.
Depicting Mexico and
Modernism: Gordo by Gus Arriola/Mexico Y El Modernismo: Gordo de Gus
Arriola
The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum
December 13, 2023 - May 5, 2024
Dr. Nhora Lucía Serrano is an Early
Modern Comparative Literature scholar at Hamilton College. Recently,
she curated a show at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum in
Columbus, Ohio, on cartoonist Gus Arriola and his syndicated comic
strip, Gordo. Michael Swanwick and Marianne Porter joined her via
Zoom for a conversation about the exhibit.
Michael Swanwick: This is,
I believe, the first retrospective of Gus Arriola's work ever. It
seems almost impossible, given how popular that comic strip was when
he was drawing it.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: During
Gus's lifetime, toward the end of the run of the strip and after he
retired, there were shows in Carmel and Monterrey in Southern
California, where he resided and because he was friends with Eldon
Dedini and other local cartoonists. In 1968 Gus did one show with
Dedini and Charles Schultz at the Richmond Art Center in California.
In 1983 he did another show with Dedini and Hank Ketcham (American
cartoonist who created Dennis the Menace). Lifelong friends, Dedini
and Arriola exhibited many times together in their lifetime. However,
these exhibits all took place in Southern California and, as we know,
at the time the bigger draws were Dedini, Ketcham and Schultz, who
were very well known, and drew in lots of people. But Schultz,
Ketcham and Dedini were very much friends with Gus Arriola, and they
respected him and his artistry and his storytelling.
But until this
exhibit at OSU there hasn't been a non-Southern California show that
really has an international draw, and by that I mean the Billy
Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum exhibits are meant to be national
shows. So “Depicting Mexico and Modernism” is the first
retrospective by this categorization of “international/national,”
implying that the audience is meant to consist of folks beyond a
particular local region.
The other reason why I would say it's a
retrospective is that even those shows with Schultz, Ketcham, and
Dedini were meant to be sort of snippets of his cartoon work, certain
strips in conjunction. The Carmel Art Association also did an
exhibit, but it was just more highlights of his artwork, not to the
large scale that is “Depicting Mexico and Modernism.”
There were
lovely shows back in the sixties, the seventies and the eighties.
Even in the nineties, I think there was one show. But this is the
first retrospective in the sense of you see the original strip at the
beginning and you see the development of the strip throughout its 40-
year run. It's really giving you the body of work of Gus Arriola,
from the strips on the wall to the items in the cases, so as to give
first-time visitors to Gus Arriola’s Gordo a sort of holistic
understanding. And to fans like yourself, to enjoy a lot of different
samplings as best as possible.
Michael Swanwick: Your show has what
looks to be the first strip for Gordo. It is an amazing thing to see,
especially if you're familiar with what he quickly became. He started
out as a lazy, unkempt slob and he very soon became the exact
opposite of that. He was very nattily turned out, quite a ladies man,
and in his way he was hard working.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: Yes, it's
incredible. On the gallery wall, I decided we would have the first
strip so people could see the original first strip. But we blew it up
as a large decal, so that people could read it bigger. It's obviously
bigger than the original newspaper size. The Billy Ireland does own
the original strip. Visitors are welcome to go see it as well as a
lot of the strips. But yes, you see, right away in that first strip
that it was Gordo and his nephew Pepito: the language and the
dialect, what he was doing, all of which was in that moment of the
1940s. Very quickly he changed things, but he changed them slightly,
and he kept changing and, I would say, evolving. But that first step
is important for everyone to see, whether you read Gordo or not, just
to see where it started.
Michael Swanwick: At that time so much of
American humor was ethnic. Fat, angry Germans, drunken Irishmen!
There was a stereotype for everybody.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: I would
agree. There was a stereotype for everybody, and we have to remember
that this is Southern California and that Gus Ariolla's first job out
of high school was with Screen Gems, being an animator, hanging out
in Hollywood and being influenced by Hollywood's caricatures and
representations of ethnic characters. Many newspapers at the time
referred to Gordo as the Mexican Li’l Abner. Even Gus did. It was
his first strip, his first moment.
