Mexico versus Latin America Comics
Comics entails the use of images combined with visual information or texts to express ideas. Comics are usually presented in juxtaposed sequences of image panels. The arrangement and size of panels form the narrative pacing. Cartooning and other forms of illustration are the most commonly used means to make images in comics. Latin American and Mexican comics have some thematic similarities and differences.
A diverse pool of comic genres has been developed in Mexico and Latin America to respond to different changes affecting contemporary society. Some popular genres include historical accounts, the western adaptation of literary works, daily dramas like domestic conflicts, social offenses, and crimes, sex, day-to-day life, police stories, terror and superheroes. Fotonovelas have also gained popularity with many Mexicans. Furthermore, there have been attempts at art comics, punk, and lesbian-feminist. The spirits of retired Rius and Jose Posada live on Mexico’s expanding political comic genre with some topics like Meteorix 5.9 (shown in figure I) and Goji: UN Dragon con Angel enjoying moderate success. Similarly, comics and cartoons have played critical political roles in Latin America for more than a century. For instance, “Reptile from the North Cartoon” by John Chen (shown in Figure II) served to motivate Latin Americans to fight for their political rights.
Mexico also produces romance comics. For instance, El Libro Semanal is one of the romance comics with the highest circulation in Mexico. The magazine can be dated back to 1952 when it was initially called El Libro Mensual before it gained its current title as The Weekly Book. The 100 pages magazine is distributed weekly and contains a more innovative artwork as compared to other standard Mexican Comics. Figure III shows a picture of El Libro Mensual.
Unlike Latin America, Mexico does not produce any comics for children. Currently, comic books for Children in Mexico are imported from the north. Single stories like El Libro Vaquero have replaced serialized stories known for many years in the country. Imported Japanese and American comics now occupy a significant part of Mexico’s comic market making children develop a preference for American superheroes like Batman and Fantastic Four.
In summary, comics in Latin America and Mexico cut across a variety of themes like historical accounts, the western adaptation of literary works, daily dramas like domestic conflicts, social offenses, and crimes, sex, day-to-day life, police stories, terror and superheroes. Mexico also has romantic comics like the El Libro Semanal. Unlike Latin America, Mexico does not have children comics, making Mexican children to develop a preference for American comics.