WHO WERE THOSE MASKED MEXICANS? TALKING LUCHA LIBRE

[MattBrady]

by Steve Ekstrom

As Labor Day recedes into memory, comic book readers are privy to an unfortunate shipping delay of their weekly feast at local comic shops all over the United States. This Thursday, Image Comics presents a very strange and exotic new series that is less of an anthology and more of a “one stop shop” of Lucha Libre goodness—from the mind of Jerry Frissen and a bevy of talented artists.

That’s right, we said it, Lucha Libre goodness. You know, the masked wrestlers in the colorful costumes that wrestle each other in a frenetically paced, highly acrobatic, oftentimes octagonal shaped wrestling ring on Saturday nights on the Spanish channel on your television. Lucha Libre is a story about brave men donning Lucha Libre costumes to fight off the likes of werewolves and other monsters in the streets of East Los Angeles. The comic was originally published overseas by Humanoids, and now, arrives on American shores from Image.

Amidst all the chaos and high-risk wrestling, Newsarama sought out the minds behind Lucha Libre: Jerry Frissen and Bob Silva, to discuss life, liberty, and the pursuit of strangest, most original premise for an ongoing you’ve seen from Image Comics yet!

Newsarama: Tell us a little bit about the Lucha Libre anthology. All the stories are set in East Los Angeles, correct? Give us a little background on the characters that make up the Luchadores Five.

Jerry Frissen: Actually, no—only the Luchadores Five is set in East LA. The other stories are set in Mexico (Luchadoritos), the Pacific Ocean (Tikitis) and the Arizona desert (Tequila).

The Luchadores Five are a “gang” of five middle-aged men who decided to give their neighborhood back to its inhabitants – they star in the first issue. They’re Latino and they wear Lucha Libre masks. They consider themselves as heroes but people see them as big dorks. These guys decided to wear their masks and never take them off which is not an easy thing to do when people have no respect for what you do. They don’t want to use their real name anymore; they want to be called by their wrestling names King Karateca, Dr. Pantera, Diablo Loco, Red Demon and El Gladiator, their self-proclaimed leader. Without recognition, life isn’t always easy but they don’t care; they have a mission: saving the city from creatures that only they seem to believe are real.

NRAMA: Your interpretation of East Los Angeles is inhabited by bands of werewolves, Tiki warriors, sea monsters, spacemen, ninja cheerleaders, and masked wrestlers—that’s quite a lot of craziness. Are there normal humans living among all this chaos? Is East LA in constant turmoil?

JF: Well, for me, it’s just my vision of the city. There’s a lot of craziness but there’s also a lot of normal people living there.

Bob Silva: What I love about the universe Jerry has created is it’s a funnier and more realistic take on superheroes. Better yet, it takes an already existing archetype in the Luchador (Mexican Wrestler) to do so. Luchadores are the “Klingons” of Mexican Pop Culture. There’s a rich familial heritage and history to Mexican wrestling that rivals the histories of the Marvel or DC Universe. The only difference is that dude in the Klingon garb is a lot less likely to kick your ass!

NRAMA: Jerry, from a writer’s perspective, what is the key to keeping so many characters that are similar, distinctively different?

JF: I wanted to create a universe with a lot of different characters. When I’m writing, I can’t help it; I’m constantly creating new characters. I like giving them a life, friends, family, enemies. They all know each other from different places. I’m trying to keep all these things coherent. I'm more interested in people who love superheroes than superheroes themselves. Lucha Libre is about people I see in comic conventions, dressed as their favorite hero—the “Trekkie” kinds of guys. I'm fascinated by these people dressed as Klingons at every comic-con I go to. When the day is over, they don't go back to their spaceship—they go back to their wife and kids; their jobs; their money problems; etc. But I don't want to make fun of them. My characters are people who decided to become heroes; they wear masks and try to do some good for their city. They are a mix of great inspiration and courage but also selfishness and cowardice. They're okay facing danger; but, if there's a way to avoid being hit, they'll choose that way. They're human, I guess—I respect that.

NRAMA: Where did the concept originate? How have things changed since the initial offering of the Luchadores Five?

JF: It originated in my small twisted brain. When I moved from Belgium to Los Angeles, I fell in love with the city and its diversity—the Lucha Libre universe is my vision of that diversity. You can walk for an hour and cross so many different faces, races, neighborhoods, etc. It's a permanent mix of cultures—that was my main influence behind Lucha Libre. The concept evolved with artists, they all gave their own take on everything.

BS: Jerry fails to mention how it really started. His car stereo was stolen. Why? I don’t know; it was an average car with an average stereo. But for some silly reason, some idiot decided to break into Jerry’s car and steal his car stereo.