Marianne Porter: The elevator
pitch.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: Exactly, and that also explains, if we
are all familiar with Al Capp’s Li’l Abner, the way it was
written with that sort of phonetic sounds of the language, a mock
dialect to convey the main character. Of course it too slowly evolved
to something else. But I would agree with you, Michael, that was the
standard. We have to remember the context of the time in which this
was created.
Michael Swanwick: At some point, Arriola started going
to Mexico. All the accounts of the strip make a big deal about how he
became an “accidental ambassador,” as was said, for Mexican
culture. But I think at the same time that Mexican culture enriched
his strip tremendously when he brought it in.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: I
agree. He was of Mexican heritage. He grew up knowing some Spanish,
and being exposed to the culture. I'm a firm believer that, as he
said in many interviews, his intent was to explore and to showcase
his Mexican heritage.
In the strip at the beginning, as well as, as
you said, the elevator pitch—a Mexican Li’l Abner—he started to
explore and to learn more about Mexico. Essentially, his drawings
were based on—and again, we have to remember the forties and
fifties—postcards, tourist magazines, right? There was no Internet
or YouTube. So he was using references, other illustrations is the
way I think of it. And in 1960 he decided, with his group of
cartoonist friends, including Dedini, whose photos are in the
exhibit, to go to Mexico. It was something of a homecoming for him
and it changed the direction of the strip in an impactful way. If you
study the whole strip, he felt more liberated and began playing with
the story visually as well as story-wise. There was limited space in
the gallery, not enough to show an episode carried over a month or
two. But also he was really into telling stories that didn’t need
to be episodic.
After that trip, the strip sees Mexico not just as
‘Over There Across the Border,’ but as Gordo’s world. There's a
certain celebration in it that became much more vibrant, and I don't
mean that just color-wise, just more relaxed, more playful. Which is
lovely, and it was always there. It's playful, but there's certain
freedom with it after the sixties, and that's where I think a lot of
his playing with modernist art started to come in. He saw Mexican
pottery in Mexico. He saw the Aztec culture in the buildings, and
it's just something... I wouldn't say Mexico popped up, but just to
you could see it sort of permeating more.
Marianne Porter: So Gordo's
profession changes from farmer to tour guide. When did that happen?
Was that when Gus went to Mexico, or was it before?
Nhora Lucía
Serrano: That's a great question. It was before Mexico. So that's why
it wasn't like when Gus went physically to Mexico everything changed
in the strip. He had already been on this pathway, really. So if we
talk about the early strip and the ethnic caricature, he had already
changed Gordo from its early caricature representation before his
trip to Mexico. Gordo was indeed a bean farmer at the who was also
seen as being lazy. The transformation is to ne is no longer idle, he
is now driving a bus (Haley's Comet), and he's showing everybody,
including readers, all the different places in Mexico. More of the
Aztec culture. He’s flirting with the American women who come down
to Mexico, but also saying, “Hey, let’s go over here.” Or the
tourists say, “Let’s go see this.”
To me, that's very
reminiscent of the fifties and sixties Hollywood movies where they
were essentially travel movies. I'm thinking of the Bing Crosby and
Bob Hope road movies. I'm thinking of one of my favorite old movies,
Charleton Heston's Secret of the Incas. In that movie, if you look it
up online Heston is wearing the Indiana Jones jacket and fedora and
the whole outfit. And that's what Steven Spielberg based the whole
costume on.
Marianne Porter: Heston did some very strange movies in
his time.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: I would agree. And there were a lot
of movies at that time that were essentially exploring foreign lands.
You know, precursors to a lot of movies today. So to your question.
Gordo was a bus driver before Arriola went to Mexico, but Gus Arriola
had already started to change the strip and go, “Wait a minute. I
want to do something different.” So he started to do something
different in the strip, and he became very curious to see the places
in Mexico.
Michael Swanwick: I want to mention that all the exhibit
captions are in Spanish and English both, which I thought was very
graceful for this particular strip.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: Oh, thank
you. Thank you so much. It was something I decided early on. There
were two reasons why. As a curator, you look at the gallery space and
what it has to offer you. I had to make choices based on the space,
but I also wanted to tell a certain story, and I knew I wanted the
walls to be just the strip and the display cases to show other items
related to the Gordo strip. I wanted the strips to be the highlight
of the show. So that's why it's "Gordo by Gus Arriola."
