ABSTRACT
In Juan Solo, a comic by legendary Chilean author and filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, a baby born with an animal tail in a garbage dump is raised by a dwarf transvestite prostitute in a dystopian South American city where violence is the most important commodity. Meanwhile, in Salvadoran-American Daniel Parada’s graphic novel Zotz: Serpent and Shield, an alternative reality in which the Spaniards never conquered Mesoamerica unfolds with different visions of history, alliances, confrontations, and cultural developments. Recent graphic narrative production by Latin American and U.S.-based Latino artists is more diverse and multifaceted than ever before, and the titles mentioned above perfectly illustrate the breadth (and oddities) of this expanding field. Within this increasing and vibrant diversity, comics and graphic novels that explore science and speculative fiction are among the most innovative and visually striking. In fact, as Edward King and Joanna Page point out, “while the graphic novel in Europe and North America is currently dominated by autobiographical and journalistic textual modes, the most prevalent genre in Latin America is science fiction” (2017: 2).
