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Scholars take comic books seriously at Wizard World
By Edmond Ortiz : August 5, 2014 : Updated: August 8, 2014 11:11pm
The arrival of Superman in comic books in 1938 was a revelation in the history of graphic story-telling. But in places such as Francisco Franco's fascist Spain, Superman's arrival presented a challenge to the state and, as a result, was censored for years.
However, heroes, superheroes and even ordinary beings in comic books throughout the decades have flourished in one way or another in several countries, to a point where many scholars and teachers see the publications as significant works of history, culture and art.
Louie Dean Valencia García is one of five scholars, teachers and artists who touched upon these and other themes Aug. 3 during a Wizard World San Antonio panel discussion at Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center.
A teaching fellow and doctoral candidate studying Early Modern and Modern European History at Fordham University, Valencia García presented many points from his essay, “Truth, Justice and the American Way in Franco's Spain.”
“When Superman first arrived to fascist Spain from the planet 'Crypton' in 1940, a year after the end of the Spanish Civil War, he was clad in yellow tights and a red and blue cape — the colors of the recently fallen Spanish Republic — and was known as 'Ciclón, el Superhombre,' or 'Cyclone, the Superman',” he explained.
Valencia García said this version of Superman failed to build a fan base in Spain early on. Additionally, Franco's government or the Catholic church and its supporters suppressed Spanish publishers' early efforts to print Superman comics, criticizing the comic book's perceived “attack” on dogma, morality, the church, the regime, or its collaboration with anti-Franco individuals.
Valencia García said that, later on, those in Franco's government saw characters in Superman as undermining the way Franco wanted to build his fascist society in Spain, especially regarding his view of traditional sexual, cultural and social roles for men and women.
Valencia García said that Francisco's government saw Superman as extolling capitalist and democratic ideals that ran contradictory to the ideals the fascists imposed in Spain from World War II and into the early 1970s, Superman and most similar comics of the time also ran opposite to “tebeos,” traditional Spanish comics that played into the nationalistic agenda of Franco's Spain,” Valencia García said.
Americans had created and made popular the idea of an alien being from another world, with powerful abilities, a superhero reflective of American values made famous in the phrase, “Truth, justice and the American way,” Valencia García explained.
Despite the prohibition, Spanish readers - particularly young, impressionable ones - still managed to get their hands on Superman comics. Eventually, censorship of the comic was not enough in fascist Spain, he added.
“There was something exciting about reading the adventures of a foreign superhero that was strictly forbidden. In fact, despite their illegality, a single Superman comic book was often shared by numerous boys and girls,” Valencia García said from his essay.
“After several years of censorship the Spanish Ministry of Information and Tourism decided to completely ban Superman comics in 1964 under the advisement of its (Commission of Information and Child and Youth Publications) because of tropes that threatened to delegitimize the regime through its publication of non-traditional values,” Valencia García continued.
The official ban on Superman comics in Spain ended in 1972, as the level of power in Franco's fascist regime waned.
Other panelists at Wizard World San Antonio such as Jackson Ayres and William S. Bush from Texas A&M University, and Sam Cannon from the University of Texas at Austin, all shared examples of how lesser known comic books and comic strips over the years reflected - and influenced - their cultures and historical periods in their respective countries.
Cannon talked about Brás de Oliva Domingos, a fictional obituary writer and main character in the comic “Daytripper.” Cannon described the man as a “graphic embodiment of 21st century Brazilian upper-middle class ambitions and success.”
In each story in “Daytripper,” at different ages, Bras meets a woman or encounters some level of success or happiness only suddenly die. Then he appears in the next story. Finally, at age 76 the fictional character tires of treatment for his brain tumors and faces death.
“The only problem with Brás' story of Brazilian upper-middle class success is that he is repeatedly dying. He is haunted by death,” Cannon said. He added that “Daytripper” never explains - verbatim - why or how Bras simply reappears in the next chapter of life despite having “died” in the previous one.
According to Cannon, an introduction to “Daytripper” gives the idea of Brazil as a nation of the future, thriving and vibrant.
“Indeed, 'Daytripper' is about progress towards the future, but I propose that this progress is put into question through the graphic novel's deadly configuration and that analyzing 'Daytripper's' narrative structure will produce a type of deathscape for the traditional Brazilian upper-middle class,” Cannon added.