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Lágrimas, risas y amor : Mexico's Most Popular Romance Comic Book
Author(s) -
Tatum Charles
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
the journal of popular culture
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.238
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1540-5931
pISSN - 0022-3840
DOI - 10.1111/j.0022-3840.1980.1403_413.x
Subject(s) - comics , romance , popularity , plot (graphics) , literature , character (mathematics) , comic strip , parallels , narrative , history , variety (cybernetics) , politics , sociology , art , law , political science , mechanical engineering , statistics , geometry , mathematics , artificial intelligence , computer science , engineering
Romance comic books, strips, and magazines enjoy immense popularity in the United States. The same is true in Mexico where LLgrimas, risasy amor, the country's most popular romance comic book, sells between 1.2 and 1.5 million copies per week. In his study, Charles Tatum discusses some of the publication's most important aspects including its creators, readership, circulation, and basic plot and character types and settings. He finds that, as in other populargenres Ldgrimas can be reduced to basic narrative formulas which, although they are repetitive, are presented in an interesting fashion and with sufficient variety to continue to attract large numbers of readers. In a comparative section, Tatum observes that this Mexican romance comic book closely resembles its American counterpart in terms of its implicit values and attitudes. Ligrimas is both politically and socially conservative, mute regarding politics and tending to reinforce dominant values towards sex roles, the family and marriage. Readers will find some interesting parallels between Lagrimas and the fotonovelas analyzed in Flora's study.