.html

Is this by any chance YOUR Blog, Jesus Antonio? (In any case, it contains a good picture of a Burron Family comic book cover!)

I'll be back with more new stuff soon!

[steven gauthier]

Sijo,

I'm one of the many following your wonderful work here.

The latest issue of Roy Thomas's Alter Ego fanzine has about 30 pages of text and illustration on Mexican comics of the 60's -70's.

I haven't read the article yet, just looked at the pictures --- picked it up last night.

[Sijo]

Oops, sorry I had neglected this, guys. My PC ALMOST burned out recently, leaving me without internet access for about two weeks. By then I'd gotten involved in other projects. But I don't want to leave this thread without completing my investigation of CURRENT comic book production in Puerto Rico... there are some surprising news!

And thank you, Steven, I'll try to find the issue! :)

[telle]

I like discovering these old threads.

I'm a big fan of Rius and Los Supermachos myself.

Here is a site about Argentine comics and Breccia:

Alberto Breccia (http://www.buchmesse.de/comic-argentina/ebrecciaf.htm)

[Rod G]

SCOTT:Dave, that's absolutely terrific! I love it, and I'm sure that if he could see it, Jack Manning, PAULINE PERIL's original artist, would dig it as well. Thanks so much!

Aloha,

Scott!

P.S.: Not to sound nervy, but is there any chance you might trade your original for one of my own? -- SS!

-I'm, glad you like it, Scott! Somehow I'm used to draw girls with bare legs. Hmmm... :p
And of course we can trade originals! Send me your mailing address to dastudio@caribe.net . :D

SIJO: Whoa! OK, I'm starting to believe that Scott's idea of bring back Pauline Peril might actually work!


ROD G: I must say,Dave,could you obtain the rights to Pauline Peril?

-Me? I tought Scott was. :confused:


My bad.If Scott does get the rights to Pauline Peril,I hope he considers having you as artist.

(I know.Not much of an excuse to revive this thread,but what are you gonna do.)

[The Lord of Nothings]

Some of Fantomas' stories introduced me to some very cool scifi ideas. In one, Fantomas investigated a rare, supersmart dog with a ducklike beak, who turned out to be an alien observing the human race (his transformation power failed it, thus the "defect.") There was one where a satellite that connected ALL the computers of the world (remember this was way before the internet) ended up creating a "supermind" that almost destroyed humanity; in another, Fantomas agreed to ride in an egg-shaped time machine (what's with Zemo and eggs, anyway??) to go into the future and observe the End of the Universe!

I was wondering why, in Grant Morrison's X-MEN comic, the Fantomas character had a morphing, talking egg-shaped spaceship that carried his nervous system (the char dressed like traditional Fantomas).
The answer: Morrision is weird. But now i see he got the superscience/ egg motif for Fantomas from the original source, which is something (its still really odd)

[FantomasPR]

Found this thread while looking for Turey info, great that there is interest in Latino comics.

Many puertorican creators hang around the UR Studios forum at:

http://s4.invisionfree.com/urstudio2/index.php?act=idx

Some people post in spanish, others in english so if you have any comments feel free to use either one of them.

Lots of artwork posted there. A good thread is a Who's Who style section in which creators show their characters info. in similar ways as the Marvel Handbook and the Secret Files comics.

With the web we see that there are more creators in Puerto Rico that can show their artwork online without having to print the comics first, which is a big plus. Puertoricans are fans of the big comics companies and it is hard for creators to convince local shop owners to carry their product, but we have seen advances in that area. Creators have to be patient in this line of work.

In other news, if you want to see more of Fantomas mexican adventures you have to visit this Mexican MSN group with tons of covers from that character.

http://groups.msn.com/FantomasLaAmenazaElegante/home.htm

[ElectraAlan]

http://captions.50g.com/pix/btw01.jpg

The Mystery of the Batwoman? The mystery is why DC comics didn't sue your ass.

[Sijo]

Welcome, FantomasPR. I have been meaning to make a report here on UR Studios, but I keep getting sidetracked. Hopefully I will soon. :)

[FantomasPR]

Great, hope to see you around the forum!

