Baldo
Encyclopedia
Baldo is an American comic strip
written by Hector Cantú
and illustrated by Carlos Castellanos. It was launched in April 2000, and is widely billed as the first comic strip featuring Latino
characters and themes to be marketed to a mainstream audience.
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
written by Hector Cantú
Hector Cantú
Hector Cantú is an American writer, editor, and newspaper comic strip creator, best known for the Latino-American strip Baldo...
and illustrated by Carlos Castellanos. It was launched in April 2000, and is widely billed as the first comic strip featuring Latino
Latino
The demonyms Latino and Latina , are defined in English language dictionaries as:* "a person of Latin-American descent."* "A Latin American."* "A person of Hispanic, especially Latin-American, descent, often one living in the United States."...
characters and themes to be marketed to a mainstream audience.
Primary
- Baldomero "Baldo" Bermudez is the title character. A Latino teenager, his primary interests are cars and girls. He is also obsessed with being cool, and is in the middle of an ongoing process to build his own lowriderLowrider]A lowrider is a style of car originated by Chicano communities that sits lower to the ground than most other cars. Many lowriders have their suspension systems modified so that their ride can change height at the flip of a switch...
. He has a job at Auto Y Rod, an auto supply shop (whose logo resembles that of Mercedes-BenzMercedes-BenzMercedes-Benz is a German manufacturer of automobiles, buses, coaches, and trucks. Mercedes-Benz is a division of its parent company, Daimler AG...
), and according to comic strips in January 2007 and August 2011, he is 15 years old. - Graciela "Gracie" Bermudez is Baldo's younger, Lisa SimpsonLisa SimpsonLisa Marie Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons. She is the middle child of the Simpson family. Voiced by Yeardley Smith, Lisa first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Cartoonist Matt Groening...
-like sister. She is an ardent admirer of Frida KahloFrida KahloFrida Kahlo de Rivera was a Mexican painter, born in Coyoacán, and perhaps best known for her self-portraits....
, and frequently attempts to be an activist. She is remarkably smart and enjoys reading, although (in true little sister form) she is a constant annoyance to her older brother. In a May 2009 strip that quotes from the Cinco de MayoCinco de MayoCinco de Mayo is a holiday held on May 5. It is celebrated nationwide in the United States and regionally in Mexico, primarily in the state of Puebla, where the holiday is called El Dia de la Batalla de Puebla...
article, Gracie declared that she wrote that article for Wikipedia. - Sergio "Papi" Bermudez, a widower, is the patriarch of the family, the father of Baldo and Gracie, and the owner of a small business. He is often seen by his children as being dorky, although they love him all the same.
- Tia Carmen is Baldo and Gracie's ditzy great-aunt. An older woman and very devout in her religious beliefs (she has over 200 religious figurines), Carmen has a vast knowledge and love of old-world customs, foods, and herbal remedies. An April Fools Day gag strip in 2007 depicted her as being detained by the Department of Homeland Security, and a two-week series around the same time drawn in a photo-realistic style told of her as coming to live with the Bermudezes after Sergio's wife Rosa was killed in a drunk driving accident (see below).
- Cruz is Baldo's best friend. Arguably similar to Hector from ZitsZits (comic strip)Zits is a comic strip written by cartoonist Jerry Scott and illustrated by Jim Borgman about the life of Jeremy Duncan, a 16-year-old high school sophomore . The comic debuted in July 1997 in over 200 newspapers and has since become popular worldwide and received multiple awards...
, Cruz is often seen accompanying Baldo in the quest for coolness. - Britney Denise "Smiley" Rogers is Baldo's AngloAngloAnglo is a prefix indicating a relation to the Angles, England or the English people, as in the terms Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-American, Anglo-Celtic, Anglo-African and Anglo-Indian. It is often used alone, somewhat loosely, to refer to people of British Isles descent in The Americas, Australia and...
ex-girlfriendGirlfriendGirlfriend is a term that can refer to either a female partner in a non-marital romantic relationship or a female non-romantic friend that is closer than other friends....
