Heroes aren't born... they're made! In 1992, on the island of Puerto Rico, an experiment took place to see if a "paper" superhero could make a real difference. For seven years every Sunday in the newspaper El Nuevo Día, Paladín El Cacique y Los Campeadores Boricuas entertained readers of all ages while trying to take the pulse of how the island of enchantment dealt with the problems of progress during a particularly trying time. Paradise in Crisis At the time, Puerto Rico was going through a crisis. An article in the San Juan Star carried the headline, "Puerto Rico crime wave reaches tidal proportions." The article went on to state that "for 1991 the per capita homicide rate (if ranked among the 50 United States) was the highest in the nation" averaging 2.3 killings per day. This rate translated to 23.3 killings per 100,000 citizens. On an island with a 1990 population of 3,552,037, the murder rate exceeded that of England which with a population of 48,774,700 had a rate of 1.3 slayings per 100,000 people. Much of the violence was tied to the traffic of drugs. "Puntos'" were plentiful.

Formato	Tapa suave
Número de Páginas	48
Lenguaje	Español
Editorial	Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Fecha de Publicación	2015-10-01
Dimensiones	11.0" x 8.5" x 0.12" pulgadas
Letra Grande	No
Con Ilustraciones	No

Nick Iannone is a classically trained artist and graduate of the Paier Art School in New Haven. He entered the commercial art field in 1973 after heading a top-secret 5-man graphics team for the USAF. Experience includes marketing, graphics, illustration, film, writing, creative direction and image consulting. Credits include national and international awards in the U.S., Caribbean and Latin America. He has founded ad agencies and creative studios, authored a popular newspaper column, produced a daily Caribbean news broadcast, and created a superhero newspaper strip in Puerto Rico. Nostalgia Gives Birth to Nostalgia "Having grown up in the wake of the Golden Age of comics, rode the crest of the Silver Age and witnessed the revival of comics in the sixties, I felt that a touch of good-old, home-grown heroism might help. So, though not speaking the language very well at that time, but with the help of my island-born wife, Paladín was born. I decided that if I was to be the one to introduce an iconic figure, he would be a compilation of the comic hero culture spanning decades. The story style and artwork would reflect the naivety of early pioneers such as Lee Falk's The Phantom-1936, Siegel and Shuster's Superman-1938, and try to close the gap through the 1940s through 1990s. Rather than seeking a unique character with powers or costume never seen in the comics world, I sought an amalgam that echoed familiar but timeless idealism and romantic imagination."