[scorp]

interesting post ---- Fantomas
so this is where u are when u are not with us --- :mad:
just kidding ;)

[FantomasPR]

The puertorican comix forum known as URStudios has changed its name to PRComix. Here is the new address:

http://s4.invisionfree.com/prcomix/index.php?act=idx

[breckivy]

I am from Des Moines, WA and I recently purchased a stack of "La Familia Burron" comics for $5. They range from 1968-1971, when Gabriel Vargas retired. Does anyone know anything about these?

[breckivy]

I just bought a stack of "La Familia Burron" comics at a garage sale for $5. They range from 1968-1971

[Jeremy A. Patterson]

I am suspicious that LA MUJER EN ES ESPEJO (A show considered by many to be the WORLD's VERY FIRST [& only] SUPER-HERO TELENOVELA) would have made a transition to a LATIN AMERICAN COMIC BOOK FORMAT, since the show has the element of SUPER HEROICS already built in !

What would YOU think??????

Thanks;

Jeremy Aron Patterson.

[Sijo]

Well, Jeremy, guess what? THE WOMAN IN THE MIRROR has started running in local TV! NO, I don't watch telenovelas, but my sisters do, I'll ask them about it! :D

And I'll tell you a secret: for the past few years, our Soaps have been getting... stranger. Not long ago we had a Telenovela from Brazil named EL CLON which was about, you guessed it, A CLONE! (It also had a LOT of Arabian culture elements on it (!?) Currently also running is THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SUN, about two murdered lovers, now reincarnated, and finding each other again. (Wait, isn't that a HAWKMAN plotline??) :)

And there was a REALLY weird one years ago, whose name escapes me now, that began normal enough, then, in a desperate effort to boost ratings, began throwing in all kind of crazy plots, from demonic possesion, to ninjas, to kids saving the day! YES, I'M SERIOUS! I'll see if I can find anything about it and post it later...

[Sir Tim Drake]

I just bought a stack of "La Familia Burron" comics at a garage sale for $5. They range from 1968-1971

I realize this post is a month old, but... check out Ana Merino's book El comic hispanico for some information on this strip, if you read Spanish. And I assume you do, since I haven't heard of La Familia Burron being translated into English.

[Buzz Dixon]

There's always Babelfish for a cut-n-paste rough approximation:

http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/

[marcelotoniutti]

Chespirito means LITTLE SHAKESPEARE . The way the Mexicans pronounce Shakespeare is Chespir / T/ e s pI r / and the name was given to Bolaños by a producer after he ´d read what Bolaños had written
Contact me for any other SPANISH ENGLISH translation
marcelotoniutti@hotmail.com

[paquinero]

On wednesday, november 2, 2005 issue #1 of YENNY arrived in stores all over the country. Yenny is the creation of puertorrican cartoonist David Alvarez. I just read this comic and I think it's a great read.

What do you think?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v411/paquinero/yenny01A.jpg

[Scott Shaw!]

Hey, you beat me to it!

Last Wednesday, I picked up two copies of each edition of YENNY No. 1 at Meltdown Comics in Hollywood. I'm a great admirer of Dave's talent and I think that YENNY is a very appealing character. I urge any and all Oddballs out there to support Dave Alverez' newest project!

Aloha,

Scott!

[Buzz Dixon]

YENNY's cool -- big thumbs -- er, toes up!

[FLAMING]

Hola,

Mi name is Juan I'm from Puerto Rico and this is my first post. I found this forum while looking for latin comic book forums and I thought maybe I could get some opinions regarding a comic book I'm publishing. The name of it is Tiempo: Resurreccion and it is about a time controling superhero and this December I'll publish the second part Furia: Resurreccion part 2 which follows up on the story but introducing a new superhero called Furia (Fury). Both books are published in spanish but you can check my web site and tell me what you think. The link is: www.geocities.com/flammingnb
My E-mail is flammingnb@yahoo.com in case you may want to e-mail you opinions or simply respond to this post.

Hope to hear from ya all.

