#mexico

William Keops Ibañez was seeded in Mexico and harvested in the soils of the United States in 1982. He moved to New York City from Texas in 2001 to attend the School of Visual Arts from which he got a B.F.A in cartooning and illustration. In 2007 he attended the Art Institute of New York and earned his Associates in graphic design. He currently writes and draws his comic book series Blazing Quantum, True Tales from La Frontera.

Tell us about yourself! When did you start making comics? 

I started making comics as early as sixth grade. I would get a bunch of sheets together folded and stapled and then just draw in that. I realized that’s all comic books were. Sheets of paper folded and stapled. It’s sounds so simple, but I remember thinking how magical that discovery seemed to me. Like that’s it?! I can get typing paper and staples from my Mom’s desk! I just did them for myself and didn’t even think about photocopying them until I got into HighSchool. At that point I had discovered underground/alternative comics and had heard of what mini comics were. I did my first mini comic on bathroom humor and printed about ten copies. I sold one for a quarter to a kid in the morning and by the end of the day another kid handed it to me in the cafeteria saying “You gotta check this out! It’s hilarious!” I was like hey that’s my comic! Turns out they were passing it around classes.

Where is your family from?

My Mom and Dad are both from the State of Puebla in the Country of Mexico. My Dad is from a Village named Huatlatlauca and my Mom is from a Village named Hueytlalpan in which the main language is Totonaco. Everyone on my Moms side Speaks it along with Spanish. Unfortunately it wasn’t passed down to me as no one else spoke it in the city I was born in, Laredo Texas USA. We spoke only Spanish at home, and English at School. To this day both my parents don’t know a word of English, but it evens out I guess. My mom has her Spanish and Totonaco and I have English and Spanish. So we’re both still bilingual lol!

Can you tell us about your Blazing Quantum series? Do you have a set goal for each issue?

The comic in a nutshell is about the dichotomy of growing up Chicanx (Mexican American) in the border town of Laredo Texas. It’s focus is on how the history of both Mexico and the United States came to shape the populations of our people for better or worse. Every single person alive right now is the result of larger histories than ourselves that go back hundreds of years. It’s something I like to explore in my comics. It’s been slow in coming, but I did lots of research of not just my families history, but of Mexico’s and South Texas’s as well. I’m only now working on issue Three, but I’ve discovered things about myself and family I didn’t know before. It’s interesting to see the thread that ties The Spanish Conquest, The Mexican Revolution, Anarchism, my parents’ immigration to the states, Totonaco and Punk Rock together. All stories for my comic are connected, but I always try to make them work as stand alone vignettes.

How do you decide the stories for each issue?

I usually thumbnail a whole story before any penciling is done with dialogue written on side notes. It’s usually tough to decide what story to put in each issue but I take into account how that story will fit in the lager narrative I’m building. I like to think of it as tapestry or one of Diego Rivera’s Murals: There’s lots of interesting action up close. People working on machines, people laboring, fighting etc. But when you step back all that detail comes together to communicate an event in history.

What are some of your influences/inspirations?

My parents are my first inspiration. For art and comics I was greatly influenced first by Humberto Ramos who drew Impulse for DC comics. I then gravitated towards Robert Crumb, Jaime Crespo, later the Hernandez Brothers and eventually the rest of the 90’s alternative comics scene. In art school they had a huge comics library, and it was here I would discover whom I consider to be comics gods. Harvey Kurtzman and Wallace Wood. So thats’ inspiration in terms of comics. For writing, I was greatly moved by these latin american writers more than anything: Isabel Allende from Peru/Chile, Octavio Paz from Mexico, and Eduardo Galeano from Uruguay.  

Like your comic La Sierra, most of your work involves stories with believable Latinx characters not to mention pride of your Latindad. Did you ever feel doubt or pressure to change your stories. If so, how?

