Manuel Martínez Nazario Collection of Puerto Ricans in the World of Comics

1950s-2022

Manuel Martínez Nazario was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He received his Masters in Library Science from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, where he has worked as a librarian since 1995. As of 2023, he serves as the Chief Librarian for the Circulating & Reserves Collection and the Film Collection.

Martínez Nazario's passion for comic books was sparked while growing up between New York City and Puerto Rico. During the 1990s, Martínez Nazario began amassing a personal collection of comic books published in Puerto Rico, written, drawn, or edited by Puerto Ricans, featuring Puerto Rican characters, or about Puerto Rico. By 2022, when he donated the collection to The New York Public Library, it included over 1,400 comics published from the 1950s to the present and representing hundreds of Puerto Rican creators. Through his collecting practices, Martínez Nazario has sought to document the presence and legacy of Puerto Ricans in the comic book industries of Puerto Rico and the continental United States. Since 2019 Martínez Nazario has organized the Feria de Cómics de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, a semiannual comic book fair held at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras that showcases the work of local creators, writers, and artists.

Martínez Nazario is also a scholarly expert on the significance and legacy of Puerto Rican comic books. His Master's thesis, Los cómics de superhéroes en la Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras: Un enfoque bibliotecológico, focused on the presence of comic books about superheroes at his university's library. He curated an online exhibition related to his collection in 2020, has appeared on podcasts and in interviews with national and local media, and has authored publications on the topic.

The collection that Manuel Martínez Nazario has created documents and reflects the almost century-long history of Puerto Ricans in comics.

The earliest Puerto Rican comics creators worked in the United States comic book industry during the 1940s, before the establishment of an industry on the island. New York City-based pulp artist Alex Schomburg, whose work does not feature in the collection, was one of the first Puerto Ricans to work in American comics, having illustrated covers for Timely Comics (the predecessor to Marvel Comics) from 1940 to 1946. At Timely, Schomburg drew such popular characters as Captain America, Namor the Sub-Mariner, and the Human Torch, and was one of the publisher's go-to cover artists during the era. Ruben Moreira, also based in New York City, drew several Fiction House titles in the early 1940s before taking over writing and art duties for the Tarzan Sunday strip in 1945. Moreira went on to create the character Roy Raymond for DC Comics in 1949, and penciled and inked other DC titles including Western Comics, House of Mystery, and House of Secrets. The collection contains only two comics of Moreira's early work, a reprint of a Western Comics story in Johnny Thunder, and an issue of House of Mystery.

Another stateside artist, Ernie Colón, began his career in 1955 inking backgrounds for the Joe Palooka newspaper strip before moving to Harvey Comics, where he penciled many of its children's series, notably Richie Rich and Casper the Friendly Ghost. Colón created the character Amethyst for DC, drew the original run of Damage Control for Marvel, and produced two comics about the September 11th attacks with writer Sid Jacobson. Colón is well-represented in the collection, particularly his Marvel work from the 1970s to the early 1990s.

Martínez Nazario's collection holds titles created by some of the best-known and most successful Puerto Rican comics artists, including George Pérez, whose career took off at Marvel in the 1970s with his multi-year work on The Avengers and Fantastic Four. While at Marvel in 1975, Pérez co-created White Tiger (Hector Ayala), the first Puerto Rican and Hispanic protagonist in mainstream comics. Later, at DC Comics, Pérez penciled The New Teen Titans, and wrote and penciled the 1987 relaunch of Wonder Woman. Other Puerto Rican artists who have drawn for DC and Marvel include Mark Texeira, José Marzán Jr., Kenneth Rocafort, Joe Quiñones, Chris Sotomayor, Wilfredo Torres, and Rags Morales.

The collection also documents the earliest years of comic book production in Puerto Rico itself. While Puerto Rican newspapers published comic strips as early as the 1920s, the island's comic book industry began in 1960, when artist Ismael Rodríguez Báez was commissioned to draw educational comics for various government agencies. From the 1960s to the 1990s, Rodríguez Báez produced dozens of these comics on topics such as voting, local history, and travel. His government-commissioned comics, featured in the collection, differ from later mainstream commercial titles in tone, illustration, and subject.