Regards,

Flaming

P.D. Saludos a Scorp and Fantomas from Puerto Rico

[Jeremy A. Patterson]

If you liked LA MUJER EN ES ESPEJO, you will be interested in the fact that Telemundo had created a similar show with a similar premise!


More info on this tomorrow!


J.A.P.

[Jeremy A. Patterson]

.. then you will like the World's Second Super-Hero Telenovela ... EL CUERPO EN DESEO; That show follows the same formula as LA MUJER EN ES ESPEJO; Hey, if something worked well once, you could try it again!!!!!!

EL CUERPO EN DESEO airs on TELEMUNDO every Monday through Friday at 8 P.M. (Eastern/Pacific; 7 P.M. Central; Yes, the exact same time slot that LA MUJER EN ES ESPEJO found success in!)

The big question now is:Is the world ready for an influx of SUPER-HERO TELENOVELAS???? (Well, Telemundo does have the license to air Spanish-language versions of Nickelodeon television shows, having currently aired DORA The EXPLOROR & RUGRATS [in both its original & "Grown Up" incarnations] in Spanish [Telemundo, why RUGRATS & not the more popular SPONGEBOB SQUAREPNTS?????????]; They should air Spanish-language versions of the ultra-appealing "My Life As A Teen-Age Robot", "LazyTown", "Invader Zim"; "Action League Now!", "The Secret World of Alex Mack", & "Space Cases" over the unappealing RUGRATS!

I have just heard that Telemundo's new show "12 CORAZONES" has a host that resembles the female star of LA MUJER EN ES ESPEJO!

You can find info over at: www.telemundo.com


Could we have the Spanish translation of the OTHER SIDE of the SUN, please?


J.A.P.

[Sijo]

First of all, Saludos, Flaming! Sorry I didn't greet you before, I've been very busy. Yes, as I mentioned I've recently discovered the new wave of Puerto Rican comics but have not had the time to properly judge and comment on them. But so far, I like what I've seen. Congratulations! I WILL get around to comment on these comics sooner or later, you can be sure of it!

And Jeremy, EL CUERPO DEL DESEO (The Body of Desire) has more in common with EL OTRO LADO DEL SOL (The Other Side of the Sun) than with La Mujer en el Espejo, in my opinion, since it involves a rich, corrupt but old man (think JR Ewing) get murdered (most likely by someone in his family) and somehow coming back in the body of a young stud to solve his own murder! :eek:

And yeah, the cartoons you mention would be a better choice to broadcast in Spanish, in my opinion!

[Jeremy A. Patterson]

Tomorrow at 1 PM (Eastern/Pacific; 12 PM Central); we will see the debut of 12 CORAZONES, a rambunctious new Telemundo dating show based on the signs of the Zodiac; The host, PENELOPE, bears an eerie resemblance to the female star of La MUJER En Es ESPEJO!


This is not the only Telemundo debut tomorrow; Right after that, we see the debut of SENORA LEON, a show that features a whore from Mexico who cares for the children!


J.A.P.

[Jeremy A. Patterson]

I watched the debut of 12 Corazones today & the Cable Guide labeled the show as a Soap Opera!!!!!!!!

J.A.P.

[Jeremy A. Patterson]

I have felt that even the world of telenovelas have their share of "Universally Reviled Characters" in the same class as Scrappy-Doo, Shorty (from the 1940s Popeye shorts); Cousin Oliver (from The Brady Bunch); Wesley Crusher, & Hula-Hula

I have felt that there are some telenovelas that aired in the year of 2005 that have some characters who are the telenovela equivalents of:

*A Scrappy-Doo

*A Shorty

*A Cousin Oliver

*A Wesley Crusher

And...

*A Hula-Hula


Thanks;

J.A.P.

[DaVi]

SENORA LEON, a show that features a whore from Mexico who cares for the children! :evilangry No Laura Leon Is Not No HO. She Is A 'Vedet' :)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v17/davilive/Image1430.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v17/davilive/Image1313.jpg

[Sijo]

Well, I can't comment on Señora Leon, as I haven't seen it yet, but yeah let's refrain from calling people names without evidence.