But
I also knew that I wanted to do a bilingual show for two reasons.
One, the strip introduced Spanish words at the time, and always used
Spanish throughout the duration of the strip. I thought doing a
bilingual signage for the displays, section titles, wall labels, and
everything else would be organic to the intent of what Gus Arriola
wanted for Gordo. So that was something I thought it would highlight.
I wanted to have Spanish and English in the show, not just in the
strip, to normalize bilingualism.
And the other reason was, I wanted
to do a show, an exhibit, where families from the Latino community
could come and read one of their own. Besides the fact that I love
Gus Arriola and Gordo, I wanted to do the retrospective show for so
many reasons. One of them was, I wanted the Latino community to see
one of their own.
One of my lifetime projects is that the history of
American comics should include in its canon ethnic cartoons and Gus
Arriola. A question that I always return to: Why isn’t Gus Arriola
more known in the mainstream? So I wanted the Latino community to see
that there is representation in the history of American comics, and
for them to see themselves and to appreciate one of their own.
Michael Swanwick: It was really good to see the Baldo comics done in
homage to Gordo.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: Hector Cantú, who's the
writer for Baldo, and Carlos Castellanos, the cartoonist—they work
as a team… Hector was there at the grand opening, and he told this
very interesting story. When they first were syndicated early on,
during one of their early interviews, someone said, Oh, you're the
first Latino comic strip to be syndicated.” And Hector said, “Gus
Arriola came before me."
Hector and Carlos reached out to Gus
before he passed away and said, “Hey, let us introduce ourselves.
We would love to do a homage to Gordo in our strip.” It was a
storyline over, I think, five days, with a direct reference to the
character of Gordo. In the strip on display in the exhibit, you see
their main character, Baldo, and his family. According to Hector,
they're not meant to be Mexican or Peruvian or any specific
ethnicity. They're supposed to be Hispanic, so that all readers can
sort of read themselves in it. Or read any Hispanic ethnicity in it.
One of the characters is Tia Carmen, Baldo's great-aunt, and she
starts to reminisce of the time she went to Mexico and met Gordo.
Marianne Porter: I love that scenario. She was a young woman then,
and she almost had a romance with him.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: What
Hector told us at the opening was that they asked Gus to draw a
profile of Gordo meeting the old woman in a flashback, in one of the
strips and Gus said, "I'm too old. My hand isn't steady. You go
ahead, you draw it." They showed everything to Gus before it was
published. Hector went on to say that Gus was very gracious, he
praised them, and he only made one edit in the strip. At one point
the Gordo character was going to say something like "Thank you,
senoritas.” The word for young ladies. And Gus Arriola said, "No,
that's not what Gordo would say. He would say, palomitas, little
doves. Because that's the slang in Mexico" of the time period.
This edit makes it charming. So Gus gave him that one edit, and
Hector said, “Yeah, of course I kept it.”
They consider him the
precursor and they got his blessing. It was very much a professional
friendship. Hector and Carlos often talk about the greatness of Gus
Arriola, and that without Gordo many in one of the strips newspapers
would not be accepting of Latino cartoonists. So they pay him great
homage.
Marianne Porter: Well they should, but good for them.
Nhora
Lucía Serrano: Yes. The other person in the exhibit was Lalo
Alcaraz, American cartoonist who is known for his syndicated,
politically focused strip La Cucaracha, and who is very well known at
this moment. He was a consultant for the movie Coco. He's dabbling in
films in Hollywood, and is just a wonderful and talented editorial
cartoonist. Since he hit the cartoonist scene, he's always
acknowledged that he's walking in the pathway created by Gus Arriola.
He did one—because he does sort of single strips at times—where
he pays homage to Gordo’s Bug Rogers. And then, when Gus Arriola
passed away, he did an essentially In Memoriam strip for him.
These
two strips, La Cucaracha and Baldo, for me, would not be here without
Gordo in many ways. That's the legacy of Gus Arriola and Gordo. These
two strips and many others.
Michael Swanwick: I'd like to comment on
the word modernism in the title. It is really striking, when you get
to see the artwork close up, how he combined traditional Mexican
visual arts with modernism. He could have made a very profitable
living as a commercial artist.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: He could have.