The feeling of violation that came from that led Jerry to primal fantasies of wearing a Luchador mask and beating the living crap out of the guy who stole his radio—and if you’ve ever met Jerry in person, you could easily imagine such a fantasy becoming a reality! Taking that fantasy one step further, he envisioned the burglar as a dude dressed in the classic Universal Wolf Man costume.

So there’s a glimpse into the frenetic mind of Jerry Frissen the “auteur. I’m jealous; all I ever dream about is failing high school final exams….and I’m 29!

NRAMA: Muttpop also has designer toys for the Luchadores Five—how successfully have these 2-Dimensional characters translated to actual physical representations?

BS: You tell me. I’m damned proud of the translation. Jerry and I have been working together on various projects for over 5 years. When he first shared his vision of the Luchadores Five with me I was only mildly interested. Then, I saw Bill’s first comic page and I was blown away. Everything just clicked. The humor, the grittiness of the city, the amazing masks designs—it was magic in the making and I wanted to have a part in it!

I schemed my way into convincing Jerry to do a line of designer toys based on these characters. I’d been following the designer toy industry for some time and saw this as an excellent opportunity to become a part of the Lucha Libre family.

Ironically, we ended up coming out with the toy line before the comics. Since December of 2005, we have released 3 figures (Tequila, El Panda, and Red Demon). We have one more coming out in 2007 (Dr. Destruction) and plenty more to come.

We quickly established our nice little niche in the designer toy industry. Tequila is completely sold out. Almost every version of El Panda is sold out. And Red Demon sales have been our best yet.

Better yet, this has all happened before even a page of the English comic has been published! We’re super excited to give fans and new comic readers a fuller view of the Lucha Libre universe through the comics.

NRAMA: Muttpop also has cinematic ambitions concerning the Lucha Libre anthology—care to elaborate on that, Bob?

BS: Sure—at nearly the same time that we were developing the figures, Jerry and I decided to find a way to translate the Luchadores Five and Tequila into a live action film.

Initially, we were thinking of doing a 10 minute short; but quickly realized, for all of the work involved, we might as well strive to put together a feature length film. Around that time, we hooked up with Adrian Cruz and Mike Olmos and started developing ideas for a live action feature. After our first few initial drafts, we ended up meeting up with Producer Pierre Spengler who was a producer on the Christopher Reeves’ “Superman” films.

Now, we have a finished script for the project. Adrian and Mike’s wonderful first film Splinter is coming out on DVD in a few weeks. Spengler is currently gathering financing for the film.

Filming on the Luchadores Five is scheduled to start early 2008.

NRAMA: Jerry, are there ever any difficulties in writing these characters? Do you ever encounter any obstacles creatively?

JF: Well, so far so good…but sometimes, I’m stuck because of my own idea. I’m writing about a character and I suddenly realize that I’m wrong because I’ve mentioned something about his past already in another story. It happens all the time actually. I also have to write all the time just to be sure I’m not forgetting anything. I’m afraid if I take some vacations at some point, I’ll be completely lost.

NRAMA: Bob, tell us a little bit about all the talented artists you have onboard for the Lucha Libre anthology.

BS: It’s not really an anthology. Since Jerry writes everything and the different series are in the same universe…it’s more of a one-stop shop for the Lucha Libre comics.

Bill, artist of Luchadores5, is a machine. His line work is calculated and perfect. I’ve never seen a better iteration of Los Angeles than the one he’s created.

Witko, artist of Profesor Furia, is a psycho. His line work is manic yet classic. No other artist is better suited to draw the vile things Jerry comes up with for that strip.

Tanquerelle, artist of Luchadoritos, is ‘the Kid’ as in “Billy the Kid”—there’s a whimsical mix of innocence and deviousness in his artwork.

Gobi, artist of Tequila (begins issue #2), is a beast. He’s a monster when it comes to character design and his pages are filled with tons of energy.

Fabien, artist of Tikitis (begins in issue #3), is the ‘Mr. Nice Guy’. Fabien SEEMS normal but when you see the characters that come from his mind, you’d swear he’s on something.

We’ll also have tons of super-talented guests doing one-off stories but that’s the spine of our team!

NRAMA: Does your project have any underlying social commentary about the existing Hispanic/ Latino subculture in the United States and how an ethnic group relates to western popular culture?

JF: Yes and no. When I wrote the first story, I got a lot of comments about how right I was about Latino culture and Latino living. It came as a surprise since I thought a lot about myself back in Europe when I was writing. My characters are Latinos—but before being Latinos—they’re human. Everybody from any race knows what it feels like to not have a job; walking the streets wondering what to do; or dreaming of being what we’re not.

NRAMA: To close, what else can fans of the Lucha Libre series expect to see from Muttpop in the new future? Are there any other projects you can hint at that are in development?