Though this does remind me of a controversy a few years ago over XUXA, a popular Children's Show host from Brazil who was famous for being, er, a bit too sexy for the role... :rolleyes:

http://www.livrariasaraiva.com.br/imagem/imagem.dll?tam=2&pro_id=142004&PIM_Id=133118

[Buzz Dixon]

Okay, so what's a "vedet?"

[bartl]

Well, I can't comment on Señora Leon, as I haven't seen it yet, but yeah let's refrain from calling people names without evidence.

Though this does remind me of a controversy a few years ago over XUXA, a popular Children's Show host from Brazil who was famous for being, er, a bit too sexy for the role... :rolleyes:

http://www.livrariasaraiva.com.br/imagem/imagem.dll?tam=2&pro_id=142004&PIM_Id=133118
My recollection was that, by Brazilian standards, she was not considered to be porn. And she DID seem to like the kids...

[Sijo]

Buzz: He means "vedette" (showgirl).

Bartl: You're right that Xuxa wasn't that controversial on Brazil, but she was certainly a shock on more conservative countries like PR.

On her defense, I must say I never saw her say or do anything improper with kids, other than dressing a bit sexy for a Children's Show host.

(Btw, if you do an Image Search for Xuxa on the net, like I did last night, you'll find PLENTY of naked pictures of her... but again, none involving children. A rumor claims she had a career as a porn star before the Kid Show gig... of course, being a celebrity, those pics could be faked. Happens to a lot of people.)

Xuxa was also famous for having had a relationship with Brazilian Soccer star Pelé.

[Mike Kuypers]

All I know is, you wouldn't have caught Shari Lewis dressing like that. ;)

How is Xuxa pronounced? Zoo-zuh?

[Sijo]

Mike: Choo-Cha. That's Portuguese, btw, not Spanish.

[Mike Kuypers]

Mike: Choo-Cha. That's Portuguese, btw, not Spanish.

Thanks, Sijo.

[paquinero]

Quote:

Buzz: He means "vedette" (showgirl).

Bartl: You're right that Xuxa wasn't that controversial on Brazil, but she was certainly a shock on more conservative countries like PR.

On her defense, I must say I never saw her say or do anything improper with kids, other than dressing a bit sexy for a Children's Show host.

(Btw, if you do an Image Search for Xuxa on the net, like I did last night, you'll find PLENTY of naked pictures of her... but again, none involving children. A rumor claims she had a career as a porn star before the Kid Show gig... of course, being a celebrity, those pics could be faked. Happens to a lot of people.)

Xuxa was also famous for having had a relationship with Brazilian Soccer star Pelé.

Xuxa made in fact at least one adult movie during her youth waaay back before her days as a children's tv show host. The movie is called in english LOVE STRANGE LOVE. In this movie she played the secondary role of a young high priced lady of the night in a Brazilian brothel during the days of WWII.

The movie contains a scene in which she is trying to seduce a young adolecent boy. During the 90's when her career as a children's entertainer was at its peak, the movie was re-released on videocassette in Brazil causing a bit of local controversy.

In the mid 90's I was able to rent an english dubbed copy of a previous release of this movie and I can assure you that it was Xuxa.

[Jeremy A. Patterson]

Well, there was a time in the early 1990s, when XUXA was airing in the U.S.!


Jeremy Aron Patterson.

[Lili R]

Hi! I work for a Beverly Hills based Comic Book company. We are
interested in finding out more about Spanish-language comics, web
comics and graphic novels from any Spanish speaking country. Please
let me know about the best stuff thats out there right now. Thanks!

¡Hola! Trabajo para un compania que publica historietas en Beverly
Hills, California. Estamos interesado en descubrir más sobre los
tebeos en Español, los tebeos de la tela y las novelas gráficas de
cualquier país en Español. Déjeme saber la mejor materia hacia fuera
allí. ¡Grazias!

[Sijo]

Welcome, Lili! As I mentioned early in this thread, I used to know a lot about the Puerto Rican comics scene but I've been out of touch for years; I'm currently getting re-acquainted, and will hopefully have more to comment on the matter soon. In addition, a few more local fans and pros (such as David Alvarez) often post here, so hopefully they'll be able to help as well.