He was an artist. It's interesting, when we think of the deadlines he
had to meet for daily strips, as cartoonists work a couple of months
in advance, and all the work involved, it is amazing how quickly and
beautifully he drew and told a story.
But nonetheless, two thoughts
here. You’re right, he incorporated a lot of Mexican into his
strip-- not just culture in the story, but also the visual arts like
pottery and craft, which is something that really drew my attention.
In the exhibit, I included the strip of the Mexican pottery with the
silhouettes around because it was very much striking to me, and
because it demonstrated the influence of his early career as an
animator on his strip. That's why I had a colleague of mine animate
it so that all viewers could see the silhouette figures
move—essentially a tug of war between Gordo, Pepito and the
animals. I wasn't trying to do a gimmick. I must say, I worried about
that. I didn't want it to be gimmicky. I just wanted to show his
thinking, artistry, and humor.
Marianne Porter: As you go around the
pot, the story unfolds.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: Essentially he's doing
something like Egyptian vases. He's a narrative storyteller. It was
mimicking this old art form. But then, as you see the rest of the
strips on the walls, you start to realize he has a pacing that he is
also drawing from Egyptian vases. He knows what he's doing
consistently. Also, the Mexican pots are a repetitive motif
throughout the strip in various ways, whether they're primary focus
or whether they're in the background. For example, some of the strips
on the wall tell you how to make a pinata using terracotta pots.
Mexican pottery appears quite a bit throughout the run of the strip,
which is delightful and impactful.
Michael Swanwick: As a science
fiction writer, I have a particular fondness for his long narrative
stretches. Some of what he wrote was definitely science fiction,
including my favorite story in all comics where he meets the his
“dream gorl,” his perfect woman, and falls in love with her.
Then, slowly, he comes to realize that nobody else can see her. She's
a personification of everything that is perfect about women to him.
He manages to adjust to this and decide that even if nobody else can
see her, he's going to marry her.
Then she doesn't show up one day.
And when she shows, up she explains that there's an Italian filmmaker
who has the same dream girl. So they fight a duel for her. Gordo goes
up on top of a hill in Mexico and the filmmaker atop a hill in Italy.
They fight with their imaginations to visualize her. She fades out
and fades back in. And finally Gordo loses and she is gone forever.
It was a heartbreaking little story. I've always loved that one.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: That is beautiful. And you're right. It's
something I've given great thought. There are a lot of episodes, that
one obviously very special. And I should say there are other genres
one could see in Gordo, though, and I know this isn't your question,
but I chose modernism as opposed to other topics as a theme to unify
a forty-year run strip. Also, I selected modernism to make certain
that people could see the artistry of Gordo as well as the
storytelling element. As a curator, my job is to create a story that
highlights the strip and the cartoonist. And for forty-year run,
strip, I choose ‘Mexico’ and ‘Modernism’ because it allows
the visitor to walk away from the exhibit, learning a lot, and
yearning for more Gordo.
You're right. That episode would have been a
beautiful story. But there wasn’t the wall space.
Marianne Porter: I have this crackpot theory about curators, magazine editors, concert
programmers--that you're all giving us a map. You're all leading us
down a particular path. You have a place you want to bring us to. You
just now said that you were trying to make sure that you highlighted
this really very long-lasting strip and the artistry behind it. Were
there any special points where you wanted us to stop on the path and
look at something: smaller but more focused, maybe, or...
Nhora Lucía
Serrano: That's an excellent question. There were small special
points I highlighted for the visitor. And because I didn't have
enough time or enough space to develop them more, I left little
clues, hopefully.
Here's the first one that comes to mind. I find so
interesting that Gus took the role of Pepito, and had Pepito grew up
through the strip. If you remember the exhibit, the Billy Ireland has
original artwork in which Pepito is much older, he's dressed better,
playing with his uncle, and I make note in a label very quickly that
Pepito’s grown up and that this is very much like in the character
Skeezix in Frank King's Gasoline Alley. In the museum label, I was
trying to connect the dots for the first-time visitor that there's an
influence of Gasoline Alley storytelling on Gordo. So that would be
one where I was trying to leave little clues for people to ask,
“What's Gasoline Alley?” in case people didn't know, and “Really?
Pepito grew up? What else is there?” To me it's very important.