BS: Just a continuing supply of wonderful comics and toys. We’re going to focus all of our energy on the Lucha Libre universe and see where it takes us!

[Derek Ruiz]

This is extremely awesome.

[saiyanspider]

I have to say Image comics has gotten me interested in comics again. I been looking forward to this book since I heard about it, and looking at their site the other day there is a bunch of stuff I'm looking forward to. This being one of them. I love the art style!

[Kid Devil]

Love the art. Definitely going to check this out.

[gazillion]

Yeah i agree. This looks freakin great. I'm there

[BanMan]

I'm all over this!

[astronato]

Looks great. Can't wait to read it.

[razorwing77]

I had not heard of this project. Looks awesome! Kudos to Newsarama for the interview.

[DCJosh]

the artwork is so...awesome.....

gonna have to check this stuff out

[tater_nuts]

That looks awesome! I'll be picking it up!

[shwa96]

You know, it's really kind of sad. Independent companies (and as someone pointed out in this thread, Image especially) really are putting out some good work these days. Yet, if you look at the sales numbers that just came out, you have to go to 97 before you come to an Image book, and that's an Image/Marvel crossover.

I mean, I realize that humans are creatures of habit, and everyone has their pull list and their budget. You can't try something new without dropping something else, and you have every issue of Batman from the last 10 years, so how could you not buy it? I get that. But seriously...people need to branch out. Just set aside like $6 or $7 a week to buy something that doesn't have a Marvel or DC stamp on it. If everyone did that, maybe you wouldn't have 20 companies fighting over the 15% of the market that the other two leave behind.

And maybe you'd find something that would surprise you.

Anyway, I'll stop ranting now.

[archangel]

Like the concept, but...

The main story of the five Lucha Libre L.A. wreatlers sound's like a copy of the "Number Brothers" Lucha Libre wrestlers form "ANGEL" the TV series.

or is it just me?

[FIG]

Hooray for stereotypes because you know if you are mexican, you watch mexican wrestling and live in East L.A.. At least according to a guy from Belgium. If this was from a mexican, I'd be inclined to be excited but since I know its not, it comes off wrong and I say this as a mexican person. Also, I never complain about racism but enough is enough you know?

[Iron Surfer]

Originally Posted by FIG

Hooray for stereotypes because you know if you are mexican, you watch mexican wrestling and live in East L.A.. At least according to a guy from Belgium. If this was from a mexican, I'd be inclined to be excited but since I know its not, it comes off wrong and I say this as a mexican person. Also, I never complain about racism but enough is enough you know?

WTF? I don't find that offensive.

[marioboon]

Originally Posted by FIG

Hooray for stereotypes because you know if you are mexican, you watch mexican wrestling and live in East L.A.. At least according to a guy from Belgium. If this was from a mexican, I'd be inclined to be excited but since I know its not, it comes off wrong and I say this as a mexican person. Also, I never complain about racism but enough is enough you know?

At least their hero isn't a sleeping, lazy Mexican with a sombrero...

And isn't a very popular crime vigilante not a guy dressed up as a Luchadore?
isn't one of the biggest comics in Mexico not based on a very racist stereotype? Memin Pinguin, hmm? So I really don't think you should comment too much on this matter.

[baggo]

Originally Posted by FIG

Hooray for stereotypes because you know if you are mexican, you watch mexican wrestling and live in East L.A.. At least according to a guy from Belgium. If this was from a mexican, I'd be inclined to be excited but since I know its not, it comes off wrong and I say this as a mexican person. Also, I never complain about racism but enough is enough you know?

I'm Mexican (Live in Guadalajara), I can't see how this is racism. If they drink tequila and listen to mariachi would you find that offensive too? it's a stereotype, it's no different than the way DC's portrayed Supergirl as a blonde high school bimbo the last couple of years, and I don't find that offensive or racist in any way (awful use of cool character, though).

Even though I don't watch lucha libre I respect the legend of "El Santo" and "Blue Demon" and found the folklore that surrounds it, very funny and surreal (as everything is in Mexico).

To Archangel, it really does seem like that episode of Angel, lets see if it's any different that the basic premise.

I just hope this comic book does not end up like the movie "Nacho Libre" that would offend me not as a Mexican but as a human being.

[Cosmo]

Originally Posted by FIG

At least according to a guy from Belgium.

Are you a racist?

[FIG]

Originally Posted by Cosmo

Are you a racist?

