Graphic Borders: Latino Comic Books Past, Present, and Future ed. by Frederick Luis Aldama and Christopher González (review)

Latina/o comics and their producers have been left out of the history of graphic art and visual culture, in general, and creative production in the United States, specifically. Frederick Luis Aldama and Christopher González, the editors of Graphic Borders: Latino Comic Books Past, Present, and Future draw together an important collection of essays about this under-addressed medium. Comic artist Frank Espinosa's Foreword opens the door to the superbarrio of Latina/o graphics within the pages of this book. His position as an early Latino comic artist and his contribution to the publication is significant and, more importantly, an endorsement.

The book's title sets up a broad parameter of study of "Latino Comic Books Past, Present, and Future," suggesting a comprehensive overview, but this is not what the book provides. In fact, the editors guide us toward Aldama's own Your Brain on Latino Comics: From Gus Arriola to Los Bros Hernandez (2009) as more of an encyclopedic overview of Latina/o comics.¹ Instead, this book provides an array of essays that fall within larger categories of historical, formal and cognitive approaches to comics. Glancing at the book's sectional subtitles (Part I. Alternativas; Part II. Cuerpo Comics; Part III. Tortilla Strips; Part IV. A Bird, a Plane…Straight and Queer Super-Lats; Part V. Multiverses, Admixtures, and More) does not offer a clear outline of the sections, but the editors explain the nuances of each part in their introductory essay. For example, in Cuerpo Comics, the essays focus on author-artists who choose to complicate issues of race and gender, and in A Bird, a Plane…Straight and Queer Super-Lats, essays address the creation of Latina/o superheroes in mainstream comics.

What Graphic Borders achieves is: to recognize author-artists otherwise unknown; address the challenges of creative producers in the past and today's comic book markets; explain formal features and other visual devices within illustrations; provide a varied approach to comics about and by Latinas/os; and offer an informative bibliographic review of other similar publications. The book sets the 1980s as the beginning of high volume production of Latina/o comics, which is a common practice.² Although I comprehend the function for this date marker, it is important to remember the historical centrality of art and print culture to counter-hegemonic social projects. Additionally, although the book addresses numerous author-artists and comics, it is important to recognize that this publication is an edited history consisting of selections and choices made by the contributors and editors. Therefore, as with any history, this is a subjective narrative, and as such there are omissions and gaps, such as the missing discussion of earlier historical practices.

Graphic Borders offers thirteen essays and one interview. The strength of the book is its in-depth history around particular producers, although the editors included primarily men. In most histories about Latina/o comics, The Hernández Brothers—Gilbert and Jaime—tend to be the focus when addressing the historical beginnings, which is certainly true in this book. And this is a point where Graphic Borders falls short. Rather than direct all the essays to new topics and lesser known contemporary author-artists, the editors have dedicated half the book to established histories and more traditional topics. There certainly could have been more essays about Latina graphic artists.

Another issue in relation to Graphic Borders that deserves some attention is the application of the referent "Latino" to all the author-artists addressed in this book. The engagement of this label, without any discussion of the origin and implications of the term—nor to whom the term is traditionally meant to refer to—makes any comprehension of an individual's unique identities difficult, and creates a false sense of a sameness among...