It's a small one. But one of the important little details for story.
Marianne Porter: Pepito grows up, and Gordo ages a little, but no
more than a smidge. And the housekeeper, Tehuana Mama, she doesn't,
really. She's got an ageless quality to her.
Nhora Lucía Serrano:
She does. Time doesn't really pass for her. Pepito’s the one where
we see time passing. Unless we understand the context of the story,
the strip doesn’t reflect real time outside the strip. Neither Gus
nor the characters make references to the real world. This is
something curious, Michael. I'm sort of curious from your
recollection of reading the strip. Gus didn't really break the fourth
wall and make references to real life historical contexts, would you
agree? If anything, for me, he was foreshadowing a lot of art ideas
and social topics before they actually happened. There are
cartoonists who would bring in political elections or anything else.
But Gus really had Gordo in its own universe.
Michael Swanwick:
Except for one thing, which is he was an environmentalist who was
very concerned about the physical state of the world. To such a
degree that, if I recall correctly, the last we see of Pepito, he and
his girlfriend or maybe she was his fiancé by then, who showed up
first as a little Texan girl, go off in a spaceship to another
planet. Because he can't picture a positive future for them here.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: That is true. I have not seen those strips in
person. That's through my research. So I'm hoping when I can get to
the Bancroft this summer, I can look at those strips and develop that
chapter on the environment for my book. But you're right. What we
would call today the environmental concerns, he was definitely a
vanguard in that sense. That's the only one that he really... I
wouldn't say broke the fourth wall, but had a reference to real life
outside of the strip. You're right.
Michael Swanwick: But at the same
time he was not being overly political. He wasn't pointing fingers at
specific politicians or corporations. He was just concerned about the
Earth as a whole.
Marianne Porter: There is also coming into the
strip an awareness of things that are happening in art and in music,
such as rock and roll.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: Yes, there is. One that
luckily I put up on the wall, is his fascination with sound, and how
to depict sound and music in a strip—he plays with color, layout
and font. (There's one on the wall which he signs by Dessie Bell.
Decibel. He makes that pun.) But again I would say, he's making
reference, perhaps to music or change in music. Right? Bug Rogers is
a character referencing the sixties. But he doesn't really step
completely out of the strip and make a real-life world reference. I
think in some ways he kept Gordo and all the characters within the
world of the strip.
I don't know. It's much more subtle in Gordo.
It's a different time. Who knows? If he were writing today, would the
sense of time and sound be different?
In answer to a question you
haven't asked, which is why, when you first walk into the exhibit,
the first thing you see from a distance is a large decal of the comic
strip blown up on the far wall, what I call the intro and welcome
wall to the exhibit. I wanted all of you to walk into the strip
metaphorically and literally. I wanted people to feel what I call the
Mary Poppins moment, where you could step into the comic strip and
into Gordo’s world. Also, when you first walk in, the immediate
thing that your eye catches is the A-frame display case, and what I
wanted the viewer's eye to go to was a photo of a young Gus Arriola
with an accompanying label saying: Cartoonist, Illustrator, Artist—he has many identities. And then below this photo, you have the end
of Gordo, that big of blow up of Tehuana Mama and Gordo dancing
together.
To me it's a strip of love, the whole thing. Whether people
were falling in love or not, there was love infused in all of this.
He loved his characters, he loved this world.
Marianne Porter: And
the characters all love each other. They all care so much about each
other.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: They do. The animals are so fun. They're
family.
Marianne Porter: I like the drunken worms.
Nhora Lucía
Serrano: Oh, my God! The drunken worms are just hilarious. In making
decisions of to what put up on the wall, I was trying to include as
many of the animals so the exhibit would have a little bit of
everything, thus, the worms had to go up. Because they're funny.
And
they're inebriated.
Michael Swanwick: Pixelated.
Nhora Lucía
Serrano: There we go! Well, and in that last wall, I wanted it to be
about all Bug Rogers, because I think there was something very
special with that character. It was one that really offered, like all
the animals, but more so insight into life. Bug Rogers really offered
the philosophy of life through commentaries, and it was very
profound, even though, when you first see and read it you think, “Oh,
that's fun and funny!” And then if you read it again. You're like,
"Oh, that's pretty profound."
