Gordon’s Interspecies Romance: Robin y El Murcielago #6 translated

My ongoing project of translating Robin y el Murcielago, the bootleg Spanish Batman comic from the 1940s, has always been troubled by the weird and pervasive anti-Asian racism running through the books. But folks, I really thought maybe with the fifth issue, Ribera and Fernández had turned a corner, that maybe the racism was being eased out of the work. And indeed, most of the goons and thugs encountered in this issue aren’t Asian at all. But there’s no way around it: this might be the most racist one yet. It might be the most racist Batman comic ever. It’s pretty bad, man.

Also, Jim Gordon and a cow might have sex off-panel.

The Plot Thickens: Robin y El Murcielago #5 translated

As Robin y El Murcielago, the Spanish bootleg Batman comic, continued to progress, it didn’t move away from its blatant racism so much as soften it. It’s still clearly centered around “yellow peril” fear of the entire Northeastern Hemisphere, but writer Julio Fernández López is no longer giving Asian characters an offensive accent and the narrative caption boxes no longer make constant referrals to “Orientals.” Meanwhile, artist Julio Ribera has almost entirely weaned himself off of racist caricatures.

A Robin With A Machine Gun: Robin y El Murcielago #4 translated

This is it. The first three episodes of Robin y el Murcielago, the deranged bootleg Spanish Batman comic from the 1940s, have all been mere prelude to this one. This is the one that we all fell in love with all those years ago, the one that first got me thinking that someone ought to do a translation. Yes, this is the one…

Robin y El Murcielago #3 translated

The last time we checked in on the adventures of Spain’s bootleg Batman and Robin, they had concluded a racist, pro-colonialism adventure in India. They helped put down a local uprising against British rule for reasons which were never spoken aloud but which were pretty easy to infer. In the third episode, the “yellow peril” theme continues, and arguably gets worse. Now the heroes are fighting not just an Indian cleric and his gang of rebels, but an entire trans-Asian conspiracy. This issue’s enemies are primarily Japanese.

Batman vs. Gandhi: Robin y El Murcielago #2 Translated

It’s time now for the second translated issue of Robin y El Murcielago, the Spanish bootleg Batman comic book. In my first post on the subject, I focused on the circumstances–particularly the politics–surrounding Julio Ribera’s work on these comics. This time I’d like to focus on the content of the stories themselves.

Robin y El Murcielago – translated for the first time!

Robin y El Murcielago first hit the internet in September 2010. A Spanish-language blog whose name translates to “Grandpa’s Attic” posted covers and a few excerpted interiors. ComicsAlliance picked up the story, and soon it was all over the Comics Internet. What a find! This was not too long after Jiro Kuwata’s Batman manga had been repurposed as a Chip Kidd coffee table book–the hardcover edition of which included a bootleg Chinese manhua from the Flying Black Batman series–so foreign Batman stories we’d never read were both tantalizing and top of mind for a certain segment of Batman fans. It certainly helped that the stories seemed delightfully batshit.