Tales from la Vida: A Latinx Comics Anthology edited by Frederick Luis Aldama [in Booklist]
The latest title in Mad Creek’s impressive Latinographix series showcases 80-plus contributions from the flourishing Latinx graphic community. Creators were prompted “to reflect upon the most significant moments of their lives,” rendering seven sections that explore language, coming-of-age, mythology, identity, heritage, self-image, and pop culture.
The auspicious result features a manifold cast from the most established – title and series editor Frederick Luis Aldama, for example, is a pre-eminent author/academic in the graphic industry – to as-yet-unproven discoveries, each working in varied styles, methods, lengths. As with many collections, individual results are (wildly) uneven, but the communal outcome wholly embodies the Latinographix intention: “provides a place for exploration and boundary pushing and celebrates hybridity, experimentation, and creativity.”
Standouts abound, including Samuel Teer’s “MIXED” (“The texture of my otherness was all that most friends perceived”); Ivan Velez Jr.’s “Que Significa?” (“… are my Latino moments judged on significance or worthiness by the gaze of others?”); and Miguelangel Ruiz’s “The Day I Discovered My Alter Ego” (“…there are some things that cannot be left unsaid”).
As testimony and magnification of the multitudinous Latinx experience, La Vida bursts forth con fuerte.
Review: modified from “Fiction: Graphic Novels,” Booklist, September 15, 2018
Readers: Young Adult, Adult
Published: 2018
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