Accidental Ambassador Gordo: The Comic Strip Art of Gus Arriola (Studies in Popular Culture)

This is a delightful book! Lovely biography AND by samples fromseveral years of this marvelous strip,we see Pepito grow up. Also, some "Gordo Gossip"...I didn't know that Tehuana Mama (Gordo's housekeeper...she's one of my favorite characters)had been married 5 times! Oh, how I loved Arriola's "Gordo," andlooked forward to reading it every day. It was a huge part of mychildhood. Marvelous characters...Poet and Poosy Gato and Coronadoreally rang my bells. This strip wasn't childish...Gus did not"talk down" to us kids. I loved it all. And I deeply appreciatethis book. But I do wish there were more strips!

...I remember liking this strip as a teenager. But, now, after years of experience, I'm turned off by the so-called Mexican accents the characters use--the accents seem racist in that they seem to highlight the racist view that Mexicans are ignorant. The art is phenomenal, but that doesn't carry the whole approach to these comic strip characters, which now doesn't work for me.

I grew up with Gus Arriola cartoons. Every year my mother posted the "full moon cartoon". It showed the full moons for the coming year. When Mr. Arriola retired I wrote to him to tell him what joy his cartoons brought. I got a postcard with a personal note thanking me for my letter. This book was so well written and so true.

Just tripping down memory lane.

He didn't get enough credit, I grew up on his cartoon in the Chronicle