Of course! One story in particular I debated so much about changing was the first story (Proletariat) from Blazing Quantum no.1. The opening scene has an actual conversation that took place with me and a coworker. It was extremely vulgar, crass, and machista, but when I was drawing it I wanted it to be as accurate as possible. When I re-read it I realized how horrible we sounded, but the point of the story was that here are these two teenage kids trying to act tough and macho, but at the end of the day it’s a Latina Woman who is bossing them around and in command of the place they work at. I felt that censoring the dialogue would have taken away from the point I was trying to make, which is that behind many of the great things in our cultura there has always been a powerful woman. Whether it be the Soldaderas who supported the Mexican Revolution, or artists Such as Maria Felix who greatly contributed to and influenced Mexican Cinema. 

To your point about writing believable characters, I decided against censoring the vulgar dialogue as I didn’t want to make one dimensional characters. If you want people to believe your stories, you have to include not just your character’s positive traits, but also their flaws. Especially if you’re doing auto bio comics. You have to include things you may have regretted doing or saying in the past. Our culture has lots of positive things. I learned empathy from my Mother, and inherited my Father’s work ethic, But censoring negative things about our culture like Machismo won’t get us anywhere. They’re issues that need to be addressed in our community.

In your opinion what do you think makes a Latinx comic?

Great question. It’s tricky for me as I was raised first on Mainstream Super Hero comics before I gravitated towards works like Love and RocketsorNarcolepsy Dreams. Humberto Ramos is from Mexico and drew Impulse for DC comics, but I don’t think that a Flash spin off character could hardly be called a work of Latinx Literature lol. I think the thing I have noticed in works that I consider Latinx Comics is that they are brutally honest and sincere and that the authors are people with convictions. I can see those traits at work in The Hernandez Bros’ Love and Rockets, your own comics Kat such as in Gringa!, and I would say in the work of our fellow contributors too.

Do you have any projects coming up?

Wrapping up Blazing Quantum#3 soon, and keeping my fingers crossed that I get accepted into Comics Art Brooklyn this November.  If I happen to find out that I didn’t get to table by the time this is up, people can still get my mini comics on my site  at keopsibanez.com and see more of my work in the the soon to be La Raza Anthology! I’m glad to be in great company!  

Be on the lookout for La Sierra William’s comic for La Raza Anthology: Unidos y Fuertes. Check out his blog for more of his work!

Alexandra Martinez is a southern California born and bred Chicana getting bread in NYC. She is somewhere in between a professional dabbler and a renaissance woman, though most of her work is focused around writing and photography. When she’s not working, you can most definitely find her reading a book, drinking coffee, or doing both.

ForLa Raza Anthology we’ve received so many powerful pieces from talented voices from many places, including one short story by a nyc local Chicana Alexandra Martinez! 

Here’s an excerpt from Alexandra’s piece Canta Y No Llores: 

[trigger warning: suicide]

“Driving through the Mexican desert of Los Altos de Jalisco, my cousin looks at me and asks me, “Did you hear about Tio Rafa?” I say no. I remember him years ago on the farm, milking cows and talking to me about school and where I was going to college and what for. I remember it like it’s a photograph and I’m holding it. I remember his smile.

My cousin keeps talking, wakes me out of it. I know something bad is coming. He says a year ago he jumped off a fourth floor balcony.

What was this man who barely leaves his farm doing on a fourth floor anyway? Where was he?

He says after that attempt to kill himself failed, Tio Rafa stabbed himself in the neck. That one failed too, when his brother found his bloodied body under the giant mesquite everyone believes is haunted. I think so too.

Why does he want to disappear so badly?

We arrive at my grandparents’ home. Ladrillera 43. Teocaltiche, Jalisco. Bigger than I remember it. Towns become cities so quickly.

Tomorrow Tio Rafa will be here. And I cannot forget the image of him talking to me, smiling. The twinkle in his eyes that everybody on my grandmother’s side of the family has. I’ve seen it in my dad. I’ve seen it my aunts. Probably even seen it in myself.” 

You can read the rest of Alexandra’s short story Canta Y No Llores in our upcoming anthology La Raza: Unidos y Fuertes. Check out her blog for more inspiration! 

mexicovistoporotrosojos:

Hablando de catrinas..

kuramirocket:

Day of the Dead in Mexico