Contributors to the American Historical Review recently debated the use of popular culture to shed light on the values of its consumers (vol. 97, 1992). Future historians of Mexico may well find comic books to be a valuable guide to the beliefs of both their creators and their millions of readers of all ages.
In Not Just For Children, Harold Hinds and Charles Tatum—the former a historian, the latter a professor of Spanish—present a survey of the Mexican comic book industry and a detailed study of selected titles. An introductory chapter discusses the extraordinary popularity of comic books in Mexico. The authors estimate that 56 million were published monthly in 1976-77, most of them produced by four industrial groups.
The following chapters examine comic books representing six major genres. For each genre, the authors selected the most popular title for which they could acquire an adequate sample: superhero-adventure, Kalimán; romance, Lágrimas, risas, y amor; Western, El Payo; regional adventure-humor, Chanoc; political humor, Los supermachos and Los agachados; family humor, La familia Burrón; police-detective, La novela policiaca. In each case the authors discuss the title’s creators and trace its principal plot lines and characters. They also attempt, through surveys and a reading of fan letters, to determine the nature of each title’s readership and to gauge its popularity.
Finally the authors consider the extent to which these comics reflect Mexican culture and promote social change. They conclude, for example, that Lágrimas encourages female escapism and passivity, while the exploits of Kalimán promote the belief that ordinary people are powerless. On the other hand, Los supermachos and Los agachados express the concerns of their socialist creator, Rius (Eduardo del Río). Even after 1967, when Rius was no longer associated with Los supermachos, the comic book continued to address political corruption and other contemporary ills.
The authors maintain that Mexican comic books of the 1960s and 1970s were not clones of their North American counterparts; nor did the comics reflect foreign influences that might seek to imbue readers with harmful capitalist values. Instead, the authors adopt Jeremy Tunstall’s concept of “hybrid forms,’’ suggesting that the comics were a blend of national culture and imported elements.
The book has several flaws, including numerous typographical errors that distract the reader and a level of analysis that occasionally seems banal or dated (as in the comparison of la novela policiaca to the classic Anglo-American detective story, which the authors admit flourished mainly between the world wars). But these flaws are more than balanced by the book’s breadth and excellent documentation. Given the paucity of accessible literature on Mexican comic books, Hinds and Tatum have made an important contribution that will be well received, by historians who wish to use comic books as sources and by all students of popular culture.