Btw, I'm also a professional translator, so, if you need the services of one who intimately knows the comics lingo, I'm at your service. ;)

Paquinero: I'd heard of STRANGE LOVE but didn't know it starred Xuxa; that must be why so many people were mistrustful of her. Still, just because she played a perv in a movie doesn't mean she was one; many celebrities start in dubious roles that they'd rather forget later.

Jeremy: So where did Xuxa air? Some Latino station? Was it dubbed?

[Buzz Dixon]

XUXA was dubbed into English (or maybe special episodes were recorded in English) and syndicated briefly. It failed to connect with North American audiences.

[paquinero]

Paquinero: I'd heard of STRANGE LOVE but didn't know it starred Xuxa; that must be why so many people were mistrustful of her. Still, just because she played a perv in a movie doesn't mean she was one; many celebrities start in dubious roles that they'd rather forget later.

You are right Sijo. Some celebrities have to deal with that stigma through most of their professional lives. :(

[Jeremy A. Patterson]

You will get to find out who was the real murderer!!!


J.A.P.

[paquinero]

Greetings:

My good friend Fantomas and me wish to extend you all an invitation to view our new forum dedicated to comic book collectors in Puerto Rico and Latin America and to listen to our brand new podcast PAQUINES SON COMICS.

GO TO www.paquines.com (http://www.paquines.com) AND LET THE FUN START.

[Jeremy A. Patterson]

There may be a good number of new Latino comics soon!


J.A.P.

[luxshine]

Uhm... Hi...

This has been a very informative thread, but I was wondering...

Would anyone here care to know about the (very few) comic books that are being produced in Mexico right now? Not counting the cheap sex-lite books and the reprints there aren't many ( 2 continuous, 2 in the verge of being cancelled or cancelled, 1 MIA) but they do exist.

[Rob Allen]

I think people would be interested, but the future of this forum is in some doubt. The Oddball Comics column has moved to its own domain, and this forum was created for discussion of the column.

Personally, I think it would be great for this thread to continue. Perhaps it could be moved to the Classics board; someone there just asked about Los Supersabios.

[Sir Tim Drake]

Uhm... Hi...

This has been a very informative thread, but I was wondering...

Would anyone here care to know about the (very few) comic books that are being produced in Mexico right now? Not counting the cheap sex-lite books and the reprints there aren't many ( 2 continuous, 2 in the verge of being cancelled or cancelled, 1 MIA) but they do exist.

I'd definitely be interested. I had some idea that the Mexican comic book industry was in decline, but I didn't realize it was that bad.

[luxshine]

I'd definitely be interested. I had some idea that the Mexican comic book industry was in decline, but I didn't realize it was that bad.

Unfortunately, decline is understating it.

There are a lot of soft-porn books being published, but practically no one in the industry would like to admit they exist (Even when the art in some is breathtaking), and the translations from Marvel, DC and mangas do thrive, but Mexican-created and produced comic books are almost non-existant. Readers tend to preffer the foreigner stuff, publishers don't want to risk money, and due to costs, self-publishing and distribuiting is practically impossible.

As soon as my scanner starts cooperating, I'll scan a few images of the comic books that are right now on the stands so you guys can see what I'm talking about.

[Jeremy A. Patterson]

So, which Mexican comic books nowadays are flops?


J.A.P.

[luxshine]

So, which Mexican comic books nowadays are flops?


J.A.P.

Well, "flop" is a relative term, I guess, mostly because we simply can't compare it with sales in the states. But, well, I mentioned that we had more or less six comic books on the stands besides the usual sex-lite stuff so...

the M.I.A, Karmatron y los transformables (Karmatron and the transformers) is currently in hiatus after his issue 5. Of the fourth relaunch. The first time it was released, 15 years ago, it was a big success, and reached the 300 issues (And it was a weekly), all subsequent relaunches have been flops, never going past issue 1 (This one was the most sucessful with 5 issues). According to the publisher, #6 will be released, but the comunity isn't holding their breath for that one.

