Rafael Radillo sees the graphic novel not only as entertainment, but also as an emotional archive of violence, childhood, and Mexican memory.
A werewolf on the run in a small town during the Mexican Revolution; the heartwarming bond between a boy and his heroic pet in an adventure set against the backdrop of the sea; a boy who draws to escape the violence and shares his creations in paper airplanes sent to random recipients.
The Rise of the Graphic Novel in Mexico and Latin America
Lupe Lobo: The Devil of Tres Cruces led him to win the 6th Pura Pinche Fortaleza National Comic Contest at the Guadalajara International Book Fair in 2024. La Playa —published the same year—proved that the author had more to say—and that he deeply loved dogs.
This novel was published in Spain by Unrated Comics. *Alas de Papel* (2025), his most recent work, confirmed that he is one of the graphic artists best able to portray his surroundings in a style that borders on impressionism and noir.
Radillo studied at the School of Arts and Design (FAD) at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) before dropping out of his physics program (“when I realized I couldn’t prove the existence of the number one with a mathematical equation,” he recalls), Today, he agrees that the Mexican and Latin American graphic novel is going through an interesting phase.
Graphic novels: Are they visual literature?
After several decades of being classified solely as comic books or comic strips, the increasingly frequent publication of works of this kind has led to the genre being recognized as visual literature.
In a country where comics were long regarded as a minor art form, Radillo demonstrates that the graphic novel can function as a form of adult, political, and deeply local literature.
“Graphicnovelsare going to keep growing in Latin America. It’s difficult because we’re up against a very strong comic book industry. The challenge is to convince readers to read something local instead of Spider-Man”— Rafael Radillo
“Beyond language, I believe that in Latin America we recognize ourselves in certain artistic expressions and in our characters, in our food, and in our ways of seeing the world, and the graphic novel can represent and serve as this community bond.”
While issues such as distribution, short print runs, and the need for self-publishing remain constant, the unique graphic novels produced in Mexico continue to uphold the comic book tradition that dates back decades. This graphic art form has now embraced this format as a means of survival.
Graphic Novels and Comics in Mexico
“The graphic novel is the best way—at least here in Mexico—to create comics today,” the author acknowledges. “This book-like format encourages many readers who didn’t realize they liked comics to start reading and discover that it’s right up their alley.”
One of the distinctive features of Radillo—and of much of Mexican comics and graphic novels—is that most of the artists also write the narratives and stories.
“If Marvel stops making comics, a lot of people are going to lose their jobs; they employ writers, distributors, inkers, colorists, and others. But if I stop making comics, the only one affected will be me.”
The influences on Rafael Radillo and his work, which received an award from the Fondo de Cultura Económica
However, telling stories—beyond simply sketching out the protagonists of his tales—is not a burden for the author; on the contrary: “I think it all comes down to information. I read a lot of comics, I read a lot of books; authors like Cortázar and Dostoyevsky are writers I’ve read and reread. First because I didn’t understand them, and later because I liked them so much.”
Mexican comic strips such as Fantomas, the Elegant Threat, in which Julio Cortázar himself was included as a character—and later, as a tribute, the Argentine wrote Fantomas Against the Multinational Vampires in 1975—.
Or the very local Videorisa and Simón Simonazo, magazines that reflected the national youth culture of past decades, were his early influences, along with classic comics depicting the American way of life, such as Archie.
All that melodramatic fiction from the Golden Age of Mexican cinema is also a constant source of inspiration: “In a way, all my stories tend to lean in that direction, especially the black-and-white films I used to watch with my grandmother. That particular style of storytelling really captivated me, ” he recalls.
The Fondo de Cultura Económica International Spectrographic Award
In his novels, everyday elements are present, but with a surreal twist: “Why would you want to see the same things in a comic that you see every day?” he explains. To illustrate this, he quotes Chuck Palahniuk, the author of *The Fight Club*. The quote reads: “An artist’s work is a diary of what they experience, and everyone gives it their own interpretation,” he says.
After all, Mexico tends to be surreal, as Salvador Dalí once said—even though he hadn’t read the aforementioned graphic novel about the werewolf —“I will never return to Mexico. I can’t stand being in a country more surreal than my paintings.” Rafael Radillo, it seems, took note.
In late January, the author presented *Alas de Papel* at Sharkomics and Rius Librería in Mexico City, and he hopes that *La Última Canción* will be published in 2026 .
This is the novel that has just been announced as the winner of the 2nd Fondo de Cultura Económica International Espectográfica Prize. So there are still many horizons to discover, illustrations to draw, and stories to tell.
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