Mexican Satire Comic "Los Supermachos", with Themes of Political Corruption and Gender Politics, Archive 1972-79

Los Supermachos Archive

Periodical

Post Rius Los Supermachos comic archive, 1972 to 1979, documenting Editorial Meridiano’s use of the established didactic comic format to address Indigenous identity, public health, poverty, education, juvenile crime, incarceration, sexuality, religion, and hunger during the presidencies of Luis Echeverría and José López Portillo. Rius had left Los Supermachos after No. 100 following disputes with publisher Octavio Colmenares over censorship, after which Meridiano continued the title without him while retaining its characters, visual vocabulary, and mixture of cartoons with explanatory text. Tebeosfera identifies No. 100, dated November 30, 1967, as Rius’s final issue and records the subsequent Meridiano series as a weekly publication continued without its creator. The Hemeroteca Nacional de México describes this later incarnation as a continuation that reproduced the original characters and didactic model while pursuing a different political and cultural program, frequently selecting subjects from contemporary Mexican public debate. The ten issues here span seven years of that later period, with repeated attention to populations represented as socially marginal or endangered: an Otomí woman rebuts condescension toward her language in No. 387; tuberculosis becomes the explicit subject of No. 392; juvenile delinquency and imprisonment dominate Nos. 544 and 591; unexplained child deaths occupy No. 608; and the final two issues connect hunger, revolution, Indigenous identity, and poverty.

Los Supermachos. Mexico City: Editorial Meridiano, 1972 to 1979. Ten stapled issues, each 9.5" x 7", with illustrated color wrappers; Tebeosfera records the standard series format as 28 pages, stapled, with color cover and interior printing.

[1] Los Supermachos No. 357. November 2, 1972. Con M de muerte. The cover places a skull within a circular emblem surrounded by the words “MUJER,” “MUERTE,” and “MACHO,” with the phrase “AQUÍ MUERE LA MUJER Y TODA LA MUJER,” introducing an issue that connects sex, gender, and death through the magazine’s characteristic mixture of visual punning and provocation.

[2] Los Supermachos No. 387. May 31, 1973. Simplemente “Marías”. An Indigenous woman seated beside produce answers a patronizing remark with “ENCIVILIZADOS ASTEDES QUE NO HABLAN OTOMÍ. ¡YO SOY BILINGÜE!” The cover turns the derogatory urban category “Marías,” commonly applied to Indigenous women selling goods in Mexican cities, against the speaker by making bilingualism evidence of the woman’s knowledge rather than deficiency.

[3] Los Supermachos No. 392. July 5, 1973. La tuberculosis. A visibly ill man reclines beneath the title while saying “¡JÓSER... QUÉ PLACER...!,” making tuberculosis the central subject of an issue devoted to a disease that remained closely associated with poverty, crowded living conditions, and unequal access to medical treatment.

[4] Los Supermachos No. 493. June 5, 1975. Los seres de ultratumba. The cover depicts a ghost appearing before two startled figures and advertises “¡APARECIDOS! FANTASMAS Y ESPÍRITUS... MUCHAS MÁS PÁGINAS QUE EN NÚMEROS PASADOS PERO AL MISMO PRECIO,” placing popular beliefs concerning apparitions and spirits within the magazine’s explanatory and comic format.

[5] Los Supermachos No. 525. January 15, 1976. ¿Educación o pan y circo? A barefoot man reads beneath the question that dominates the cover, setting education against the classical formula of “pan y circo” and framing schooling, entertainment, and public priorities as competing social expenditures.

[6] Los Supermachos No. 544. May 27, 1976. Los chavos delincuentes. A young character is ordered “¡MANOS ABAJO!” while answering “APENAS ESTÁS COMENZANDO ¿VERDAD?” The issue makes youth crime its principal subject, using the colloquial “chavos” rather than an institutional vocabulary and placing juvenile delinquency within the everyday social world represented by the series.

[7] Los Supermachos No. 591. April 28, 1977. El intercambio de presos. Prison bars divide the cover while one character explains an international prisoner exchange and another responds from confinement, placing incarceration, nationality, and the transfer of prisoners across borders at the center of the issue.

[8] Los Supermachos No. 608. August 25, 1977. Mueren niños en forma extraña. The large headline is followed by “DESCONCIERTO ENTRE LOS MÉDICOS,” while a child asks an adult “¡MAM, QUIÉN FUERA BEBÉ!” The cover adopts the language of a medical alarm, presenting unexplained childhood deaths as both a public health problem and a subject requiring popular explanation.

[9] Los Supermachos No. 686. February 22, 1979. The cover combines fortune telling imagery with the subjects “EL ARTE DE DESCUBRIR SU DESTINO” and “EL HAMBRE CONDUCE A LA REVOLUCIÓN,” placing individual attempts to predict the future beside the political consequences of material deprivation.

[10] Los Supermachos No. 722. November 1, 1979. Los indios mexicanos. Two caricatured figures discuss money beneath the large title, while the lower banner announces “SE ACABA EL MUNDO.” Published more than six years after Simplemente “Marías”, the issue returns explicitly to Indigenous Mexicans as a social category, extending the group’s recurring treatment of ethnicity, poverty, and national identity.

The chronological span shows how Meridiano’s post Rius Los Supermachos shifted readily between social instruction, sensational current affairs, popular belief, and political commentary. UNAM’s Pepines catalogue describes the continuation as a topical publication that addressed such subjects as Mexican politics, feminism, students, eroticism, cultural life, and contemporary controversies while differing ideologically from Rius’s own work. The present group supplies a particularly concentrated sequence of social questions beyond formal electoral politics. Simplemente “Marías” uses the linguistic competence of an Otomí woman to reverse an urban stereotype; La tuberculosis and Mueren niños en forma extraña translate medical anxieties into mass circulation comic form; ¿Educación o pan y circo? questions the allocation of social resources; Los chavos delincuentes and El intercambio de presos move from juvenile criminality to institutional confinement; and the 1979 issues place hunger and Indigenous identity within broader arguments about revolution and Mexican society. The sequence also illustrates the longevity of the publication after Rius’s departure: Tebeosfera records the Meridiano title as continuing into the early 1980s and reaching hundreds of issues, despite the loss of the creator whose characters and format it retained. Moderate toning and edge wear to wrappers and pages, with scattered rubbing, soiling, small tears and edge losses; several wrappers show creasing and handling wear, with bindings generally intact. Overall good condition. A seven year sequence of the post Rius Los Supermachos in which Indigenous identity, disease, childhood mortality, education, incarceration, hunger, and poverty were translated into the language of Mexican popular comics and mass circulation social commentary.

Item #23734

Price: $650.00