El hombre de negro, by Helioflores

Helioflores is one of the greatest Mexican cartoonists of all time. At the end of the turbulent year of 1968, the master from Veracruz gave life to one of the most eccentric and obscure characters in Mexican cartoons: the Man in Black. He appeared in the first issue of La Garrapata. El azote de los bueyes, a fortnightly magazine founded by the legendary Eduardo del Río “Rius”, Rogelio Naranjo, AB and Helioflores himself. A group of great masters of critical journalism, promoters of political analysis, distinguished by their extraordinary sense of humour and surprising graphic intuition.

El hombre de negro is perhaps the best example of this ingenious exercise in radical criticism at a time of censorship and repression. Few works in the history of Mexican caricature highlight so much neographic experimentation, in balance with poetic and political forcefulness, as El hombre de negro throughout all its episodes. To confirm this, it is enough to leaf through any of the chapters of this dark character, who faces hardship and the abuse of authority, while assuming all the virtues and misfortunes of a cartoon character.

Alias presents a compilation of more than ninety comic strips produced between 1968 and 2018, making it the most complete collection ever published on this enigmatic character. This edition, with a foreword by Helio Flores himself, completes the tribute that Alias pays to the master after the publication of Helioflores. Nuestra democracia, a volume of 246 cartoons that traces a journey through more than five decades of political events in Mexico and the world.