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About The Exhibit

¡Viva México! A Comic Book History of Mexico

More widely read in Mexico than any other form of cheap print, comics provide a window into the archetypes, stories, and cultural scripts that influenced generations
of readers, rich and poor. ¡Viva México! A Comic Book History of Mexico which opened March 16, 2015 in Special Collections, explored the spectacular rise of comic books
in twentieth-century Mexico and how the government and commercial publishers
have used comics to promote nationalism.

The Golden Age of the Mexican comic book, known in Spanish as historietas, began in the 1930s with the publication of comic book digests that serialized U.S. strips like Superman, Dick Tracy, and Betty Boop, combining them with strips by Mexican creators. This exhibit celebrates the artistry, invention and diversity of the Golden Age of Mexican comic books. Here, through these humble comics, are the heroes and villains, the triumphs and the tragedies, and the cultural icons that have defined modern Mexico.