And the animals all offered that type of
insight. Also, I was hoping that the show would attract families on
weekends. I wanted children to be exposed to the strip. As children,
we read things and catch something, and I thought the animals will
catch their attention and see the playfulness of the strip. I think
the animals are fun.
Marianne Porter: Oh, absolutely. I thought both
the text and the signage, the graphic imagery, were really good and
really involving. The fact that you, when you get off the elevator,
there's a group of the character running along the wall, and you just
run along with them and then get you to where you need to go.
Nhora
Lucía Serrano: Thank you, I would say that's something the Billy
Ireland has been trying to do with the decals for all of their
exhibits to help the visitor know where it is located.
Going into the
Billy Ireland, you have to go upstairs, whether by stairs or
elevator, and you have to go around the atrium. And so finding a
decal that is essentially running also helps lead the visitor to the
gallery. Also, the decals on the gallery wall were very strategic. I
wanted them to reference the very walls on which they are located and
allow people to see a snippet of the strip but bigger. One of my
personal favorite decals is in the corner when you go from the Mexico
section to the bean sections. In the bottom corner there is a yuca
plant in two colors—the left part of the yuca is light green
whereas the right part of the plant is teal in color. This yuca plant
extends from one wall to another, which is mimicking how it is in one
of the Gordo strips, where it extends from one panel to another.
The other decals are also quite charming and eye-catching: Gordo
carrying the bean pot while running along with Pepito and the
animals, the kids reading the newspaper, and Pepito as a modernist
artist wearing a beret while drawing.
The other great decal in the
exhibit is the one where there are a lot of the sleeping animals—it
is located on an inside wall as you go into the other gallery;
they're taking a little nap as you leave the show. Just little
moments like that I hope are fun for the museum visitor and the Gus
Arriola fan. Mostly, these choices are a reflection of the fact that
I wanted the strip to speak for itself. Yet there are choices you
have as a curator, one which I was asked by the Billy Ireland staff
was, "Do you want the wall painted a certain color?"
Keep
in mind that the Billy Ireland staff is very generous and supportive.
They seek to support the curator’s vision as well as the comics.
Back to the wall color question --I said, no, I want the strip to
jump out so let’s leave the walls white. And so, it occurred to me,
I want the decals from the strip, and I want them to jump. And voilà
we have decals everyone giving the visitor small windows into the
strip.
Michael Swanwick: I understand you're working on a book about
Gordo. Can you tell us about it?
Nhora Lucía Serrano: Yes. Obviously
an exhibit like this is a great beginning for the book. But as we've
talked about, the exhibit can't cover everything that a book can
like, as you mentioned, episodes and stories… There are certain
choices I had to make and couldn't cover everything. And so I'm
working on a scholarly book with hopefully a lot of images. I'm
currently speaking with a couple of publishers to see who would be
interested. There's many books about cartoonists right? There's books
on Charles Schultz. There's books on George Herriman. I want to write
a book that essentially talks about what Gus Arriola did. And to
think of it, I see a chapter or early chapters on his relationship to
not just animation, but George Herriman’s Krazy Kat and Li’l
Abner. Where did this come from? What the exhibit gives you, going
back to your earlier question, is only a little tidbit of what the
influences are. I just did those two display cases, and it was very
quick. To me, that's a chapter discussing where does Gordo fit in?
What were the influences? Where was he borrowing? What was he
changing? What was he innovating?
And so, to your question. I am
writing a book because, to be honest, no one has in written such a
book, and I think it's needed. Obviously, to talk about the strip and
hopefully go more in depth into the storylines. Right? I see a
chapter about storylines which the exhibit doesn't have. And also I
want to have a chapter that discusses more in depth modernism.
Returning back to the labels, I really appreciate your kind words
about the bilingual signage and all the decal images. But a label's
only this big. It's not a chapter.
So there's stuff I want to write
more about that's already on the walls. Part of this reasoning is
because I didn't want the exhibit to be very text heavy. I was
conscious of that there was enough words on the wall because of the
inclusion of Spanish and English, which was a balancing act of space.
I was mindful and concerned to not write too much text for the labels
because I wanted the actual words of the strip to jump out.
Marianne
Porter: To speak for itself. Yes.
