Indian Comics Irregular #39

A correspondent recently wrote:

You know, if you can get past the pidgin English, the Tonto
character wasn't so bad. As I remember, he was always on top of
every situation, and was able to give the Lone Ranger critically
good advice. It may be just my imagination (it was so long ago
that I saw these flicks) but Tonto was cast as an equal to LR, not
an underling. If I'm distorting this in my memory, flame away.

If you can get past the pidgin English?! Well, if you can get past
the killing, I supposed war isn't so bad either. (A slight
exaggeration, to be sure, but you get the idea.)

The pidgin English was one strike against Tonto. A second was that
he had no cultural traits. He was a blank slate, a generic Indian.
A
third was that he was always following, always the sidekick. He had
no known life outside of serving the Lone Ranger.

As I recall, Tonto was generally intelligent and competent, but that
doesn't mean he didn't embody several stereotypes. And let's quickly
add that those were the creators' fault, not Jay Silverheels'.
Silverheels undoubtedly did the best he could.

For more on Indian stereotypes, visit our Stereotype page at
http://members.xoom.com/peaceparty/stertype.htm.

More South of the Border

Even if we limit ourselves to Latin American examples, we can see how
popular and Indian cultures interact:

· Tupac Shakur, the slain rap star, named himself after Tupac
Amaru ("Shining Serpent"), the last Inca ruler to fight the Spanish
conquistadors.

· Victor Hernandez has created Anahuac, the "world's first Aztec
comic strip." You can view it at
http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Campus/9635/anahuac/index.html.

· According to visual poet and performance artist Guillermo
Gómez-Peña, Sub-comandante Marcos of the Chiapas revolt is the
latest populist hero in a noble Mexican tradition. This tradition
includes Superbarrio (the "Superman" of the damnificados after the
disastrous 1985 earthquake in Mexico City), Fray Tormenta (the
wrestler priest), and Super-Ecologista, all offshoots of a US comic
book hero and the popular masked wrestlers of Mexico.

Oldies but Baddies #1

In Marvel's INFINITY GAUNTLET #2 (1991), Odin meets with a council of
gods that includes the Native deities Manitou and Tezcatlipoca. Nice
touch, but Manitou looks like a Sioux Indian chief. In traditional
lore, the manitou is found in the northern and eastern forests, not
the plains. Oops.

Summer of Fun

The PEACE PARTY website continues to grow. I've added the following
items on the pages noted:

· Contests (http://members.xoom.com/peaceparty/contest1.htm). The
Create a Native Superhero and Guest-Star in a Comic contests are
taking off. Joining them are new trivia challenges, such as one to
match Native celebrities with their tribal affiliations.

· Features (http://members.xoom.com/peaceparty/contents.htm):
Enjoy a scene from a nonexistent PEACE PARTY story and photo
references for our characters. Meanwhile, the Latino legend El Ojo
continues his crusade against evil
(http://members.xoom.com/peaceparty/elojo.htm).

· Top 10 Books (http://members.xoom.com/peaceparty/top10bks.htm):
Submit a list of your favorite 10 works by or about Indians. I'll
combine the lists to give us the consensus "best" Native American
books.

A word of thanks to Victor Rocha at http://www.pechanga.net for
making PEACE PARTY the "Native American Web Site of the Week." Visit
his site for a huge amount of gaming and other Indian news.

Rob Schmidt
Blue Corn Comics