El Loquito – historic cartoon character created by René de la Nuez

Angela Oramas Camero

THE exposition of cartoons ¿Loco yo?, (Me, crazy?) currently exhibited within Havana’s Press Center, located in the Vedado neighborhood, offers viewers laughter, opportunities for reflection and even nostalgia, taking them back to historic situations reflected through the cartoon character El Loquito, who in 2012 is celebrating his 55th birthday.

René de la Nuez considers El Loquito (The Little Crazy) his first, mischievous child, who travels across sheets of paper and through cyberspace, escaping from his hands, and continuing to reach new audiences beyond Cuba.

Oscar Zanetti, 2011 winner of Cuba’s National Prize for Social Studies, said during the exhibition opening, "At an especially explosive time in Cuban history, when I was considering disquieting political questions, I came upon that crazy squint, with a newspaper hat, who loved talking about subjects which were off limits in the familiar code of cartoon language."

Later, Zanetti emphasized, "El Loquito, created by Nuez, is an exceptional witness, key to the mindset of his era, becoming indispensable to an understanding of one dimension of reality, one of a subjective nature, rooted in the complex terrain of popular psychology, which often presents challenges to its examination by historians.

"Perhaps that is why the adventures of Loquito constitute a little studied facet of the circumstances which gave rise to the Cuban Revolution. He is a child of his times. When he first appeared in February of 1957, the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship, installed five years earlier, was facing increasingly violent and vigorous resistance. The threatened dictator had unleashed a campaign of merciless repression and, as a complement, tried his hand at censuring the press, attempting to cover up the progress being made by the revolutionary struggle. (…) Loquito toiled away in these difficult conditions."

"The dynamic René de la Nuez, with his graphic simplicity of just three superimposed triangles, resorted to the most diverse symbolic resources to convey his message, evading the censor’s red pencil during those years. Along with his predecessor, Bobo de Abela, whose behavior likewise perfectly matched his name – making himself out as the ‘fool,’ just as Loquito came off crazy, thus immune to censure – Loquito took advantage of the shared mindset and complicity of readers to successfully play a subversive role."

In this respect, Zanetti observed, "Beyond its great utility in providing environmental context for historical texts, cartooning constitutes an extraordinarily accurate and eloquent resource to capture the ‘spirit of an era,’ that indispensable dimension of history which is the consciousness – including even the unconscious – of the men and women who were the protagonists of past events."

Zanetti concluded emphasizing how "as the years have transpired, new issues have emerged and other characters appeared, which Nuez has continued to create with that same youthful enthusiasm which El Loquito inspired in him. The same vigorous and honest enthusiasm he maintains… the profile changes, but the line is sure; an exceptional chronicler with his Loquito, a sharp-witted observer of costumes in Cuba-bici, reflective and philosophic in La piedra en el camino, and a perceptive psychologist in El Libro del Yo."