illustrator: Raúl the Third (González)
Chronicle Books (2016)
grades 4-up
Mexican
American
Take any of your
favorite Rocky and Bullwinkle’s “Fractured Fairy Tales,” add some random
Saturday morning cartoons and a scene or two from Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern
Times,” and toss in some Cantínflas, a little “El Chavo del Ocho,” and a telenovela
played at double-speed. What you get doesn’t even approximate Cathy Camper’s
and Raúl the Third’s high-octane, hyperbolic, over-the-top punny graphic novel
for children and everyone else, Lowriders
to the Center of the Earth.
In Camper’s and
González’s first collaboration, Lowriders
in Space, our three amigos—Lupe Impala (ace mechanic extraordinaire), El
Chavo Flapjack Octopus (the washcloth-wielding dynamo), and Elirio Malaría (the
prime detailer with a bill as steady as a surgeon’s hand)—rebuilt their wreck
of a Chevy (“so slow it didn’t even go”) into a lowrider (“the most
mechanically inventive, exquisitely detailed car in the universe, with powers
gleaned from the galaxy!”) and won the (literally) Universal Car Contest. With
the prize money, they were able to buy their own garage, “Bajito y Suavecito,” and
became independent from their tyrannical boss. But. At the end of this first
volume, their beloved gatito, Genie, frightened by several earthquakes, has disappeared,
and Flappy (and the rest of us) see another giant adventure on the horizon….
The
three amigos’ adventures continue in Lowriders
to the Center of the Earth, just after Genie has gone missing. Gone is
Genie, who loved it when Flappy sang to him. Gone is Genie, who purred
soniditos while Elirio painted. Gone is Genie, who kneaded tortillas on Lupe’s
belly until she fell asleep. So the three amigos get into their retro-nuevo super-ranfla—bajito
y suavecito—and, following the trail of gatito paw prints, embark on the
mero-mero of all road trips.
Their
first encounter is a bad-guy character based in contemporary reality. He is the
amigos’ “guide,” the serape- and sombrero-wearing Coyote, who looks somewhat
like the “Big Bad Wolf” of Saturday morning cartoons—and who confuses the
amigos and leaves them stranded in the desert, as do many of the human
smugglers (“coyotes”) hired by desperate people attempting to cross over from
Mexico and Central America.
After
having been deserted by Coyote, the amigos follow the lead of a colony of bats,
journey through a gigantic maíz maze, cross the railroad tracks, traverse a
field of boulders, and head into a huge volcano. They encounter, among others:
the fearsome ghost, La Llorona (who, they say, wanders the Earth, crying,
“¿Dónde están mis bebés?” and grabs up children to replace her own), whom
Camper and González have morphed into a sad kitty-cat with great big anime eyes
that rain great big blue tears all over her umbrella-patterned dress. And El
Chupacabra, the dog-like monster who feeds mainly on the blood of goats and
other livestock, appears to have a special taste for Lupe (who is, after all, a
ruminant mammal).
But
the main bad guy—even worse than Coyote—is Mictlantecuhtli, the hulking,
spine-chilling Aztec god—who captures creatures in his great corn maze and
forces them to inhabit Mictlan. Here, he becomes el mero-mero, the rudo of all
rudos in the Realm of the Dead’s lucha libre ring, swiftly transforming all who
dare challenge him into piles of skeletons and whose eyeballs he wears around
his neck. In a super-bout that challenges the very lives of los téchnicos Lupe,
Flappy and Elirio (not to mention Genie)—their combined technical skills and
brainpower, deep affection for each other, and ability to work as a team make
for the emotionally best, most satisfying (and kind of unexpected) lucha libre
finale ever (followed by a huge Día de los Muertos pachanga, in which La
Llorona sings the beautiful, heart-rending ballad, “Cielito Lindo”).
Written in
English with over-the-top puns and other wordplays and illustrations that
effortlessly and appropriately incorporate Spanish and Caló, both the first and
second titles ingeniously hold the attention of adults and are way silly enough
to attract reluctant readers.
