Additional information
by Martin Ramirez (Author)
www.checholopez.com From the pages of the brave and controversial underground counter-cultural magazine Trauko Comics, comes to us this saga of hilarious misadventures, where Checho Lopez is a heroic unemployed man in free fall. With his house mortgaged he spends the nights on the benches of the "Forestal Park" in downtown Santiago. He's separated from his wife due to lack of communication and financial problems. Lives a toxic romance with a stripper and prostitute, and his only friend is a sleazy social climber.This urban antihero takes us to see life and the social processes of his time (or any time), which is exactly the three final years of the gruesome military and civilian dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile, through his glassy eyes of ignorant sage, who doesn't lose his humor in the face of fatalism and never gives up. His brutal ingenuity and frequent state of intemperance, together with the abuse of certain substances and other transgressions, are his particular and at times heroic, way of surviving to all that life and society throw at him. In that way he strongly and piercingly touches the sensibility of the readers. With intelligence in the script and an aesthetic of "uglyism" and precariousness that has earned him to be called a "perfect realistic novel" by the critic, the social satire character Checho Lopez, was born together with the legendary underground magazine "Trauko Comics", in Santiago, Chile, April 1988. Created, written and illustrated by Martin Ramirez, Checho Lopez was an indispensable presence in 30 of the 36 issues of the magazine, with a total of 25 unforgettable stories, that put together chronologically work as the chapters of a full graphic novel, and in this volume have been rescued from the archive of oblivion, to be compiled, restored and published again as a collection book.
Author Biography
The comics author Martin Ramirez was born in Santiago Chile in 1966. He created, wrote and illustrated the saga of the hilarious misadventures of Checho Lopez, in the pages of the countercultural independent "Trauko" comics magazine, at the end of the eighties. After three years the magazine had to shut down and Checho Lopez has not been published again since then. With Checho Lopez he won a Trauko Special Mention award at the magazine's first anniversary in 1989, and the award for best serial story at the First Salon of Comic and Illustration in Valparaiso, Chile, in 1991. In 2006, Checho Lopez was immortalized in ceramic in the walk of fame of the Chilean comics, alongside 97 panels and five big statues of Chilean comic's characters, in the open air museum Park of Comics of San Miguel, which pays homage to the artists and main heroes of the Chilean comics history, in the El Llano district, Santiago. In the year 2008, the Chilean writer, literature professor and critic Alvaro Bisama, included Checho Lopez in his book "One Hundred Chilean Books," where he makes a selection and review of the one hundred books in Chilean literary history, that in his critical opinion and analysis, best reflect the soul of Chile. In the year 2010, the Chilean Ska music band "Sonora de Llegar" launched its record "Primate Party," where track #6 is called "Checho Lopez" and is a homage to the comics character. After graduating from advertising college, Martin worked seven years in Chile as creative copywriter in advertising agencies, until the multinational J. Walter Thompson transferred him to Shanghai, China. Where he has worked as creative director ever since. In Asia he has also worked in Vietnam and Cambodia. He hasn't published comics again. Martin Ramirez has also taken part in the exhibitions, events and publications in Chile, Argentina and Spain.
