Nerds gear up! The creator of La Mano del Destino, J Gonzo, is in Hyderabad for all things comic related

The short answer is Spider-Man. I loved the Spider-Man cartoons and the live-action TV show in the late ’70s. When I saw the Spider-Man newspaper strip in the LA Times, I was instantly attracted to that art style; it was so different from all the other comic strips. My grandfather used to cut and save those for me. That Marvel ‘house style’ from the late ’70s, with its bold, graphic nature, the way figures were created with simple shapes and bold lines, really resonated with me.

A couple of moments solidified that ‘this’ was what I wanted to do. My family would buy me a lot of comic-related gifts, and Marvel put out a set of rubber stamps of their characters. Among them were Spider-Man, Thor, and a Jack Kirby-drawn Silver Surfer. I remember inking that up, stamping it down, and seeing that with just line and flat black shadow, he still looked metallic. In that moment, I decided I needed to figure out how to do that, how to put simple shapes and black lines down and still make something have dimension and dynamism.

Then, when I was about 10, a buddy and I were at a convenience store after skateboarding. He casually said, “Oh, I gotta grab my G.I. Joe comic.” I was surprised: ‘Comic books? They still make those?’ He handed me G.I. Joe (13th issue). I opened it, and it was a whole book full of that art style. It blew my mind! I thought, ‘People are still making these? I need to start making these.’ Shortly after, when Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird put out the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I realised that two guys could make comic books, not just huge corporations like Marvel or DC.

It was a slow process. When I first got into drawing comics, I was just emulating everything I saw, trying to draw the popular styles, like Arthur Adams, Michael Golden, or Todd McFarlane. I was putting down a lot of lines, trying to make myself a viable artist for someone who might hire me.

It wasn’t until I was out of art and design school, in the late ’90s, when I was trying to break into comic books, that things started to change. Having grown up with very ornate Mexican Catholic iconography, I started to put that ornamentation and little touches into my drawings. Initially, I did it just for fun, or because I thought it looked cool like a Day of the Dead calavera necklace on Wolverine.

It took me a while to realise that when you put your personality into your comic art, those are the things that resonate. When I would add Chicano and Mexican Catholic iconography, like Old English tattoo work or Latino ornamentation, I noticed that editors and other artists would respond to them. They would always hone in on those tiny touches and tell me how much they liked that. I thought maybe putting more of my personality into this is a good move. Ultimately, when it came time to do my own comic, that inclination took over.

I used to see luchadores in American movies, TV shows, and cartoons, and they were never wrestling heroes. I grew up with Lucha libre; luchadores felt personally heroic to me because they were Mexican wrestlers. As a Chicano kid, there was very little that was “for me,” so seeing luchadores felt like a part of my culture. Later in life, to see them becoming punchlines, jokes, hitmen, or bodyguards in American media, bummed me out.

I wanted to tell a story about Lucha libre. I set it in the 1960s, the heyday of the luchadores in Mexico, when figures like El Santo were making many movies a year. I wanted to craft a mythology that made sense of why Lucha libre was so vital, raising the stakes by making it an integral part of how society had formed in that world. I was able to marry this with the idea of masked warriors that had existed in Mesoamerica long before luchadores.

Setting it in the ’60s allowed me to reconnect with that classic Marvel house style I loved. This style was apropos for the setting and allowed me to touch on notions of heroics that differ from typical Western standards. Western heroism often focuses on who you are, while Mexican culture is often more obsessed with what you do. I was able to pull from Mesoamerican traditions that underscore that and use them allegorically. This also created a meta-commentary by appropriating the ‘Western white male power fantasy’ comics of the ’60s and ‘colour-shifting’ them into a more Chicano palette to comment on the nature of heroism. Above all, I just wanted to make it a dumb, fun, enjoyable comic that moves.

It was interesting, and a little scary. I did take a bit of a gamble. Image, the first “real” publisher I worked with, doesn’t really have editorial interference, so they don’t mess with the story or how I draw something. IDW was the first company to ask me to do something with established characters — Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles covers. The editor who hired me had read the collected edition of La Mano del Destino and wanted me to do a cover.

Near Christmas vacation, with a deadline looming, I sent them two thumbnails. One was safe — four turtles looking tough on a rooftop. The other was a Leonardo’s Day of the Dead skull version. I thought that since the guy hired me based on my very personal, Chicano comic, I should put a little more of myself into the Turtles. I also wanted to do something unique. I didn’t think they’d go for it, thinking it might be a bridge too far with Nickelodeon having to sign off.

I even inked and coloured the safer rooftop one just in case, to hit my deadline.

They liked the safer cover, but they absolutely loved the Day of the Dead sketch. They asked me to do all four. At that moment, I realised that people who have seen my very personal, Chicano work were hiring me to be me, not to execute what they had in their heads. So, when Marvel reached out after seeing the Turtle covers, they had me do a Ghost Rider cover that was also Day of the Dead themed.

It has just gotten better. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle covers were a real turning point for me. I thought it was going to be an argument, with me having to sell myself as an authority on Chicano culture, but they just accepted that I was speaking from a place of authenticity. That’s the real difference. Earlier in my career, the powers that be, might have been hesitant to be so ‘ethnic’ in representations. Now, they are much more willing to allow us to tell our own stories and trust that we know what we’re talking about. The conversations have gotten easier. I can say, ‘I’m going to do this very Chicano thing,’ and editors say, ‘Perfect, do it.’ As a kid who grew up without seeing any authentic representation of my culture in American pop culture, I never would have thought we’d get to a point where I’m allowed to draw a Marvel comic cover with a full-on Dia de los Muertos ofrenda, with papel picado and calaveras, and Marvel has zero notes. This compounding success has proven the validity of allowing these voices to be authentic and tell their stories.

The lack of monopoly is what excites me the most. While I know some people lament the end of Diamond and a single point of distribution, the writing has been on the wall. The crowd-funded ability to engage a creator directly with an audience is probably the biggest single change in comics in about 30 years. The more that comics empower independent voices, the better comics have always been.