The Lizard Prince and Other South American Stories is the sixth in Iron Circus’ crowd-funded volumes of Cautionary Fables and Fairytales, and is also the last of the series, which began in 2017. Each volume focuses on a different region of the world, bringing together cartoonists, artist, and writers to showcase their takes on regional folktales. And one of its editors, Alberto Rayo, was kind enough to be interviewed by WWAC for this project.
Rayo was an obvious choice as editor for The Lizard Prince and Other South American Stories — from Lima, Peru, Rayo has been featured in the Latine-focused crowdfunded anthology MAÑANA from Power & Magic Press. He’s also done his own adaptations like Thumbelina, Wrestling Champ — she’s a pint-sized luchadora — with artist Alex Lopez as part of the from Far Out Fairy Tales series. Rayo, who got his start in the zine scene, is also the head of Broken Panels Studio. And now that you know a little about his background, it’s time to find out what Rayo’s favorite Peruvian tale is, what counts as a morality tale, and what his latest project is! Edited for clarity.
So first I want to say how exciting it is to see more Peruvians in the comics scene these days! My mom is from La Oroya, and grew up reading Archie, Mafalda, and La Pecena Lulu, so I wanted to start by asking what comics you grew up reading? Any titles that particularly stand out?
Hi Kat! My dad is from Junin too, from the city next to La Oroya! I lived almost all my life in Lima and most of the comics I grew up reading were the ones at the local hairdresser, haha. They were Mafalda, Tintin and Condorito. I can also remember some local kids magazines that ran licensed Disney comic adventures from the movies and cartoons that were popular at the moment. Manga was getting popular too at the moment! I remember specially a bootlegged Dragon Ball Z fanzine that had several pages of the manga plus fan stuff.
What is your favorite hometown fable or grandmother’s tale? I’m not sure if stories of the pishtaco count, per se, but it’s certainly the most memorable creature from the stories my mother has told me. And is there any fable you’d like to adapt that you haven’t already?
What qualifies as a fable or cautionary tale? Is it necessary to have a moral?
I think that’s a function implicit in a lot of our stories, specially the ones linked to our spiritual beliefs and religion. Every story tells something, sometimes that is easy to recognize or it’s told at the end as [in] an Aesop. Other times, it’s something more ambiguous, left open for interpretation (or reinterpretation). I think every story has a message, it depends on who’s telling it and why for it to be considered “moral.”
What’s the biggest challenge in editing an anthology like this? Was it hard to pick which tales to highlight? And was there any overarching editorial theme or message you wanted the anthology to have?
For me, every part of the process was challenging, haha. I think the most challenging (and fun) part was reading and giving feedback to the scripts. Everyone had a different process to make comics and it’s in the writing where I saw more differences between the authors. It was really interesting to see every style of writing, how they construct their narrative beats, the relevance of dialogue or pacing in their pages and a lot of other stuff. It wasn’t hard to pick the tales, we wanted the creators to tell a story close to their hearts and we’re glad that’s what we got. About the themes, I have to say a lot of South American tales involve birds!
What are the plans for the Spanish language edition? As a writer, have you found it different writing for English speaking audiences than Spanish speaking audiences? How about as an editor?
Do you have any upcoming Broken Panel Studios projects? Are there any Peruvian or other South American creators you think fans of this anthology should check out?
My latest graphic novel just came out! It’s called The Sky Fox: A Peruvian Graphic Folktale and it was published by Capstone Pub. It’s a comic adaptation of one of my favorite Peruvian folktales! Art by Fabiana Faiallo Also, I’m currently writing the on-going Original Webtoon Doble Detective Difunto for Webtoon Latinoamerica. The artist is Diego Revelo and our editor is Federico Soto.
At this moment, there are two Peruvians artists that I like a lot who are currently in DC and Marvel. They are Diego Olortegui (who is going to work with Geoff Johns in a one-shot) and Luis Morocho (who just debuted in Marvel Voices: Comunidades). Other South American creators who everyone should be following are Maco (@Maconuda on IG), an Uruguayan cartoonist whose panel game is just GROUNDBREAKING and Matias Bergara, an Uruguayan comic artist who is currently working with Si Spurrier.
The Lizard Prince and Other South American Stories is still being crowdfunded over at Iron Circus Comics. The campaign ends September 20th.
