My extremely limited Spanish language skills make learning anything substantial about Tito y Chita rather difficult. I can tell you that the strips I have are from 1944, and appeared in a comic section that otherwise mostly ran translations of Mickey Mouse and Big Chief Wahoo. I don't know if the paper was in the U.S. or not, as there are no mastheads. I guess really all I can say is that the strip sure does look intriguingly bizarre, sort of a fairy tale about kids in a fantasy land of some sort. The art, by Hugo Tilghman, is delightfully goofy and goofily delightful. With the help of Google Translate, I have managed to halfway read a capsule bio of Mr. Tilghman, which mentions Tito y Chita, as well as another Sunday-style strip I have in this pile of Spanish comics, Dos Mexicanos en la Guerra. Seems they both ran in a paper by the name of El Universal, but additional searching seems to indicate that there are several Central and South American papers that go by that name. Sounds also like Tilghman died terribly young, at age forty.
The writer, Hipolito Zendejas, gets lots of hits in a Google search, but none that I could parse well enough to get any biographical info.
Anyone reading have enough command of Spanish to help out with background about this interesting strip?
This is from El Universal, of Mexico City. They produced their own stuff in addition to the translated word balloon U.S. comics in their Sunday section, which was rarely seen in Mexico.
ReplyDeleteDear Allan Holtz -
ReplyDeleteI'll gladly translate anything you need. I am Spanish and a professional translator, too. Just send me an email with the links or the texts you need translated! I love your blog (and also purchased your book, of course).
Best from Madrid,
Antonio Iriarte