Monitos: This Is What Happened In a Weird 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 names like historietas or muñequitos (monitos for short), 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 Earthly 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. This, along with the Mexican Revolution, initiated Mexico’s own Golden Age of Comics. It began in the form of anthology magazines. The Paquin and Chamaco magazines were especially successful. Thanks to folks like Joaquin Cervantes Bassoco who pioneer these daily comic books and create the Mexican Editorial Corporation. They helped give rise to comics created by figures like 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 addressed several racial issues both on and off the panels. It also presented 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 presently holds the record for over 60 years of publication with 1616 issues, all by the same author. Mr. Larsen, you and Savage Dragon are gonna need to hustle to break that record. This comic is cited as a social chronicle of Mexico in its decades of publishing. In fact, it created its own culture. The kind that makes a colloquial language that gets researched for its influence.

Batalia

That was all the tip of the iceberg. By the time new comic book formats became a zeitgeist, they were implemented to enhance the feeling of some works. This includes sandwiching in 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 like 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 escape reality and embrace high imagination. This approach is exemplified by Los Super-Sabios. Not that it had no 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. It doesn’t stop there either, Gwen becomes a Lois Lane-like figure. 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.

Karmatron y los Transformables is one of the most popular series of the era. It 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 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 are 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. It’s just gonna take a while before it can get an even bigger audience with all of the different platforms.

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.