Geoffroy de Laforcade, Norfolk State University,USA
Daniel Stein, University of Siegen, Germany:
This article aims to show the special status of Cuban comics within the Americas. As the article argues, the special status derives primarily from Cuba’s particular political situation – the revolution of 1959 and its political, social, economic, and cultural repercussions being perhaps the most decisive factor – as well as from the ways in which cartoonists, artists, and writers have handled these repercussions. This article begins by tracing this tradition and history from the republican period to the revolution and its aftermath through the Período Especial and to the present. The authors then take stock of contemporary Cuban comics and their culture, which are more dynamic than they may seem at first glance and which belie attempts to reduce them to emanations of scarcity, hardship, political uniformity, and cultural conformism.