Puerto Rico's independent scene took hold in the 1980s and 1990s, and is heavily documented in Martínez Nazario's collection. José "Pepe" Vázquez's Ventana, debuting in 1985, featured the first Puerto Rican superhero published in a comic on the island. Vázquez also conceived the adult anthology series Voodoo Ink in 1991, which became the first internationally distributed Puerto Rican comic. In 1986, Javier Martínez and Pedro Cortés published Mundo Comics, an anthology that highlighted the work of numerous artists and writers. Other Puerto Rico-based creators who began their careers during this era include Dave Álvarez (Changay, Yenny); Martín Gaudier (Perrera Comics); and John Rivas (Bonzzo). Art studios arose throughout the 1990s, many of which produced comics influenced by American superheroes from the continental United States. Several comic book stores opened during the 1990s and aided distribution on the island as well.

Martínez Nazario has collected comics that honor the island's Indigenous communities and legacies. Turey el Taíno, by writer-artist Ricardo Álvarez Rivón, is among the best-known Puerto Rican comics. Debuting in 1989, the series follows the exploits of a Taíno man in 1490, and showcases Taíno culture before European colonization of the Americas. Turey el Taíno's popularity has inspired licensed educational materials featuring the titular character published both in and outside of Puerto Rico.

Since the 2000s, a number of independent presses and publications have emerged on the island, aided by computer drawing programs and increased distribution through the Internet. Soda Pop Comics, formed in 2007 by Rosa Colón and Carla Rodríguez, is the first female-run studio in Puerto Rico, producing both print material and webcomics about contemporary Puerto Rican life; Colón and Rodríguez also founded the Tintero comics festival in 2014. Xpin-Off Creative Group, Razor Blade Apple Studios, and Silver Island Studios emerged during this time, while independent releases such as Rosaura Rodríguez and Omar Banuchi's Días, Miguel Ángel Sanjurjo's Jíbaro samuraí, and Pernicious Press' Nocivo Comix have garnered widespread recognition.

A few Puerto Rican comics characters introduced in the 2010s have gained popularity with the wider public. Miles Morales, an Afro-Puerto Rican Spider-Man, debuted in 2011 and was the protagonist of the film, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Another Marvel character, America Chavez, debuted in 2011 and was featured in the film, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness; Puerto Rican author Gabby Rivera wrote a 2016 to 2017 series starring Chavez. These titles are well-represented in the collection.

Since the 2010s, creators have tackled the political, social, and environmental challenges facing Puerto Rico. In 2016, writer Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez launched the series, La Borinqueña, about an Afro-Puerto Rican superhero who confronts economic, sociopolitical, and environmental issues. Miranda-Rodriguez also spearheaded the 2018 anthology, Ricanstruction: Reminiscing & Rebuilding Puerto Rico, which raised funds for the island after Hurricane Maria. A similar book published the same year, Puerto Rico Strong, features the work of Vita Ayala, Sabrina Cintron, Eliana Falcón-Dvorsky, Naomi Franquiz, Ronnie García, and others. All three of these works have received international media attention, and are included in the collection.

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Bibliography:

Fuentes, Ángel. "Investigación sobre los cómics en Puerto Rico." La revista latinoamericana de estudios sobre la historieta 8, no. 32 (December 2008): 185–206. http://rlesh.mogno.com/pdf/RLESH_32.pdf.

Martínez Nazario, Manuel. "La carencia de cómics en las bibliotecas universitarias: Estudio de caso del Sistema de Bibliotecas de la Universidad de Puerto Rico." Biblios Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, (59), 55–63 (2015). https://doi.org/10.5195/biblios.2015.205

"Sembrando la novela gráfica en Puerto Rico." Diálogo, June 20, 2010. https://dialogo.upr.edu/sembrando-la-novela-grafica-en-puerto-rico-2/.

Taboas, Gabriela. "Voodoo Ink and the Future of Puerto Rican Comics." Her Campus, September 21, 2014. https://www.hercampus.com/school/upr/voodoo-ink-and-future-puerto-rican-comics/.