"La Neuva Ola" Mexican Comic Series Featuring Biographical Comic on Bolero Singer Javier Solis

Javier Solis

Archive

[Mexico and Chicano][Mexican Comics] "La Nueva Ola" Mexican comic archive. Five consecutive weekly issues centered on the magazine’s serial feature “La vida de Javier Solís” with additional sports comics and youth-culture content. Mexico City: Editorial Paolgra, S.A., January–February 1966. Spanish language. Five illustrated magazines (issues Nos. 13–17), each in original pictorial wrappers. The issues are particularly notable for a feature on Javier Solís. Solis was known as the last of the "Three Mexican Roosters", idols of Mexican music and cinema. Solís died in 1966 at the age of 34 in Mexico City, just two months after these comics were published. Archive includes:

[1] La Nueva Ola No. 13 (Jueves 20 de enero de 1966). Editorial notice to “Estimadas lectoras y lectores” (with halftone portrait) thanking readers and singling out “LA VIDA DE JAVIER SOLÍS” as a successful new section. “¡Hazañas del Deporte!” ["Feats of Sport!"] recounts the June 22, 1938 Joe Louis–Max Schmeling fight at Madison Square Garden: “Aquella noche del 22 de junio de 1938… Joe Louis volvió a mirar a la otra esquina.” Opens with Javier as a boy confronting the hardships of the barrio. One friend arranges for him to find “un dizque trabajo,” but a dangerous encounter ensues: “El cuate que podía servirme de ‘agüador’… el escuincle tiene pinta de aguador.” Javier is initiated into the world of child labor, reflecting on whether such work might give him purpose.

[2] La Nueva Ola No. 14 (Jueves 27 de enero de 1966). “¡Hazañas del Deporte!” covers September 30, 1937 at Yankee Stadium—Yankees vs. Washington, with panels of a crowded ballpark and a scoreboard reading “YANKEES / NATIONALS.” Narrates Solís’s early interest in boxing: “Amigos, a los diez años se mete uno a veces en aventuras superiores a la edad.” Spurred by friends, he dreams of training in the gym and helping his mother financially: “¿Y si resulto bueno y con el tiempo le puedo llevar buen dinero a mi mamacita?” The panels dramatize both the temptation of the ring and his youthful sense of responsibility.

[3] La Nueva Ola No. 15 (Jueves 3 de febrero de 1966). “¡Hazañas del Deporte!” on automovilismo—the 1964 Mexican Grand Prix—naming Jim Clark, John Surtees, Graham Hill, Pedro Rodríguez, Dan Gurney, Phil Hill; “Faltaban dos vueltas…” with multiple racing vignettes. Continues the boxing theme, with Solís recalling the mentorship of “el señor Aranda” who defended him in a fight: “Pues así me sentí yo aquel día en la Arena Hollywood…” The comic captures the violence of barrio fights but frames Aranda as a positive adult influence: “Amigos, ¿no les parece que cuando está uno ‘chavo’, se siente orgulloso porque una persona grande lo comprende y lo ayuda?”

[4] La Nueva Ola No. 16 (Jueves 10 de febrero de 1966). “¡Hazañas del Deporte!” narrates a Mexican mountaineering ascent of Chimborazo in Ecuador: “Lentamente pero con firmeza… estamos cerca de la grieta, ¡allá!” In the Solis series, a shift toward romance: Javier tells readers, “Esta pregunta va especialmente dirigida a los miles de lectores que siguen leyendo la historia de mi vida.” He narrates his first crush, meeting Rosita while working as a delivery boy for “Vela-Gas.” Offering her a gas tank in exchange for her name, the episode frames his coming of age as a sentimental awakening.

[5] La Nueva Ola No. 17 (Jueves 17 de febrero de 1966). “¡Hazañas del Deporte!” retells Babe Ruth lore through the story of Peter Gray as a teenage spectator: “En medio de la expectación general, el inolvidable Bambino señaló… hacia donde dispararía home run.” Attempting to serenade Rosita, Javier ends up singing beneath the wrong balcony: “¡Pero si no es Rosita!” This comic underscores the mixture of youthful error and romantic longing that defined his adolescence. His refrain to readers—“Dicen que cuando uno está enamorado todo se hace líos y se enreda…”—is both confessional and didactic.

Promotional back pages announce other Paolgra photo-story titles (e.g., “Doña Sara, la mera, mera!”, “La vida de Chucho el Roto,” “La historia de Porfirio Cadena, el Ojo de Vidrio”) as separate publications. Toning and embrittlement to newsprint as expected; scattered dampstaining, most evident along lower and fore-edges of Nos. 14 and 16, edge chips and small losses to margins (not affecting legibility). Overall good condition for comics of this age. A scarce, intact five-issue run of this Mexican weekly comic expressly highlighting “La vida de Javier Solís,” pairing a mass-culture biography of the celebrated singer with vividly illustrated sports stories for a mid-1960s audience.

Item #22590

Price: $450.00