José Guadalupe Cruz (writer)

José Guadalupe Cruz Diaz (January 31, 1917 - November 22, 1989) was a Mexican comics and screenwriter and actor. The events and experience that he lived through in his childhood during the Mexican revolution in the 1920s, lay the foundation for his fascination by the personalities that represent that era. He gave life to those personalities in the comics which he wrote later in his life, like the Adelita series and La Tigresa del Bajío.

Career

Born in born in Teocaltiche, Jalisco, Mexico, Cruz published his first comic when he was 18 years old and his career became one of the most productive and successful in the Mexican comics-scene. In the beginning his works were printed in the magazines Paquin, Paquita and Pepin, and many of these stories captured his readers, like Adelita y las guerrillas.

In 1943 he started to use a system of photomontage to make his comics. He created novels of great power like Carta Brava, Percal, Tango, Ventarron, Tenebral, Dancing and Malevaje. In 1947 he started writing for films and acted in more than thirty movies with directors like Ismael Rodríguez, Agustín P. Delgado, Chano Urueta, Miguel Morayta, René Cardona and Juan Orol. In 1952, he founded his own publishing house, Ediciones José G. Cruz, which published comics like Muñequita, La Pandilla, Rosita Alvirez, El Vampiro Tenebroso and Canciones Inolvidables. Santo, el enmascarado de plata was so successful that it was published for 30 years uninterruptedly and is one of the icons of Mexican popular culture.

Personal life and death

On February 10, 1940, Cruz married to Doña Ana Maria Ayala Cornejo at age 59, with whom he had his first son, José Gustavo.

Cruz died on November 22, 1989in Los Angeles, California at the age of 72.