The Beast in the Beauty

On David Cantero’s Boxing Julián

This time in spanishgayfiction.blogspot.com we present quite a disturbing experience: a 2008 comic book dealing with the most ultra-violent homophobia.

In the first pages we find Julián, a promising small town boxer achieving an easy victory in a fight; when in the locker room, he is praised by Paco, his boxing trainer, and Lola, his sexy fiancée. When they leave Julián alone, he cannot help jacking off by looking his magnificent nakedness over closely; after this, Julián punches the wall furiously: it means the first indication for the reader that there is something about Julián.

Paco decides to hire the services of Benjamín, Ben; a hot, blond, angel-faced physical therapist. All of a sudden, Julián shows an unexpected rough-and-tumble towards the boy, trying to hide (or should I say making clear instead?) a powerful sexual attraction. From the very beginning Julián wants to leave proof of his discomfort: he likes neither queer nor sassy people who would ever dare to contradict him. Paco will need to mediate so that Ben does not quit promptly after an abrupt, vehement outburst from his protegé. . .resulting in Ben exhibiting his mouth-watering chest after Julián stretched the gorgeous therapist’s tank top.

Lola pays a visit to her man at the gym; the moment she lays her eyes on Ben she openly claims that the cutie is really stunning. Immediately afterwards, Julián calls her bitch and menaces her. After this, he pushes Lola to the restroom, and there he fiercely attempts anal sex ― vainly: Ben is in his mind, so Julián loses his erection. Lola meekly tries to give him a blowjob, but Julián’s reaction is hitting her hard.

After a massage session, Julián asks Ben whether he is a fag; Ben avoids the question. (As a matter of fact, Ben’s sexuality may be the biggest mystery of the comic book.) Later, Julián jokingly encourages Ben to give him a blowjob, but Ben leaves the room all annoyed ― has Ben got tempted to do it, at least for one second?

During a fight, our cocky boxer remembers how his father used to attack him physically and verbally when he was a weepy child; his father justified himself by saying that he hated pussies, and he told his harassed sonny to have big balls to face life. At the end, Julián gives his opponent a cruel beating, and Paco threatens to leave: Julián has to stop fighting that dirty in the ring, since he has been about to finish his rival off.

In the middle of the subsequent massage, Julián bitterly tells Ben to go away: he does not want Ben to see that he has cummed all over himself while Ben was squeezing him.

Through another journey to the past, we see that Julián was witness to his mother’s dying at his father’s hands. Young Julián took hold of his savage daddy’s gun ― he was a policeman ―and shot him. This memory heavily seizes Julián while having sex with Lola, to the point of almost choking her to death. When Lola gets over, Julián apologizes groaningly and tearfully; Lola, mad about her macho, forgives his bad manners.

The time of the final combat is coming, and the prize money will do Julián good for the upcoming wedding ceremony. He keeps teasing Ben with insults such as queer. Like Lola, Ben also forgives and keeps a submissive attitude towards the ferocious fighter.

Julián eventually wins the fight, and they all go out partying. In the disco, Lola asks the psyched-up victor to stop drinking, as it turns him aggressive. Julián tells her to leave with Paco, and Ben promises Lola that he will help Julián be back home safe and sound. At the wee hours of the night, on their way out, Julián gets audacious sneakily and lewdly: he beats and assaults Ben in a dark, lonely place.

The ending of this dreadful story is just terrible. Lola, oblivious to what is happening around her, is making the guest list for their wedding, and she suggests her betrothed to invite Ben. Julián flatly refuses, basing his resolution on Ben’s ultimately leaving him high and dry. The image of a bruised, wounded Ben walking down the street and exchanging glances from a distance with a sinister (and defiant) Julián puts a terrifying end to this troubling story.

No doubt this is a significant story about homophobia and violence, depicted by Cantero in a brutally visceral way. His illustrations are as attractive as disgusting, leading to a flawless portrait of Julián’s double identity: a bewitching object of desire on the outside / a frightening demon on the inside. We find particularly worthy of the most enthusiastic praise the pages concerning Julián’s recalls about his shady past (his monstrous father; his miserable, dummy-like mother); there, red, black and a blazing white are the cardinal, over-suggestive colors to show the ultimate horror.

The design of the main characters is also creditable; the contrast between the pair of hot men, the shiny Ben and the shadowy Julián, smoothly reveals the central conflict of the story. Regarding the details, the tattoo that Julián shows on his arm ― the name of his girl on a bleeding heart pierced by a sword ― is too meaningful about Julián’s darkest instinct, Lola’s cursed fate, and the comic book’s overwhelming lesson: Violence begets violence. In sum, a provocative work of art.

My Funny Medicine Man

On José Carlos Andrés & Natalia Hernández’s Mi papá es un payaso / My Dad Is a Clown

This time in spanishgayfiction.blogspot.com we are happy to take into consideration a range of audience that we have disregarded so far: the children.

This delicious bilingual book published in 2013 tells the story of a little boy and his two fathers. The one is a doctor, and the other is a clown. They have explained the child that they two are really important to society: the one heals the body, and the other heals the soul.

The boy is still too young to be sure of what he wants to be when he grows up. He first ponders on becoming a spy, and persuades his Daddy Doctor to tail Daddy Clown just for one day. This way, the boy will find out the huge effort that Daddy Clown needs to make so as to result in an excellent work. He spends a lot of time working out in the gym, and that is just for starters; later in the theater, hours of rehearsal to tweak his performing arts. Andrés highlights a professional clown’s hard training: long sessions of practicing to make his gags perfect and get the audience’s loudest guffaw.

Enthusiastic about Daddy Clown’s job, the little boy has resolved that when he grows up he will be a doctor wearing a red sponge clown nose, making doctor visits fun so that kids may get rid of their usual apprehension. This final choice, the blending between medicine and comedy, can just be taken as a fine example of the 1^st class moral, human, altruistic values that parents—whether straight or gay—could use to raise their children.

José Carlos Andrés portrays an affectionate same-sex parenting family with no particular trouble regarding social inclusion; also the boy—or any of his classmates—does not feel odd at all about having two fathers instead of the traditional father-and-mother pattern. We certainly know that we are dealing with a book for children: straightforwardness is supposed to be the name of the game, and things must be presented in a mild, agreeable way—that would be a simple reading to us. In fact, we believe that this book is the perfect illustration of one of the greatest achievements of our time: a homosexual couple raising a child is not viewed as a problem in an urban society in a developed country, so there is no need to demonstrate, persuade, convince, or argue about. Things seem definitely okay.

As is often the case with children’s literature, this charming story is illustrated, with sweet, rare, loving cartoonish pictures by artist Natalia Hernández.