A few from Lowriders to the Center of the Earth,
including this “knock-knock” encuentro:
Lupe: “Have you
seen our cat?”
Coyote:
“Knock-knock.”
Lupe: “Who’s
there?”
Coyote: “Señor.”
Lupe: “Señor
who?”
Coyote: “Señor
gato? I don’t think so.”
Then there are Flappy’s
malapropisms; here, the names for rock formations—“big dumb ignoramus rocks,” “sedentary rocks…like napping at the beach,” and one of my favorites,
and I hope one of yours, “metaphoric rocks,
the building blocks of poets everywhere”—which are accompanied by depictions of
their correct names (carved out of the giant rocks themselves) and ten-second
(at most) geology lessons about weathering and the erosion of rock formations.
There are also
short “units” about technology, such as the mechanics of a swamp cooler—“hecho
en un pantano”—and the wonders of electromagnetic coils, which, when combined
with hydraulics, become powerful enough to make the lowrider “hip and hop, dip
and drop,” freeing up the tires so the amigos can escape from the worst
monsters in the Underworld.
And, spoiler
alert: Genie’s rescue is super-special.
González’s art,
in traditional Chicana/o doodling form with the time-honored red, blue and
black Bic® pens (this time adding green) on what appears to be brown paper
grocery bags stained with coffee, uses cross-hatched, stamped and spiraled
patterns mixed with papel picado and other designs as they happen to occur
to him. A master doodler, González gives readers, in no particular order and
for no discernable reason, a bunch of fun things to look at. Here, for
instance, readers may find a hitchhiking Mexican Kilroy (yes, he was here), a
jackalope, a gnome, cuddly bears, Olmec heads that appear to be rudos, Cheech
and Chong, and a tiny raven among the crows (warning “nunca más”).
Although all of
his flat-out silly illustrations will appeal to hablantes and English-speakers alike,
González saves the most exciting, and by far, the most engaging ones for the
mega-bust up on the last few pages, which readers of all ages will want to
scrutinize over and over. González certainly ought to receive a Pura Belpré
Prize for Traditional Mexican Illustration.
In Lowriders to the Center of the Earth,
Camper and González ramp up their hyper-silliness to the level of a Roadrunner
cartoon. Something goes wrong, the three amigos fall off a cliff, and the next
thing is they’re having yet another adventure. I look forward to seeing the
next in this series, maybe a prequel. Who are the three amigos and how did this
inter-species trio get together? We know that Lupe, who runs the show, is an
adult. And zoot-suit-wearing Elirio is probably a young man. Flappy, al otro mano,
is less mature and the others look out for him. Is he a child or just
childlike? Are they all roomies or is there a deeper relationship, sort of like
with Bert and Ernie? Will we ever find out?
As in their
first collaboration, Camper’s hilarious story and González’s ultra-detailed
artwork encourage children to develop their imaginations and appropriate
suspension of disbelief. Chicana/o children in particular, besides appreciating
the cultural and linguistic references that are part of their everyday lives,
may be encouraged to see Caló as poetic and beautiful as “regular” Spanish and
that great Chicana/o art doesn’t need expensive stuff to produce. As well,
children who are not Chicana/o (or who may not even speak or understand
Spanish) will find a lot to learn about and enjoy, and unstated lessons both in
the text and art. The story also works for teens and young adults as well, who
will “get” some of the smart and funny references and nuanced word play on just
about every page. For everyone, perhaps the most important thing they will find
here is that community trumps individuality.
Pull-quote: “Lowriders to the Center of the Earth—a
delightful, hilarious, exciting, culturally-driven collection of textual
wordplay and artful doodles—is must reading for every age, ethnicity, gender
and species! It’s the best hyperbole-driven graphic novel in the world!”
*Highly recommended for all home, classroom and library collections.
—Beverly Slapin
(published 2/7/17)
author: Lilliam Rivera
