The comic strip Gordo was published in U.S. newspapers for forty-four years (1941-1985). For almost all of this run its creator Gus Arriola was the most visible American of Mexican descent working as a syndicated cartoonist. At its peak Gordo appeared in 270 newspapers and was the more widely circulated and longer-running of only two American comic strips set in Mexico.

Gordo recounted the humorous adventures and amorous preoccupations of a portly Mexican bean farmer, whose name, Gordo, means -fat.- Among the supporting cast were his perspicacious nephew, the...