¡Wepa!: Puerto Ricans in the World of Comics​, a new bilingual exhibition at the New York Public Library, draws on a vast trove of comics amassed by librarian Manuel Martínez starting in the 1990s to explore the overlooked contributions of Puerto Rican comic book creators. Documenting the comic industries both on the island and in the continental United States, the exhibition shines a light on how Puerto Ricans—from major artists at Marvel and DC to DIY zine creators—have shaped comics culture today.

We talked with the cocurators Paloma Celis Carbajal and Charles Cuykendall Carter about Puerto Rican comics trailblazers, the challenges of representation, and the contemporary creators bringing their boricua identities to their work.

¡Wepa! runs at the NYPL's Wachenheim Gallery through March 8.

How did this exhibition come to be, and how did each of you get involved?

Paloma Celis Carbajal: In 2022, Manuel Martínez Nazario, a librarian in San Juan, donated his remarkable collection of “Puerto Ricans in the World of Comics” to the New York Public Library. The collection, which now comprises more than 1600 items, includes comics by Puerto Ricans—on the island and across the diaspora—and about Puerto Ricans or about Puerto Rico. For years, as the Library’s Curator for Latin American, Iberian and U.S. Latino Studies, I’ve been building a research collection of comics relevant to my purview. Martínez Nazario’s extraordinary gift is a wonderful complement to that collection.

Charles Cuykendall Carter: I think Paloma started thinking quite soon after the collection’s arrival that it would make a great centerpiece for an exhibition. A while back we cocurated a smaller bilingual exhibition, and when the opportunity presented itself, she asked me to join her in curating this bigger one. My main work for the Library is with old British books and manuscripts, but I happen to know a lot about comic books. I’ve been collecting them since I was a kid. For this project my comics nerd status paired nicely with Paloma’s expertise in Latin American studies.

Puerto Rican creators’ contributions to the comics industry have long been overlooked. Can you talk about those contributions, and how this exhibition shines a light on them?

PCC: In terms of Puerto Rico’s culture, art, music, cuisine, political and economic history, there is so much more than the reductionist representations focused only on abject suffering of life on the Island or in the diaspora. There are commercially successful artists such as George Pérez, whose designs, for example, of the Infinity Gauntlet worn by the villain Thanos would go on to be some of the most memorable imagery in Marvel Comics and, subsequently, the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

But there are lesser-known Puerto Rican forebears in the field as well, such as Ivan Velez Jr., who in the 1980s published what is considered the first comic book for LGBTQ+ youth, at a time when talking openly about queerness was not socially embraced. There is also a thriving world of Puerto Rican indie comics which tackle matters of gender, gentrification, and neocolonialism, among many other serious topics, but with a uniquely criollo sense of humor.

This exhibition highlights numerous living creators, as well as the late comics legends Alex Schomburg and George Pérez. Can you talk a bit about Schomburg and Pérez’s work and legacy?

CCC: This is an interesting pair to consider, not only as two major figures in the evolution of mainstream comics aesthetics, but also in their respective places in Puerto Rican and U.S. history. Schomburg and Pérez are both best known for their maximalist superhero scenes. Schomburg’s covers in the 1940s helped Timely Comics, a precursor to Marvel, become one of the major Golden Age imprints, and Pérez’s fan-favorite work for DC in the 1980s—The New Teen Titans, Crisis on Infinite Earths—raised the bar for quality in superhero comics art.

Schomburg was born in 1905, just seven years after Puerto Rico became a possession of the U.S., in the small town of Aguadilla. The Schomburgs had come from Germany in the 1830s, and his family had some money. Alex was orphaned young, and went to live with his older brothers in New York City. He was a teenager when he started work as a commercial artist. His science fiction illustrations were so influential that Stanley Kubrick sought his input on designs for 2001: A Space Odyssey.

About 10 years after Schomburg drew the pictures he’s now best known for—superheroes beating the daylights out of Nazis and other Axis forces—Pérez was born, in 1954, in the Bronx, to parents who had recently migrated from Caguas, Puerto Rico. After World War II, the Pérezes came to New York, where George grew up poor. At age 21, about a year into his first regular comics gig, he cocreated Marvel’s first Latino superhero, White Tiger, in 1975. Within a decade he was arguably the hottest artist of the comics industry.

Neither really overtly addressed their Puerto Rican identities in their works in any significant way. They operated in eras in which the comics industry was overwhelmingly white and valued—expected, really—assimilation. They helped pave the way for the Puerto Rican artists of today, who are, many of them, more inclined to explore their own lives, perspectives and puertorriqueñidad in their art.

How are Puerto Rican comics creators changing the industry and publishing landscape today?

PCC: Puerto Rican comics creators today are not only bringing their boricua identities into their art, but they also are engaging with political realities, and finding new ways of imagining longstanding comic book tropes like superheroes and talking animals. For a mind-blowing example of the latter, see Rangely García’s Nønpack, a gritty and incredibly violent—but also hilarious—series about a gang of street dogs.

As for superheroes, Jíbaro Samurái by M.A. Sanjurjo and Coquí by Ivan Plaza are excellent examples of comics inspired by mainstream superheroes but with uniquely criollo twists in humor and storytelling. And we’re coming up on the 10th anniversary of the debut of Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez’s La Borinqueña, a superheroine who now shares a universe with other heroes with deep Caribbean roots.

CCC: In Puerto Rico you’ll find a close-knit community of independent creators and what they’re putting out is truly remarkable. Días Cómic is a creative collective and comics publisher led by Rousaura Rodríguez and Omar Banuichi that started out over a decade ago with DIY photocopied zine. Today they’re putting out highly sophisticated volumes like Rapiña/Carroña and Temporada, which present unfiltered Puerto Rican experiences and points of view. They’ve also collaborated with Rosa Colón Guerra and Carla Rodríguez’s Soda Pop Comics, Puerto Rico’s first women-owned comics publisher.

And there are so many more outstanding creators to name—more, even, than we could include in the exhibition. But anyone who really wants to do a deep dive can consult Manuel’s collection in person at the 42nd Street research library.

This conversation has been edited for length.