Frederick Luis Aldama
Biography
Born in Mexico to a Guatemalan- and Irish-American mamá from LA and a Mexican papá from Mexico City, raised mostly in north central California, I attended UC Berkeley (BA) and Stanford (PhD). Today I hold the Jacob & Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at UT Austin where I’m also founder and director of the Latinx Pop Lab, BIPOC PoP, and editor of The Latinx Pop Magazine. As an award-winning author and editor, I’ve published dozens of books, including the Eisner-winning Latinx Superheroes in Mainstream Comics. Notable kid's book titles include The Adventures of Chupacabra Charlie (published in English and Spanish) and the bilingual Con Papá / With Papá. I recently released Pyroclast, the YA graphic fictions Through Fences and Labyrinths Borne, and the YA novel The Absolutely (Almost) True Adventures of Max Rodriguez. I produce and co-create documentaries and animation shorts, including Carlitos Chupacabra, showcased at Cannes Animation Festival 2023. I’m honored to be inducted into prestigious organizations like the National Cartoonists Society, Texas Institute of Letters, and Ohio State University's ODI Hall of Fame. Currently, I serve on various boards of directors, including The Academy of American Poets. Keep eyes peeled in 2025 for my Steampunkera Chronicles multiverse.
Professor Latinx
When I began researching what later became Your Brain on Latino Comics, the Latino/a comics community christened me Professor Latinx. Similar to Professor X from X-Men comics, who locates muties with his cerebro, I knew the whereabouts of Latinx comics creatives worldwide. The “X” in Professor LatinX also resonates with Malcolm X‘s rejection of his slave name. I use “Latinx” broadly (like over 2 million others) not as a rigid label, but as one of many self-identification options such as Latino, Latina, Latine, Boricua, and Chicana, among others.
Credits
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Itzel Aguilar. Illustrations (from Labyrinths Borne)
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Miguel Ángel Hernández. Illustrations (from Steampunkera Chronicles; An Auto-Speculative Comics Odyssey)
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Lars Hinrichs. Web & Graphic Design