The two in the 'chopping block' so to speak are Blue Demon Jr.: El legado (Blue Demon Jr.:The Legacy), that is on it's issue 3. According to the publisher, it's delayed due to the owner of the licencing (The wrestler Blue Demon Jr.) didn't sign some papers. According to Blue Demon Jr. the story is completely different. So at this time, no one knows what's going on there. Rebelde:El comic (Rebeld, the comic) is on it's first issue. since... four months ago, I believe. While the premise looks promising, as it is a spinoff of one of Mexico's most popular soaps, the publisher is way behind schedule, they have announced a change of artistic team for issue 3, and the soap is ending in two months, so no one knows what's going on there (Also, the comic book reading comunity in Mexico doesn't like soapoperas so everyone is predicting that the comic will flop).

The 'healthy' ones are Goji: Un Dragon con Angel (Goji:A dragon with Angel) that is on it's 24 issue. Goji is a manga influenced comic book, pretty much following the magical girl genre, but since it has a lot of fanservice and the dragon of the title is a pervert, the book itself is PG-13, and it can only be sold to kids older than 12. There's no reason to believe it's going to be cancelled because even when 'serious' comic book readers tend to critizice it, the publisher says it's selling well.

Finally, the one who has had more staying power lately is Meteorix 5.9 No aprobado (Meteorix 5.9. flunked) that is now on it's final run, with 82 issues (The author announced the series was going to be 90 issues long). It started as an all family comic book but due to the author style, and the fan serivice, it is now also PG-13. It is more of a superhero comic book, in which Meteorix, a teen with superpowers, defends earth from an alien invasion. However, it is not a 'serious' storyline, and it's filled with parodies, references to other comic books both from Mexico and other countries, and a couple of politics messages and the like... All in good fun.

Those are the ones in the stands right now. If you guys are interested, I could put images and longer posts of each (Right now I only have Meteorix and Goji, but Ican get all of the others)

[berk]

I just spent about an hour skimming through this thread and wanted to say how interesting I it was, even for someone like me who doesn't speak or read a word of Spanish. Fascinating stuff. Mafalda, Fantomas, ... a lot of things I'd like to read about some more.

Tim - I remember a few months ago, in some other thread, you recommended some Latin American graphic novels that have been translated into English, or maybe it was just one, can't recall now. I meant to write down the title at the time, but forgot all about it until I saw this thread; do you have any idea what I'm talking about?

[Sir Tim Drake]

I just spent about an hour skimming through this thread and wanted to say how interesting I it was, even for someone like me who doesn't speak or read a word of Spanish. Fascinating stuff. Mafalda, Fantomas, ... a lot of things I'd like to read about some more.

Tim - I remember a few months ago, in some other thread, you recommended some Latin American graphic novels that have been translated into English, or maybe it was just one, can't recall now. I meant to write down the title at the time, but forgot all about it until I saw this thread; do you have any idea what I'm talking about?

Off the top of my head, I can't recall what I might have been referring to. Alberto Breccia (Mort Cinder, El Eternauta), Quino (Mafalda) and Rius (Los Supermachos) are really, really good, but most of their work hasn't been translated into English. The major exception is Breccia's Perramus, which was translated as a series of four magazine-sized comic books by Fantagraphics, but the English adaptation was not especially good.

I might have been referring to Miguelanxo Prado's "Trazo de tiza" (Streak of Chalk). It's Spanish, not Latin American, but it's really good and it has been translated. I would also recommend "Peter Pank" and "The Extended Dream of Mr. D" by Max, another Spaniard.

[berk]

Off the top of my head, I can't recall what I might have been referring to. Alberto Breccia (Mort Cinder, El Eternauta), Quino (Mafalda) and Rius (Los Supermachos) are really, really good, but most of their work hasn't been translated into English. The major exception is Breccia's Perramus, which was translated as a series of four magazine-sized comic books by Fantagraphics, but the English adaptation was not especially good.

I might have been referring to Miguelanxo Prado's "Trazo de tiza" (Streak of Chalk). It's Spanish, not Latin American, but it's really good and it has been translated. I would also recommend "Peter Pank" and "The Extended Dream of Mr. D" by Max, another Spaniard.It might well have been one of the Spanish books, and not Latin American at all. My memory is pretty hazy. I'll check out the three you mentioned anyway. Thanks.

