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