Frederick Luis Aldama &
Christopher González. Eds. Graphic Borders: Latino Comic Books
Past, Present, and Future. University of Texas Press,
2016. ISBN: 978-1-4773-0915-5
I remember
few moments of anger as vividly as that in which I was sitting in a theater
awaiting the moment when Afro-Latino Spider-Man would come swinging onto the
screen during Civil War. I reeled
when I saw that this Spider-Man was just a carbon copy of the nerdy white boys
that make up Peter Parker’s legacy. In my anger, I looked to social media,
expressing myself through Mean Girls memes, but I always got the same response:
Miles Morales isn’t part of the same universe. And while my friends were
talking about a narrative technique specific to the Marvel universe, I couldn’t
help but think everyone was asking me to not expect so much from this one.
Because even though Black Panther was an important part of the
movie, and even though Miles Morales’ presence had already rippled through nerd
culture, Black and brown communities were still experiencing violence at the
hands of police, were still the targets of hate crimes, and were still being
deported.
The
tension between the importance of representation and whether representation has
a measurable impact on a world with no caped crusaders, walking muertos, or speech bubbles is central to
Graphic
Borders: Latino Comics: Past, Present and Future—just published this spring 2016
with the University of Texas Press. The anthology is edited by The Ohio State
University’s own Latino superhero Dr. Frederick
Aldama and Texas
A&M’s Latino pop culture powerhouse Christopher González. With articles ranging from Los
Bros Hernandez to Sonambulo to gay Latino superheroes, this
anthology was a queer Chicana nerd’s dream. And even better than simply adoring
the works they featured, many of these articles critiqued them and put them
into conversations that have long pervaded the vast comic book fandoms across
Twitter and Facebook. In fact, they seemed so relevant to online discourse, I
was often moved to “like” or “comment” on the articles, but I could only leave
sticky notes or underline as I annotated. The articles are split into five
parts: “Alternativas”, “Cuerpo Comics”,
“Tortilla Strips”, “A Bird, a Plane…. Straight and Queer Super-Lats”, and “Multiverses,
Admixtures, and More.” As one can tell by the titles of these sections, all of
the contributors look at each work through in-depth analysis without taking
themselves too seriously – and isn’t that why we all started reading comics in
the first place?
Patrick L.
Hamilton’s “Out of Sequence: Time and Meaning in Los Bros Hernandez”, is the
article I wish I would have read as I wrote my Master’s project. After reading Maggie the Mechanic, I told anyone who would sit still
long enough that Maggie’s body defies the limits of time and
space. Needless to say it didn’t have much impact. So you can imagine how
validating it was to read Hamilton’s argument that Jaime and Gilbert defy the
way comics have traditionally been read and developed new understandings of
narrative. The difference in time and space between Maggie’s letters and the
panels depicting Hopey reading them “indicate a
nonsequential and nonlinear simultaneity” (Hamilton 31). Similarly, the
foreshadowing and disjointed manner in which Gilbert arranges elements both
within and without his panels deny the reader any type of closure in understanding
what it’s like to be in Palomar. In “Recreative Graphic Novel Acts in Gilbert
Hernandez’s Twenty-First-Century Neo-Noirs”, Frederick Aldama argues that
Gilbert employs a similar tactic in Chance in Hell, Troublemakers, and Maria M. Aldama posits that in the use of
neo-noir’s social Darwinism enables the graphic novels to work together and
individually to critique capitalism and its disastrous effects on youth. Lastly,
in “Three Decades with Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez: An Odyssey by Interview,” I
was able to fully realize my fangirldom. There is so much satisfaction to be
had for Love and Rockets fans;
including insight into how Jaime and Gilbert decide to go about building their
story worlds and hints about where the Bros are planning on taking them next.
 |
| Prof. Frederick Luis Aldama |
In “Part
II: Cuerpo Comics”, Christopher González’s
“Biographic Challenges: Wilfred Santiago’s
21: The Story of
Roberto Clemente,”
discusses the importance of the form of the graphic novel and its relationship
to the events that make up the career of famed Puerto Rican baseball legend
Roberto Clemente. González argues that a biographic
expands upon the limits of the form of biography; meaning that 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente does something that a textual
version of the same story doesn’t. Further stoking the flames of my fangirldom,
Ellen M. Gil-Gómez discusses the meaning behind lucha libra and gender in Sonambulo
and Locas. She begins with a short history
of lucha libre and uses that as the basis to argue that the anachronism present
in Sonambulo’s style matches its anachronistic
depictions of gender. The same history allows Gil-Gómez to show that lucha libre allows female characters in Locas to defy traditional gender roles
and gives them the opportunity to create complex definitions of gender.
“Part III:
Tortilla Strips” begins with “Latino Identity And the Market: Making Sense of
Cantú and Castellanos’s Baldo”, wherein Héctor Fernandez
L’Hoeste claims that the comic strip Baldo marks how Latinos negotiate their
identity through the advertising industry. His dad, his sister, his
grandmother, and himself all represent different identity-based reactions to
economic imperatives. In “The Archaeology of the Post-Social In The Comics of
Lalo Alcaraz: La
Cucaracha and Migra
Mouse:
Political Cartoons on Immigration,” Juan Poblete smartly posits that Alcaraz
reflects the post-social politics of contemporary immigrant populations in the
U.S. He claims that Alcaraz’s humor marks the development of U.S. Latino
culture as both an entity that is heterogenous as a cultural formation, but is
also critical of U.S. culture. Alcaraz is often critical of other Latinos while
pointing out how the Latino community faces discrimination in America. In “My
Debt to Rius,” Ilan Stavans remembers how he moved
from being a fan of Kalimán to a Cantinflas enthusiast to an aficionado of Rius’s reflection on Mexican politics.