Not in the least, I rent out a room in my house to a cool korean guy. Also, I am not portraying Belgium people in any stereotypical way in a comic. I am simply saying that this will seem offensive to some (me included) just as Carlos Mencia, who is not a mexican, also claims to be and makes fun of mexican people on his lame show when hes truly not mexican. I mean come on, using the whole mexican wrestling angle on mexican characters who happen to live in East L.A. especially when the creator is from Belgium pegs him as a possible racist. Now I am not saying he is but its highly possible he is. Just because I am mexican does not mean I watch mexican wrestling, pick strawberries, live in a violent, gang-ridden neighborhood like East L.A. or belong to a gang. There are those of us who are mexican who have money and do not like stereotypes and it is our right to come out and say that enough is enough. This comic uses stereotypes any way you dice it. Nice try though. I will say though that the art is nice but I would never drop one penny on product like this. Part of being a creator means you have to be responsible for your imagery.

[Cosmo]

Originally Posted by FIG

Not in the least, I rent out a room in my house to a cool korean guy. Also, I am not portraying Belgium people in any stereotypical way in a comic. Just saying that this will seem offensive to some (me included) just as Carlos Mencia, who is not a mexican, also claims to be and makes fun of mexican people when hes truly not. I mean come on, using the whole mexican wrestling angle on mexican characters who happen to live in East L.A. especially when the creator is from Belgium is totally a STEREOTYPE and if you cannot see it, then you are blind. Just because I am mexican does not mean I watch mexican wrestling, pick strawberries, live in a violent, gang-ridden neighborhood like East L.A. or belong to a gang. This comic plays on stereotypes any way you dice it. Nice try though.

Yeah, what you don't like it's the origin of the guy. He knows less because he's just a Belgian. No, you're not a racist, you're like Larry Craig who's not gay.

[TheFinn1225]

don't forget to check out the Metal Hurlant stories.

[FIG]

Originally Posted by Cosmo

Yeah, what you don't like it's the origin of the guy. He knows less because he's just a Belgian. No, you're not a racist, you're like Larry Craig who's not gay.

Hahahaha, like I take some homophobic anonymous coward with a screename called "Cosmo" seriously. Be a man and show yourself or shut up. Since you cannot debate you clearly have to resort to insults. This comic is stereotypical because the message is that mexicans watch mexican wrestling and live in crime ridden areas like East L.A. and this is amplified by the fact that its creator is not even mexican but rather from Belgium. Its obvious to everyone that this comic is betting on stereotypes to be successful any way you dice it, like it or not. The message is skewed even if the art is nice which means I am going to pass. Sucks to be myopic for you doesn't it?

[sikokun]

Racist???

Luchalibre isn't part of Mexican culture? L.A. doesn't have a large population of Mexicans?

Stop being so over-sensitive and give the book a chance. Seems like some people just hate the fact that a non mexican is writing a book about mexicans. Considering about 70% (if not more) of the people that buy comics are white, I'd be happy just to have one (let alone more then 5) mexican character(s) the focus of a book at all.

All the artwork is absolutely AMAZING and the story sounds fun. I'll defiantly be checking this series out. I like the cartoony style.

shwa96

You are so on the money about independents. Especially since most of those books from the big two can be purchased later, sometimes cheaper then when they first drop! lol.

Everyone should at least give the independent section at their local comic shop a once over, whenever doing their weekly/monthly pick-ups. You'd be surprised the gems you'll find.

[Fuzman]

Originally Posted by archangel

Like the concept, but...

The main story of the five Lucha Libre L.A. wreatlers sound's like a copy of the "Number Brothers" Lucha Libre wrestlers form "ANGEL" the TV series.

or is it just me?

You are completely right. I don't this this is a "totally out of his head" idea. He ripped this off from Angel.

[FIG]

Originally Posted by sikokun

Racist???

Luchalibre isn't part of Mexican culture? L.A. doesn't have a large population of Mexicans?

Stop being so over-sensitive and give the book a chance. Seems like some people just hate the fact that a non mexican is writing a book about mexicans. Considering about 70% (if not more) of the people that buy comics are white, I'd be happy just to have one (let alone more then 5) mexican character(s) the focus of a book at all.

All the artwork is absolutely AMAZING and the story sounds fun. I'll defiantly be checking this series out. I like the cartoony style.

Spoken like a true non-mexican. Might as well have a title lampooning white people who live in trailer parks and drink beer while having sex with their cousins and dogs. Your excuse is sad and your arguement cannot stand on its legs. "Don't be so overly sensitive!" Sounds like its easy for you to say this because you aren't mexican. Good for you that you're buying prejudiced crap, keep the stereotypes alive all you want. Like I said the art is nice but the concept is step backwards, not forwards. Time for this belgian creator to realize he may be a closet racist and that just because he thinks his lame idea is harmless, it actually is not an can and will be inflammatory to others. I dare you to tell him to try and pedal his comic in East L.A. and show the very people hes lampooning what they think about his lame stereotypes. He'd most likely get his dumb ass kicked.