The complete camera-ready artwork by the noted Mexican sequential and graphic artist for the story "Una Cuestion de Honor" from issue #82 of the microcuento comic HOMBRES EN GUERRA [Men in War].
Near fine.
Price: $1,750.00
"[Camarena] imbue[s] his scenes with a lyricism that doesn't exist in the work of many of his peers. A master of the brushed line, his characters have a plausible volumetric quality." — Christopher Sperandio
"Una Cuestion de Honor," a WWI trench warfare story about an English soldier wrongly accused of desertion, is a quintessential example of the microcuento or "historieta" ("mini-story"), a popular comic form unique to Mexico. Small enough to fit in a pocket (usually only three or four inches tall), brief enough to read on a commute or lunch break, and inexpensive to produce, microcuentos enjoyed a wide popularity among both adults and children. At their height in the mid-1970s, 55 million copies of these comics were being printed a month in a country with a population of just 68 million (Sperandio 3). "Una Cuestion de Honor" would have been one of the two stories issued in HOMBRES EN GUERRA, a weekly publication that ran from the late 1970s through at least the mid 1980s.
Camarena was one of Mexico's most prolific illustrators and — as evidenced by the recent 2020 monograph on him and his work in the form — is increasingly recognized as one of the masters of the microcuento. For speed and efficiency, publishers typically provided artists with panels (as here) preprinted with text and dialogue for the illustrators to work around; that Camarena was able to work so elegantly and dynamically within these constraints is a testament to his talent.
Rare and ephemeral production materials from an important regional incarnation of the comic book.
Read more: Sperandio, "Fundamental Camarena," in Fundamental Camarena.
[Mexico]: [Tepeyac Editores], [circa 1982]. 8.75'' x 5.75''. 30 pages of original black pen-and-ink drawings on cardstock, executed rectos only; most two-panel. Minor soil, edgewear. Overall sound and clean.
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