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 Entertainment | February 2007 
In Mexico, a Satire Magazine Makes a Comeback to Roast the Power Elite
 Edward M. Gomez - SFGate.com
| | Cover of the just-published, revived, political-satire magazine, El Chamuco. | 
| | Cartoonists like Hernández - he goes by one name - delight in portraying President Calderón as short and, by implication, too small for his big, complex job. | 
| | A frame from a cartoon strip by Jans shows the president slipping into a too-big army uniform; offstage, the voice of an aide asks the chief executive: "Ready to take action?" |
In Mexico, El Chamuco is back. The satire magazine, whose title is slang for "devil," had suspended publication several years ago; the revived version of the wickedly witty humor sheet whose contributing artists skewer the country's controversial politicians in high style hit Mexican newsstands last week.
In the aftermath of last summer's federal elections, which, through the intervention of a special, federal electoral tribunal, brought Felipe Calderón Hinojosa of the center-right National Action Party (PAN) to power as president, voices on Mexico's left have felt left out of the official, national-policy debate, if not simply ignored. In El Chamuco's pages, they're striking back. (Calderón succeeded outgoing President Vicente Fox, also of the PAN; former Mexico City mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the left-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution was declared the loser of last July's presidential contest, even though he and his supporters claimed the PAN had committed election-procedure fraud. They pointed to numerous voting-day irregularities that even the PAN-controlled, federal electoral commission acknowledged had occurred.)
Contributors to El Chamuco include the creators of some of the vivid, political-cartoon caricatures that routinely appear in the pages of La Jornada, Mexico's tabloid-size, left-leaning daily. Some of the prominent artists whose work will be featured - there will be investigative reports, too, like the debut issue's look at Mexico's super-wealthy elite - include Rius, Rafael Barajas, El Fisgón, Antonio Helguera, Helioflores, Hernández, Jis y Trino and Rafael Pineda. (In addition to the magazine's official Web site, a blog that is not officially related to the publication offers a selection of some of these artists' drawings here. For fans of trenchant political cartooning, Steve Bell's daily contributions to Britain's Guardian are also a must-see.)
El Chamuco's editors say its regular "clients" - that is, the regular targets of its writer-artists' piercing wit - will include "the illegitimate president," Calderón; the president's interior secretary, Ramírez Acuña; the clergy; the army; former president Vicente Fox - they're not through with him yet - "and 'one or another illiterate.'" (La Jornada)
The cartoonists Antonio Helguera and El Fisgón (whose nom d'artiste means "The Busybody" or "The Snoop"), have said they're ready to take on, in their satirical creations, "the oligarchies" that exert considerable power in Mexico as well as anyone who would encourage or try to implement censorship of the press.
The well-known Mexican journalist and author Carlos Monsiváis writes in a brief, cheeky introduction to the revived El Chamuco about the subjects it will examine: "How do you satirize those who, by their mere presence, have always provoked indignation and guffaws?"
Edward M. Gomez, a former U.S. diplomat and staff reporter at TIME, has lived and worked in the U.S. and overseas, and speaks several languages. He has written for The New York Times, the Japan Times and the International Herald Tribune. |
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