In “Part
IV: A Bird, A Plane… Straight and Queer Super-Lats,” focuses on the otherness
that marks Latino superheroes because of their queerness and their ethnicity.
Clearly, Aldama and González took notes from veteranas Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherrie Moraga and transcestors/trans leaders Sylvia Rivera
and Bamby
Salcedo who embody
and argue that Latino/a/x identity is not separate from gender or sexuality. I
began this section eagerly (I’m going to start referring to myself as a queer
super-lat), but I couldn’t help but wonder how these writings would affect or
change the discourse around the queer and trans Latino/a/x community and
whether there would be any measurable impact. In “The Alien Is Here To Stay:
Otherness, Anti-Assimilation, and Empowerment in Latino/a Superhero Comics,”
Mauricio Espinoza argues that Latino superheroes’ ethnic and cultural otherness
is represented in their “superpowered alien-ness/monstrosity.” Blue
Beetle, El
Muerto, Weapon Tex-Mex, The Jaguar and Johnny Cuervo all
show their ethnic otherness through their transformations into their super
other. In Isabel Millán’s “Anya Sofía
(Araña) Corazón: The Inner Webbings and Mexi-ricanization of Spider-Girl,” she deals with the many
variations of Anya’s identity and suggests that this speaks to a more
contemporary understanding of Latina identity, race, and sexuality. Among the
many observations that Millán makes, her exploration of Anya’s sexuality
through fan art are the most interesting because it delves into questions of
audience participation in comics. The last article of the section, “Revealing
Secret Identities: Gay Latino Superheroes and The Necessity of Disclosure” by
Richard T. Rodríguez explores how the figure of the gay Latino superhero forces
“the fantasy space of the comic book” to include issues that are pertinent to
the everyday experiences of queer Latinos. The superheroes that interest
Rodríguez address concerns of HIV/AIDS, coming out, representation and
respectability politics – issues that are still being debated in the aftermath
of the Orlando shooting where the victims were predominantly of Latino or
African descent.
In Part V:
Multiverses, Admixtures, and More, scholars bring up questions of
Afro-Latinidad in popular culture, including comics, film, and television. In
“Everybody Wants to Rule the Multiverse: Latino Spider-men in Marvel’s Media
Empire,” Kathryn M. Frank shows how the way in which the Marvel universe works
allows for representation of Latino and Afro-Latino identity while also
reinforcing Peter Parker as the true Spiderman. Frank was able to articulate
the source of my confusion and the reason I felt “Miles Morales is not from
that universe” was just an excuse (hint: it’s because it was). In “Mapping the Blatino Badlands And Borderlands of
American Pop Culture” Adilifu Nama and Maya Haddad explain the difficulties of
depicting Blatino superheroes that express their blackness to the same degree
as their Latinidad. They warn against the usage of Blatino identity as an
“existential quandary” but argue that it should be the “face of the global
future, a pan-racial and multicultural America” (267). Brian Montes adds to
this conversation in “The Paradox of Miles Morales: Social Gatekeeping and The
Browning of America’s Spider-Man.” He claims that although Marvel’s choices
allow them to seem like they embrace diversity, they are still “safeguarding a
white, Eurocentric spatial privilege” (270). The last sentence of his article
struck me especially hard: “Miles Morales reminds us of the fact that even in
the twenty-first century, not all border crossings are possible.”
I often
struggle with the weight of researching race in popular culture. Those of us
who do this work are over-worked and under-appreciated. We don’t get happy
endings and we’re never done asking for diversity or accurate representation in
film, television, or comics. The only consolation I can muster after the
simultaneous joy and harsh slap of reality of reading this anthology is that we
are not alone in taking on this work. This anthology meant a lot to me. I’m
sure it will mean a lot to the many Blerds (Black Nerds), nerdy Latino/a/x
students, dorky pop culture queers, sweater homos, Arab-American trash-can-kicking
fangirl dykes, genderqueer and gender non-conforming Black femmes who linger in
comic book stores, and the many people that are intentionally taking on the
work of participating in discussions around race, gender, sexuality, and
ethnicity.
This is an essential read for everyone who does not shy away from
the reality of the ever-changing world around us, but also takes on the
responsibility of contributing to the future as it’s being negotiated in
comics, television, and film.
 |
| Rocío Isabel Prado |
Rocío Isabel Prado is a part-time human, full-time
PhD student at The Ohio State University. She earned her B.A. and M.A. at the California
State University, Fullerton in English. Her research focuses on race, gender,
and sexuality in world comics and comedy. She spends her time between Columbus,
Ohio and Southern California reading comics, eating veggie food, and watching
comedy. She is the author of “Inexact
Revolutions: Understanding Latino Pop Art” in The
Routledge Companion to Latina/o Literature.
***
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