Monitos: It’s Not Your First Impression of Mexico

San Diego Comic-Con 2018 & ’19 set something off in my head. Amid all of the panels, what comes to my attention is the promotion of Mexican comics. Known by several names including historietas, muñequitos, or the shortened monitos, they all tell bigger stories. Whether it’s the humble origins or the inspirations from abroad, there’s something to behold. Even if it does look like local titles lost the limelight.

Monitos Eartly History

The Monitos from Mexico are something of a strange topic. Historically speaking, the codex of the pre-Columbian Natives depicting events were some of the first comics. I wonder if that’s where the term Historietas comes from.

Pretty soon, like most comics, satire brings Monitos to life. Hey with the Porfiriato a little free speech is welcome with the economic progress. I mean the first regular comic was sold to promote a cigar company.

Then came the American Golden Age comics looming over Mexico’s populace. Fortunately, it helped influence the creation of comics for the local peoples. With this as well as the Mexican Revolution, Mexico’s own Golden Age of Comics began in the form of anthology magazines. The success of the Paquin and Chamaco magazines helped give rise to comics created by figures such as Gabriel Vargas and Yolanda Vargas Dulche. I guess they had similar schools.

Revisiting Revistas

Comics in those days had their own magazines. The first bundle with American material and with entrepreneurs making their own material. The golden age of the 40s introduced notable series like Memín Pinguín. The series dealt with a lot of racial issues both on and off the panels; while presenting a relatable character who wants to fit in. Then there was La Familia Burrón (The Burrón Family), the misadventures of a low class family. The comic currently holds the record for over 60 years of publication with 1616 issues, all by the same author. Sorry Mr. Larsen, your record with Savage Dragon was long broken. The comic is cited as a social chronicle of Mexico in the decades it was published on. In fact it practically made its own culture in the form of a colloquial language that gets researched for its influence.

Batalia

And that was just the tip of the iceberg; by the time new comic book formats became a zeitgeist, it became implemented to enhance the feeling of some works. This included the implementation of one of Mexico’s most popular forms of entertainment, Lucha Libre. The masked wrestlers are practically real-life superheroes. It makes perfect sense for these figures to be made into comic book and movie characters. Legendary figures such as El Santo and Blue Demon thrived in the early days. As a matter of fact, the Florida based Chido Comics Luchaverse was very inspired by these monitos. To the point of the franchise being sponsored by the Masked Republic, featuring wrestlers like Rey Mysterio.

The Exiting Exitos

Afterwards comics start to diversify for adaptations like Lágrimas, Risas y Amor. In a twist of irony, radio shows found new audiences in comics. One of the most notable being Kaliman, a superhero series about an exceptional man on his many pulpy adventures… including fighting a Galactus rip-off. Not only that, titles like Los Supermachos features great graphical style to show complex topics. So much so, the creator Rius suffered persecution and torture by the government. Most creators choose to embrace escapism and high imagination to get around this like Los Super-Sabios; not that it didn’t have dark undertones.

The Swipes

Of course, there are a lot of monitos that take cues from existing imports. Some were odd cases like Chaco, a Tarzan rip-off who is gets overshadowed by his godfather and his town. Next was Fantomas, adapting a French book‘s horrendous themes into liberation from conformity. Ironically its publishing in the 80s helps open up a lot more genres.

One of the most famous examples comes from Mexico’s soap opera depictions of Spider-Man. The most famous being a dream of marrying his first major love interest Gwen Stacy. Not that it stoped there, Gwen also becomes a Lois Lane-like figure in these titles. Other monitos try to make their own spin on horror anthologies. You have to admit, for glorified fan-fics, these have real power to them.

Monitos Lucha

The eighties were a desperate time for Mexican comics. Like most comics around the world, they were losing to their cheaper American counterparts, not to mention TV. Some of the only comics with staying power are the adult-aimed Sensacionales. So to at least stay afloat, creators went into genre’s like Science Fiction. One of the most popular series of the era, Karmatron y los Transformables is influenced by giant robot and mecha series of Japan. Its weekly publication and easy to digest format gained a lot of notoriety. So much so, it crossed over with the series inspired by it. It even got a reboot when the lore was starting to get overwhelming. So yeah, very much like other mainstream comics… despite the delays.

But hey, it helps inspire other manga based works like Meteorix. Typical underdog gets superpowers and has to develop over the series. Yeah that kind of classic.

Unfortunately, despite the effort and the second coming of Lucha Libre comics, the 90s show their own problems. While fanzines like Gallito Comics come up, it turns out newsstand distribution is terrible for indies. What? Yeah that’s the thing, without the resources of corporations, indies tend to be more expensive.

Why choose that when cheaper pieces like El Libro Vaquero are on the same stand? Not only does this magazine have a unique style to it, it was popular at American border towns. And even that didn’t prevent it from fazing out.

Que?

Around the late 2010s, most of these mainstream magazines ceased activity. No websites, no social media presence, just a few issues between collectors. So I had to ask a Reddit for more insights. Out of all of these historic monitos the only one still around is Kaliman. Aside from that, most comic book stores in Mexico subsist on American comics with local indies. In fact the network Multiversos-NGM practically formed in reaction to the closing Mexican mainstream. Some companies they show off like Cryptorama Comics feature some great content. You can even read its premier title Rockabilly Monsters online in both English and Spanish. Along with the rest of the Cryptorama catalogue on Graphite, sorry Spanish only.

Monitos Future

Mexican comics are not a dying breed, despite the state of its mainstream industry. Social media is keeping webcomic strips like Pilli Adventure going. Besides, there are graphic novel lists that help people use to help teach Spanish. For that matter, they were all published in the 2010s, so the artists are still there. I would know, I reviewed an award-winning graphic novel from Mexico called Onion Skin.

The only question is, can there be an industry? There’s definitely an audience and publishers with demographics. A Pura Pinche Fortaleza Comics exists for mature readers amid all of the kid friendlies anyway. There’s entire cultures and people to communicate with the world, it just needs more mediums. Just ask La Catrina.

The ink’s not dry yet. Thanks for coming and as always remember to look between the panels.