[Jeremy A. Patterson]

Now that we remember what home-grown Mexican comics are flops, we should go to the matter of U.S. comic books, animated shows, & manga that proved to be disasters in the Mexican market!


Can you tell us what these flops are?


J.A.P.

[Jeremy A. Patterson]

Are there any flops in terms of Spanish-language Mexican translations of U.S. comic books & animated shows?


J.A.P.

[sgt.candy]

i didnt know we had such a history with comics. im from the dominican republic

[shaxper]

I have a Mexican copy of Demon #1 and Kamandi #1, both with enormous Batman logos on them (bigger than the actual titles) for no apparent reason. "El Hombre Murcielago!". I think it's quite funny.

I also have a random Mexican issue of Man-Thing, only because I think the Spanish translation sounds far more amusing: "El Hombrecosa!" Then again, it probably doesn't carry the suggestive double meaning that "Man-Thing" does...

[Jeremy A. Patterson]

Those bat-logos on the Mexican Kamandi & Demon reprints could be a great find!


J.A.P.

[Jeremy A. Patterson]

The Mexican book Fantastico was basically a book that reprinted Archie's late 1950s/early 1960s ultra-hero books like 'Adventures of the Fly' & 'The Double Life of Private Strong'!

www.mightycrusaders.net


J.A.P.

[luxshine]

Are there any flops in terms of Spanish-language Mexican translations of U.S. comic books & animated shows?


J.A.P.

Sorry for the lateness.

Flops. Dear me. That's a hard one to answer, because I'm pretty sure no one is going to believe the titles I'm going to quote, but here goes.

The Authority, Planetary, Green Lantern, Young Justice, Hellboy, Darkness, Witchblade, Spawn. All of them flopped. Authority particulary lasted only 12 issues.

Spiderman has been cancelled three times, changing editorial houses every single time.

X-men has been cancelled three or four times.

West Coast Avengers was cancelled, replaced by Avengers, and then cancelled again.

Spider Woman was cancelled after 10 issues (Sharing the title with the X-men), then replaced by Secret Wars I and II.

Daredevil and Punisher had been cancelled twice.

Fantastic Four has been cancelled twice.

Black Hawk was published in the 70's, with Tarzan and SOn of Tarzan, but both were cancelled.

Batman, Superman and Archie, have been cancelled and relaunched at least three times.

Oh, and the reason why Kamandi, and the others were published under the Batman logo was because in Mexico you have to copyright the title of your magazine, every time you pull a new magazine. To avoid paying extensive fees over titles that could be cancelled after a year or so, the editorials created 'blanket' titles to be able to publish all the 'test' titles they wanted. Those titles have always been: Batman Presents, Superman Presents, and Spiderman Presents.

I'm pretty sure I have the Dark Phoenix Saga with the big Spiderman logo somewhere. If I find it, I could scan it for you guys.

[Jeremy A. Patterson]

Thanks, Luxshine, for the info!


J.A.P.

[Jeremy A. Patterson]

Now here is another question: Are there any flops when it comes to Spanish-language Mexican versions of manga & anime?



J.A.P.

[luxshine]

Hi there,

Actually, I was trying to get some numbers from some titles.

Anime, as far as I know, has had no real 'flops'. No one cared for the uptenth re-run of Robotech, but Saint Seiya was shown... seven times or so on tv and every time it was top rated (We've also had a lot of anime shows on tV. The list would be way too big)

Manga flops (That I know right now) we've had Ranma 1/2 which was cancelled around volume 3, One Piece (volume 4), Kodomo no Omocha (volume 4), and a colorized version of Magic Knight Ray Earth that lasted 4 issues. I've heard rummors that the original Mixxzine in spanish flopped, but I've been unable to confirm that.

Prince, Princess was sort of a flop, but it did run for the whole mini.

Besides that, all manga that has been released in spanish has managed to survive unitl the last volume is released.

Oh, there was a mexican-made version of Captain Tsubasa, that lasted for... I think it was 75 issues or so. I don't know if that counts as a manga, since it was written and drawn here.

