Buenos Noches Amigos! Ashley Duvelius Meets El Zorro!

          Good evening, my fellow bloggers!  I'd like to start out by confessing something:  I am currently taking a Spanish course.  Si.  Now here's the ironic part:  last quarter in la clase de espanol, I researched and presented information about the Latin American country Chile.  It was then that I discovered who la famousa Isabel Allende was. From the beginning of this assignment, I almost felt a small connection to Zorro because of my knowledge of it's author.  Plus, I am a huge Batman fan.  I was excited to read of el Zorro in a graphic novel.  Alright, I will confess also that I know of Antonio Banderas in the movie Zorro from 1998.  Anyways...              
          Now that the cat's out of the bag and everyone knows I'm a Batman fan, I feel more comfortable to discuss the brave Zorro.  I believe that superheroes, or protagonists in general, are important figures to have in one's life.  A positive figure who is inspired and driven to provide justice can never be a bad thing to have!  I am always intrigued and fascinated by graphic novels for many reasons.  Their sequential action images and clever words keep me reading straight through, from beginning to end.  Allende's Zorro was no different!  Francovilla's artwork combined with the story of Allende and Wagner meshed into this beautifully intense story board!  I really liked how Wagner juxtaposed past and present in the first half of the novel.  To me, I felt a closer connection with the protagonist from knowing of his dark and unfortunate past.   
          Most importantly, Allende's text agrees with my views of right and wrong.  I felt so sorry for the Mestizos and the native people, who were treated so poorly and unfairly.  There was no justice.  Not until Zorro was created.  Allende really gave the story a richly cultural, Latin American revival.  I thoroughly enjoyed the natural, yet entertainingly appropriate, inserts of Spanish words.  Words such as capitan, amigos, si, and hombre added zest to the dialogue, and thus, the story.
          I must say, Francovilla's artwork really took my breath away.  It had the perfect balance of having a comic book hero feel and a serious tone that gave rich imagery to support the rich text.  I loved it!  Alright, I have another confession to make:  Francovilla's Zorro character was a handsome man, in my opinion.  He was a believable average citizen as well as an intriguing, mysterious hero.  The antagonists were quite impressionable, too.  They were all in militant garb,with bad language, bad attitudes, and ugly expressions.  Just so.  I will definitely pick up the next Francovilla graphic novel I hear about!
         The intensity of the serious tone in Francovilla's artwork had a major impact on me.  Don't get me wrong, I loved that the images made the story more powerful to me as a reader, however, they sometimes had a disturbing affect.  The choices Francovilla made, like only showing the leg's of Bernado's mother hanging over the bed and the men's legs, gave me a chill down my spine.  The lack of a full image of the rape scene (a.k.a minimalist images) left the details to be filled in by my imagination.  It was horrifying.  The crime of rape is a frightening and enraging act to me.  By using close up details only, Francovilla haunted my imagination because they implied the worst situation possible.  However upsetting that scene was to me, it was still a necessary point to include in the story.  That is definitely the scariest part of the graphic novel for me, but the rest of Francovilla's artwork is brilliant, thrilling, and intensely imaginative!  So cool!
          I feel that Zorro was a breath of fresh air in the realm of magical realism.  My interest was sparked from page one to el fin!  Oh, Zorro!  How he amazes me!  I really liked this Zorro's background and motivations for fighting for justice.  Francovilla's scene of when he first dresses as Zorro helped his image as well!  Perhaps I should keep reading these graphic novels.  Yes, just so...