Michael Swanwick: I will definitely
buy that book.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: That's what I'm working on. And
I'm trying to find a publisher that will allow me to put in a lot of
color images, because I think the color is important to the Sunday
strips. Because he plays with color. Not in all of them. But they're
beautiful.
Plus a lot of people have reached out to me, asking, Is
there going to be a catalog for the exhibit? No, there isn't. It
isn't something the Billy Ireland does. But they/we are coming out
with a booklet for the exhibit, and their communications office
should be finishing it soon so it can be available to all visitors.
The booklet has some of the colorful strips in it.
I've been writing
a lot of stuff in the past year about Gus, so I'm on my way to finish
my book soon. But I also want people to feel… that this exhibit was
not not just a two-year project. This has been a labor of love, and
the thought that it's going to come down in May, it's a little like
my child is going away. So I feel very much responsible to make
certain that the exhibit continues in other forms. My lifelong goal
of making sure that Gus Arriola is part of the conversation about
American comics continues beyond this exhibit. And so that's another
reason to write the book, to keep Gus Arriola in the conversation
about a comics canon and to establish him firmly in the history of
American comics.
Michael Swanwick: Okay, have we left anything out,
Marianne?
Marianne Porter: I think we did it.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: I'm
trying to think, too, if there anything else. Oh! I put a bench in
the exhibit, so families could sit down, something the Billy Ireland
hadn't done before, but I think hopefully lets it be a family show.
Michael Swanwick: As somebody who likes to linger over a show, I
appreciated that.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: One other thing. In the
display cases is a artifact that I loved and I still love. We
included a Gordo strip in the display case and not on the wall, and
the reason why it is not on the wall is because the strip is about
when Gus Arriola is sick, and so Gordo talks to Pepito and goes. “Oh,
the artist is sick.” And you see him in this bedroom. Essentially,
Gus Arriola is sleeping, and someone else is drawing the strip. The
person who drew that strip was Eldon Dedini. What happens if you're
sick and you can’t make your cartoonist deadline? You call your
friends! And so that's something important to highlight about the
history and process of American newspaper comics—not just for Gus
Arriola or Gordo, but for anybody involved in cartoons back in the
day. You called your fellow cartoonists who helped you out. I think
it's a really interesting meta-reference in that strip where you, you
know essentially, Eldon Dedini is the artist. You know the cartoonist
is sick. Somebody else is stepping in, and you see the communication
in the draft drawings on parchment paper that went back and forth
between the two men. Where Dedini was sending it to Gus to see if it
was okay.
Michael Swanwick: Hmm, that's good.
Marianne Porter: Yeah,
yeah, that's again connections with all of the rest of American
comics, and how it all intertwines.
Michael Swanwick: I found it very
odd at the end that Tehuana Mama, who through the entire strip has
been the hired housekeeper...There was never any hint of romance
between them, and then, at the very end, to finish off the entire
strip, Arriola married them to each other Tehuana Mama and Gordo.
That was such a strange thing for him to do.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: It
was a strange thing, I would agree with you. In interviews where he
talked about the end of the strip, he said he didn't want his
character to be lonely. He wanted Gordo to go off into the sunset,
and be happy. So he married them off. His son, Carlin, had passed
away--what was it?—ten years before the end of the strip. Gus was
getting older. The laborious task of doing daily strips, Sunday
strips, all of that... He was just tired. He said it was time.
He was
sad. He was grieving still, and so I don't think he wanted to end on
a somber note. He, I think, in many ways since this was his body of
work, he wanted to have his character ride off into the sunset.
Which, literally, is the last strip. They go on the bus, and they
ride off into the sunset.
Michael Swanwick: That sounds good. Yeah.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: A very Hollywood kind of ending. If you think
about it.
Michael Swanwick: The image of the two of them dancing is
very sweet.
Nhora Lucía Serrano: It is very sweet. We also can't
forget all of us when we think of it, that he was with his wife, Mary
Frances, his whole life, and so he had a very supportive partner whom
he met at Screen Gems right, Someone who helped him out with the
strip. And so, in many ways, I think the ending is also an homage to
his love and dedication to Mary Frances and Mary Frances to him.
Above: Images courtesy of and used with the kind permission of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum,
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