The Riddle of Cantinflas: Essays on Hispanic Popular Culture, Revised and Expanded Edition

Redrawing the Historieta (with Neal Sokol)

187 NEAL SOKOL: You have acknowledged to be a huge fan of the tradition of Mexican comic strips—known as historietas—as well as of José Guadalupe Posada’s “lampoons for the masses.” And you’ve written a seminal essay on Latin American poster art, called “The Art of the Ephemeral.” You are also an admirer of the graphic novel and underground comics pioneers Will Eisner and Art Spiegelman. Let me start by asking you: strictly speaking, is Mr. Spic Goes to Washington, the third installment (after Latino USA [2000] and ¡Lotería! [2001]) in your series of artistic collaborations that attempt to marry “highbrow and pop culture,” a historieta? ILAN STAVANS: Historieta is the Spanish word for a comic strip. It refers to a graphic narrative designed to entertain and, on occasion, to educate. In Mexico, I spent my teens reading historietas made in the country or in other parts of Latin America for internal consumption : Condorito, La familia Burrón, Mafalda, Memín Pinguín, Kalimán, et cetera. I also consumed Rius’s buffoonish histories of just about everything: Sigmund Freud, the history of Communism, the making of the Volkswagen sedan. In Mr. Spic Goes to Washington, I pay homage to those rich, multifaceted cultural artifacts I grew up with and through which I discovered the value of pop art. NS: Asamass-marketphenomenon,thehistorietasellsmillionsinMexico. According to an industry overview in the American Business Review, “at the industry’s height, nearly 90 percent of the literate Mexican population regularly read historietas.” And yet, unlike the Japanese manga crossover explosion among American comic books fans, the REDRAWING THE HIS TORIETA (with Neal Sokol) 188 REDRAWING THE HIS TORIETA historietas have hardly registered here despite their pulpy leaning. Their limited export potential seems baffling. A Village Voice profile praising the art form described historietas as “As the World Turns in a barrio” directed by soft-porn filmmaker Russ Meyer or “Superfly meets Charlie’s Angels.” It seems like a bankable formula, but it hasn’t panned out so far in the United States. Why has the historieta floundered for the most part on this side of the Rio Grande? IS: American mainstream culture is just warming up to Mexican kitsch. NS: Mr.SpicGoestoWashingtonisclearlyinfluencedbyhistorietatradition. Are you worried that your readers might misinterpret your graphic novel? I recall the case in 2005, when, in the pages of the Washington Post, a Mexican historian, Enrique Krauze, rushed to the defense of historieta icon Memín Pinguín (described in the American media as a cross between Dennis the Menace and Spanky and Our Gang). Reportedly, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and President Bush were set off by a Memín Pinguín commemorative postage stamp. According to Krauze,for“Americans,thefigure,withhisexaggerated‘African’features , appears to be a copy of racist American cartoons. To Mexicans, he is a thoroughly likable character, rich in sparkling wisecracks, and is felt to represent not any sense of racial discrimination but rather the egalitarian possibility that all groups can live together in peace. During the 1970s and ’80s, his historietas sold over a million and a half copies because they touched an authentic chord of sympathy and tenderness among poorer people, who identified with Memín Pinguín.” IS: Just as in other parts of the world, Mexican kitsch is racy and outrageous . It needs to be understood within its own context. The attempt withmyhistorietaistotranspose—totranslate—thatoutrageousness to our environment. NS: Isupposesomemightbrandthehistorietaasamanifestationof rascauchismo , a term you discuss in various corners of your work, particularly in your essay “The Riddle of Cantinflas” as well as in Bandido, your biographical meditation on the Chicano lawyer and outlaw Oscar “Zeta” Acosta. But to my understanding, the historieta has real roots in the Mexican publishing world dating back to 1896. IS: ThefirsthistorietaswerebasedonEuropeanliteraryclassics.Todaythe idea is used frequently everywhere. I have with me a cartoon version of the first volume of Proust’s Á la recherche du temps perdu. REDRAWING THE HIS TORIETA 189 NS: I heard, at one point, that the former mayor of Mexico City, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, published his very own historieta to trumpet his achievements. Some saw this as self-serving propaganda. For many years, the Mexican government subsidized the historieta industry . In the conversations you had with Verónica Albin collected in the bookKnowledgeandCensorship (2008),youdiscussrestrictionsonfree speech in the Hispanic world. How did such sponsorship impact free speechinMexicancomicbooks?Doesthelawpreventcomicbookartists from explicitly lampooning political figures...