From suspicion to recognition? 50 years of comics in Cuba

 1 A shorter version of this paper was delivered at the Cuba Research Forum Annual Conference: ‘50 Years of the Revolution. Thinking and Rethinking the Cuban Revolution: Politics, Ideology and Economics’, at the University of Nottingham, 7–8 Sept. 2009.

Abstract

The article discusses the rich cultural history of Cuban comics from the coming into power of the Revolution in 1959. The piece further explores two parallel discourses: one, that of the high-brow intellectuals worried about mass culture, ideology and national independence, and the other embodied by professionals in the visual arts who set out to create a Cuban national comics industry, using this medium effectively to build a revolutionary consciousness and to mobilize the masses.

Acknowledgement

I want to thank Antoni Kapcia for his insightful help in the writing of this piece. His suggestions have been key in shaping this article.

Notes

 1 A shorter version of this paper was delivered at the Cuba Research Forum Annual Conference: ‘50 Years of the Revolution. Thinking and Rethinking the Cuban Revolution: Politics, Ideology and Economics’, at the University of Nottingham, 7–8 Sept. 2009.

 2 Translation mine. Hereafter every translation from Spanish into English is mine unless otherwise indicated.

 3 The comic had the initial title ‘Buscando Oficio a Pepito’ (‘Looking for a Job to Pepito’) and years later it changed to ‘Pepito, Rocamora y Virulilla’ with the inclusion of the last third character. I have identified issues with this comic until March 1922.

 4 The comic arrived regularly from the United States during the first two years but, with the start of the First World War, the dispatches were cancelled. However, as the comic became more successful, it was decided to continue publishing it, using as artists some of the magazine's staff. It is probable that the Spanish emigrant Manuel Redondo and the Argentinian Juan Sanuy authored the first issues, which bore no signature. (Seoane and Santa María 2008: 58–59; Gociol and Rosemberg 2003: 65).

 5 See Jorge L. Catalá Carrasco (2008a) for a detailed analysis of Fornés's ‘José Dolores’.

 6 Prohías left Cuba and settled down in the United States soon after the Revolution took power in Cuba. He worked for Mad magazine, in which his comic strip (set against a Cold War background) ‘Spy vs Spy’, became one of the most successful creations of the magazine. The comic was based on ‘El Hombre Siniestro’ (The Sinister Man) which he previously published regularly at Bohemia.

 7 Herminio Almendros uses similar terms to talk about comics in ‘Literatura marihuana para niños’, 1970: 189–192.

 8 I have analysed elsewhere this comic as a representation of Cuban collective consciousness. See Jorge L. Catalá Carrasco (2008b).

 9 Let us not forget that Santiago Armada (Chago) began his artistic career as a young artist in the Sierra Maestra, with the clandestine magazine El Cubano Libre in 1958, editing three humoristic supplements until December 1959. Then he published his character ‘Julito 26’ in Revolución from January 1959 and collaborated in El Pitirre, the weekly humour supplement of the La Calle newspaper from 1960 until its closure in October 1961. From December 1961, he published his comic ‘Salomón’ until September 1963.

10 Grupo P-Ele was formed basically by Newton Estapé, Fidel Morales, Mario Ponce, Vicente Sánchez, Virgilio Jordi and Héctor Delgado.

11 Years later, in 2001, another journal devoted to comics was launched in Cuba, Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Sobre la Historieta, with 37 issues up to date and running four times per year.

12 Of the 17 daily papers, 16 were converted into weeklies (for example Juventud Rebelde and Trabajadores, which reduced the number of pages to 12) leaving Granma, founded in 1965 after merging Revolución and Noticias de Hoy, as the only daily (Tuesdays to Saturdays) with a circulation of 400,000 copies and a very much reduced size. To give an overview of the situation, taking as an example book publishing, if, during the seventies, Cuba published 2,500 titles with around 55 million copies at very affordable prices, in 1993 (the peak of the crisis) only around 1 million copies were published, recovering a year later with 3 million, and more than 4 million copies in 1995 (Castañeda 1996: 13).

13 The magazine was meant to be bimonthly, but fewer than 10 issues appeared during the period 1996–2000. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the importing of cellulose fell dramatically and by 1991 only 4 percent of paper normally bought abroad could be imported (Mogno 2005: 236–237).