. She was originally introduced in 2001 as Baldo's new next door neighbor with an interest in Latino culture, and was Baldo's girlfriend from 2003 to 2006. Shortly after the breakup, Smiley underwent a sudden makeoverMakeoverA makeover is a term applied to changing one's appearance, sometimes through cosmetics. Makeovers can range from something as simple as a new haircut, to the use of cosmetic surgery, to the extreme of the implantation of dental veneers, eye-color-changing contact lenses, and the use of...
and joined a popular girls' cliqueCliqueA clique is an exclusive group of people who share common interests, views, purposes, patterns of behavior, or ethnicity. A clique as a reference group can be either normative or comparative. Membership in a clique is typically exclusive, and qualifications for membership may be social or...
.
Secondary
- El Cucuy is the Bermudez family's boogeyman, and is somewhat akin to the snorklewacker from Bloom CountyBloom CountyBloom County is an American comic strip by Berkeley Breathed which ran from December 8, 1980, until August 6, 1989. It examined events in politics and culture through the viewpoint of a fanciful small town in Middle America, where children often have adult personalities and vocabularies and where...
. He was forced into retirement after Baldo and Gracie stopped fearing him. - Joey is a semi-recurring Anglo teenager and one of Baldo's former co-workers from a summer job. He has a poor work ethic and is ignorant of the Spanish languageSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
and Hispanic culture. - Nora is Gracie's best friend and confidant. She is as bright and intelligent as Gracie.
- Sylvia Sanchez was deemed the "prettiest girl in school" by Baldo, and the object of his eye from the early strips. She vanished from the strip in 2003, shortly before Baldo and Smiley began dating.
- Ralphie is a friend of Baldo's who owns a lowrider with an advanced sound system. He infrequently appears in the strip.
- Billy is an antagonistic, subtly bigoted Anglo teen who voices his prejudice against Latinos by accusing them of discriminating against him. Consequently he is disturbed by the emergence of Latino oriented businesses. He is generally a caricature of those who express their bigotry with arguments of reverse discrimination. During a march for immigration rights, he is seen as a counter-demonstrator telling a reporter about the dangers of illegal immigrants.
- Smiley's brother is the Rogers equivalent of Gracie. For a brief time, he was Gracie's "boyfriend", but that relationship has since been dissolved.
- Mr. Harold http://www.baldocomics.com/resources/BALDO_gang_activity_monitor.php was the GangGangA gang is a group of people who, through the organization, formation, and establishment of an assemblage, share a common identity. In current usage it typically denotes a criminal organization or else a criminal affiliation. In early usage, the word gang referred to a group of workmen...
Activity Monitor at Baldo's school. He had a "tough guy" persona, and falsely accused Baldo of being in a gang after mistaking a game of Rock Paper Scissors for gang signals. - Rosa Bermudez was Baldo and Gracie's mother, and Sergio's wife. Though she has never been seen or heard in the strip (except that her face has been shown in the form of a framed photo), it has been revealed that she had died in a car accidentCar accidentA traffic collision, also known as a traffic accident, motor vehicle collision, motor vehicle accident, car accident, automobile accident, Road Traffic Collision or car crash, occurs when a vehicle collides with another vehicle, pedestrian, animal, road debris, or other stationary obstruction,...
when Baldo was ten years old. http://www.baldocomics.com/strip.php The April 3, 2007 strip—part of a sequence atypically drawn in a realistic style—stated that a car driven by an inebriated motorist collided with Rosa's minivan when she drove Baldo and Gracie from a soccer game. The collision killed Rosa instantly and bruised Gracie. Baldo's soccer ball apparently saved his life in the accident. The April 4, 2007 strip showed Rosa's face (drawn realistically) in a framed photo, while the September 28, 2003 strip had shown her (again in a photo) in cartoon form. - Gregorio who was introduced on the March 26th, 2007 comic, is the one who Tia Carmen has been talking to about Rosa's accident and why she had come to live with Baldo and Family. They met at the tomato section of a store.
- Beatriz is a girl that works with Baldo in Auto Y Rod. She made a first appearance on the March 5th, 2007. Baldo liked her on a first sight, but later in the strip she told him that she has a boyfriend. Her appearances have become more common. On the June 17th, 2010 comic, it is revealed that her last name is Ortiz.
- Roberto is Tia Carmen's departed husband. Sometimes his spirit visits Tia (in her imagination) for a short time.
Cartoon collections
As of 2008, only two collections of the strip have been published in book form.- The Lower You Ride, The Cooler You Are (2001)
- Night Of The Bilingual Telemarketers (2002)