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[emile1646]

Hello,
I'm interesting about minorities in the comics. Thanks to this forum, i found comics including black characters, but I don't find anything about latinos.
Can you help me ?

Thanks a lot.

[crashryan]

Now that you mention it, major Latino characters are even harder to find than African Americans. The first one that comes to mind is the good old Cisco Kid (https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=31639, https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=31640, and many more).

Cisco and Pancho are the granddaddies of comic-book Mexicans. At least Cisco is allowed some good sense along with his flair for the senoritas. (How do you type a tilde anyway?) Pancho, though...

Then of course there's Zorro. We don't seem to have him here except in our Spanish language section. By order of the Incredible Disney Monster, I presume. Dell published several Zorro stories in their Four Color series. Later they did a series based on the Disney TV show. All feature predominantly Latino casts.

The Dell adaptation of Zane Grey's Desert Gold offers both a nasty bandito and the sympathetic portrayal of an Hispanic woman--married to an Anglo man, surprisingly. (https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=62010)

The cover story in Crack Western #80, "Mexican Massacre," is set in Mexico. It doesn't miss a single offensive stereotype. (https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=26010).

A-1 Comics #9 reprints an episode of the humorous Western newspaper strip Texas Slim, which co-stars a feisty kid named Mexico and features a guest shot by Joaquin Murietta. (https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=23952)

In Harvey's Hi-School Romance #33, a girl vacations in Mexico City where she's stalked by Manuelo, a jai alai player. She falls in love with him and they marry. (https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=21135)

We have a couple of UK comics presenting Pancho Villa as "The Robin Hood of Mexico." (https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=28596)

In The Bouncer #13 One-Round Hogan is almost fleeced by Pedro Martinez, a card sharp who claims to own "the famous Markeeta racetrack in Mexico." Martinez is a crook but at least he doesn't speak with a phony accent. (https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=20890)

In St John's Authentic Police Cases #21, FBI agent Mike Sanchez helps bust a gang smuggling "wetbacks" from Mexico to work in the vineyards. Story title: "Wetbacks for Profit." (https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=19086)

EDIT: Ouch! How could I have forgotten Senorita Rio, the sexy spy who had a long run in Fiction House's Fight Comics starting with issue #19? Her home base was Brazil. (https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=33404 and onward)

These are just books I've happened to run across. I hope they help. We surely have more. I notice that even in unflattering roles American comics featured way more Black characters than Latinos of any sort. Most comic-book Latinos are Mexican nationals. Very few are American-born. Other than Senorita Rio I don't know any featured characters from Central or South America. In comics which openly champion diversity, like The Challenger and Taffy), Negroes (their word), Jews, Catholics, and Japanese Americans are identified as persecuted minorities but not Latinos.

[mr_goldenage]

Miss Fury (Timely reprints from Tarpe Mills newspaper strip) ran 7 issues and some were set in South America. None posted here so far even though they are PD. Just saying.....

Mr_Goldenage

[SuperScrounge]

Centaur Comics had a Mexican hero, the Red Avenger, running in The Comics Magazine (https://comicbookplus.com/?cid=1491) through the name change to Funny Pages (https://comicbookplus.com/?cid=916) specifically issues 3-11.

I kinda thought it odd that Centaur, whom, I believe was based in New York, was featuring a Mexican hero who fought evil, white Americans. Who was Centaur selling their comic books to?

[crashryan]

Thanks, SuperScrounge, for turning me on to Centaur's "Red Avenger." It's obviously a retelling of legends about Joaquin Murrieta, but it's remarkable for its straightforward treatment of racial violence in the Gold Rush days. I actually felt some sympathy for Joaquin while he was avenging the deaths of his wife and friends, but that evaporated when he (rather abruptly) returned to Three Fingered Jack and switched from killing murderers for vengeance to killing innocent people for gold. I wonder if that's why the serial ends suddenly in mid-story, just as Joaquin is about to murder a sheriff. I wonder also why they called the strip "The Red Avenger." There's plenty of avenging but no native Americans, Communists, or red clothing.

I gotta say it's strange to see an indictment of racial hatred running alongside stuff like "Phil and Sofie" and "Freaks of Luck."

[SuperScrounge]

I believe most, if not all, of the continuing series ended in issue 11 because Harry "A" Chesler took over editing Funny Pages with the next issue. I think 10 series were just ended with plotlines still to be resolved.

[mr_goldenage]

....and like Fox Features Syndicate, Centaur went out of business @ the beginning of 1942 (Or was it the end of 1941?), so no chance to ever resolve the unfinished strips that Harry "A" Chesler had no desire to continue on. So...I guess we're left our own devices how to end the series if we had written them given the left-over plots. Just a thought! :-)

RB