https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9531-9863
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ABSTRACT
Adding to the extant literature literature, we propose to approach Mexican comics as literary objects within which sociopolitical, economic and cultural processes of Mexican society are expressed. Instead of focusing on Golden and Silver Age Historietas or contemporary artistic and/or politically aware creations, we address the popular eighties’ erotic Sensacionales. Drawing on literary theory and interviews with cartoonists cartoonists, we argue that these comics enable us to understand how changes in gender, class and racial/ethnic relationships in Neoliberal Mexico are symbolically elaborated around female’s body and desire, displacing them into arousing narratives about sexually insatiable women.
Acknowledgments
We thank the two anonymous reviewers for all their comments and suggestions while drafting this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Supplementary material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/21504857.2023.2200959.
Notes
1. The existence of a Silver Age is a contested issue that we do not pretend to solve here. Some authors propose it in order to differentiate the Mexican comic books produced between the fifties and the late seventies from those produced in the eighties, a period in which most scholars situate the crisis of Mexican historieta and the prevalence of erotic/pornographic comics with low aesthetic and political value (see Bartra 2001; Olvera and Sarahi 2020).
2. Grupero music is now included within the genre of Mexican regional music. On Bronco see the documentary: Un fenómeno llamado Bronco (YouTube).
3. The Comisión Calificadora de Publicaciones y Revista Ilustradas (Review Board for Illustrated Publications and Magazines) was created in 1951, its essential purpose was ‘to establish protective norms for culture and education in the country, striving to maintain the print media as vehicles that positively defend culture and education, preventing publications that damage or destroy the moral foundations of the family’ (History: Comisión’s Website). Between 1950–1970 the Comisión was a branch of the Ministry of Education (Secretaría de Educación), during the seventies it came under the control of the Ministry of the Interior (Secretaría de Gobernación) responding to the political turmoil in the country (rural guerrillas, Student’s mobilizations mobilisations , etc.).
4. Date of first publication.
5. The Ficheras cinema was a Mexican version of Italian cine romanzi, that combined eroticism and humor in diverse combinations. It also drew on Mexican Cabaretera cinema, melodramatic stories dealing with poor women in disgrace (prostitutes and showgirls) whose redemption depends on a male savior or family love.
6. Actual names are used with the permission of interviewees. Today, Arturo still works as a cartoonist in diverse collective and personal projects.
7. After the end of the massive comic industry at the beginning of the century Esaú resumed his work as a painter (he is also a great graphic artist). Today he does portraits on demand among other jobs in the artistic field such as a theatrical actor.
8. Although it is an important and interesting topic, a thorough discussion on the role of humor in Sensacionales is out of the limits of this paper.
9. ‘The hardworking women, at your service’, in Mexico chamba means work.
10. Toukan was another publishing house that also produced sensational comics. Toukan came out at the same time as Mango and was created by Jaime Flores Montiel, also Jaime Flores Serrato’s son. Mango stopped publishing comic books around 2010, today they publish cooking and knitting magazines among other similar publications (interview with Arturo Said).
11. ‘She wasn’t a sheep but how she sucked’.
12. I claim no rights on the images; their use is only for academic criticism and educational purposes.
13. ‘I don’t gizz anymore, but my maid is very horny’.
14. ‘On my days off, I go laid with some boyfriend and I come until I’m dry […] During the week, “fingers” help me, and when his mother is distracted, I steal her a turnip or a cucumber’.
15. Nickname for Eduardo (Lalo) Cota. A wordplay that translates as: The craziest one.
16. ‘You two went for quantity, which is not bad, but Eduardo made a deeper analysis’.
17. ‘Guys, guys, I got my title! – Thanks to us dude, how well you measured us’.
18. ‘Horny wildlife in the furry jungle’.
19. Tina was a hardworking sweetie, but also a very horny woman.
20. Well, it’s not a plantain, but it does look like a good chunk. Besides, it doesn’t matter how small he has it, I still love him a lot”.
21. Chiapas is a state in the Mexican southeast.
22. Enjoy it baby, it’s all yours! - But move, you bastard! You look stupid! Take it out, put it in, left to right, in circles, whatever, but move! - Like this my love? - You’re an asshole; in vain you have such a huge cock … it’s just for decoration! Take this [she slaps him], for being a fool! - Oh no, in the face nooo!
23. The beetle’s name Momutzu Ponedurus/Ponederus also has a sassy twist, any Mexican would understand that ponederus refers to ‘ponedor’, in Mexico a ponedora person is someone who likes to have a lot of sex. On the other hand, ponedurus hints at ‘pone duro’: gets hard.
24. ‘He is the tribe’s chief and says that you got it big! - “They have violated the sanctuary of the Momutzu Ponederus beetle and that deserves a punishment: Cañangas ñangas or prau prau!” - He says that what do you prefer? Getting fucked or death?’.
25. ‘So it will be, you will have death, but first Cañangas ñangas’.
26. ‘This is how that marriage between jungle and science took place […] Nature and technology had coupled perfectly’.
27. White skin Mexicans.
28. ‘Remember that it doesn’t matter how thick and large it is, but how long it lasts stiff’. In Spanish it rhymes.