Obscure Adventures in Geek and Nerd Culture

Apart from Rubi, which spawned its own bigger franchise, there is no Mexican adult comic as captivating as Rarotonga, even though it’s rather stereotypical by both Mexican and most developed countries’ standards. Otherwise, keep in mind that despite its inherent objectification and misogyny (racism is also pretty bad in the comic, albeit not as obvious as the moderately toned down sexism), it remains the better written (1970s onward) and more captivating reboot of a 1950s Mexican adult comic named Taboo, which itself couldn’t hold up much in as early as the sixties, rather tellingly due to being more blatant in terms of sexism than even the original Astro Boy manga created in 1952.  As suggested by looking at her somewhat ambiguous features in such a comic (itself somewhat fair for its day), Rarotonga surely is one of Mexican comics’ first mixed race baddies to gain consistent international popularity (at least in much of Latin America). Although she’s confusingly called a mulatto ...

The Showa Children’s History series is an underrated look at the Showa period as it was known to people of many generations. 6 of the books are now in my collection. My first one is about jungle heroes and their ilk, as well as their impact on many cultures around the world.  Much of the book is dedicated to Yoshimasa Ikeda’s character Baalumba (Barumba), a book character who’s a snowman like Giant raised by wild jungle animals. He also spawned his own, somehow better known spinoff counterparts, Burūba (aka Zamba) and his own fan-made son Shōnen Burūba.  Since Kyuuta Ishikawa was a big mighty fan, he created Shōnen Burūba (1960-61) - the sequel of Kunio Watanabe’s manga tie in to the movie - and (childhood to adolescence-focused) Zamba (1962-64) - the manga set between the wild man’s adoption by beasts and his first full fling with romance. As a result, thanks to his unpredictable writing and mildly uncanny valley artwork for both semi-official tie ins to the Burūba movie, the...