[Jeremy A. Patterson]

Are there any major flops in Spanish-language versions of American animated series?


J.A.P.

[Jeremy A. Patterson]

Telemundo is currently airing Spanish-language versions of three Nickelodeon shows .

One of them is the popular 'Dora The Explorer', which is a major hit in both Spanish & English. The other two are really minor by comparison (One of them was once a hot property but is now a dead franchise, while the other never made any kind of headlines whatsoever!)

The first minor show was 'Rugrats', & as I told all of you, this entire franchise is now dead (The 'All Grown Up' version did not save the franchise, it just dug its grave SIX FEET DEEPER!). Why would Telemundo choose this dead franchise over the better 'Spongebob Squarepants' or even 'My Life As A Teen-Age Robot'?

The last show is 'Jacobo Dos-Dos', an extremely minor show who is rivaled in minorness by My Dad The Rock Star & exceeded in minorness by ChalkZone!

J.A.P.

[luxshine]

Are there any major flops in Spanish-language versions of American animated series?


J.A.P.

That's hard to judge. If you ask the anime-fans, every single american animated show has been a flop, but if you ask anyone on the street, some might even be more of a hit here than in the USA.

In fact, I believe that shows like Count Duckula and Top Cat are more popular here than in the USA (Mostly thanks to the dubbing).

However, they rarely keep their popularity once they stop airing them. The few exceptions I can think about are because the dubbing was so over the top that they became cult-series just because of said dubbing. Count Duckula and TopCat are two examples (People were refusing to buy the Region 1 DVDs if they didn't had the spanish-language dub made in Mexico), Thundercats -which has very funny anecdotes about the dub, since the man who did the voice of Lion-O is now of Mexico's most beloved stand up comic actors/news reporter/ politic analyzer, and Kit-Kat is now an animation director- The Flinstones (Only the original series. None of the spinoffs were very popular, now that I think about it), Here comes the Grinch was absolutely loved back when I was a little girl, and so was Dungeons and Dragons.

The real flops would be those made to follow certain fashions. I don't think anyone but me remembers the New Kids on the Block cartoon, or the MC Hammer one.

Now most of the cartoons aired are reruns in normal tv (And I believe Telemundo can't air Spongebob because Televisa, the main tv company here, has the rights, although I am not sure of that), and in Cartoon Network LA where every month we get new shows. In CNLA I believe the major hits this season are Justice League Unlimited, The Batman, Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi, Teen Titans Go, and Xiaolin Showdown.

[Jeremy A. Patterson]

Well, we remember that Televisa has SpongeBob.

It raises a question: Which Nickelodeon properties have their Spanish-language versions licensed to Televisa (like SpongeBob) ,& which ones to Telemundo (like Dora)?

I very much prefer My Life As A Teen-Age Robot, Yakkety Yak, The Secret World of Alex Mack, The Tomorrow People, The Journey of Allen Strange, Space Cases, the Kenan Thompson/Kel Mitchell-era All That, LazyTown, & Wonder Pets over any version of the Rugrats any day of the week!

I hope Telemundo drops Rugrats & Jacobo Dos-Dos in favor of any of the nine shows mentioned above.

J.A.P.

[paquinero]

We recently upgraded our website with brand new sections available to every body. That means that you can see them without having to become a member of the forum. Among the new features there's a puertorrican comic books cover gallery, with cover scans of most of the puertorrican comics made in Puerto Rico.

Just click HERE TO GET TO PAQUINES.COM (http://www.paquines.com)

[Jeremy A. Patterson]

We recently upgraded our website with brand new sections available to every body. That means that you can see them without having to become a member of the forum. Among the new features there's a puertorrican comic books cover gallery, with cover scans of most of the puertorrican comics made in Puerto Rico.

Just click HERE TO GET TO PAQUINES.COM (http://www.paquines.com)

Nice job!

J.A.P.

[Jeremy A. Patterson]

Defiant tried to open up a US Spanish-language comic book market by producing Spanish-language versions of their short-lived Prudence & Caution comic!

Had P & C lasted more than two issues, would there be a good chance at a Spanish-language US market?

J.A.P.