Puerto Rican superhero La Borinqueña will make her debut in her own comic this fall, but she made an advance appearance on a float at the Puerto Rican Day parade in New York last weekend.
Creator Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez wanted to create a heroine who embodied both a classic superhero look and Puerto Rican iconography. And she will have dark skin: “It’s a 2016 approach to creating an image. Meaning that, as a Latino creating an image that represents Latinos, she’s not going to be whitewashed, like a telenovela actress. She’s not going to be the trigueña that’s going to be the nanny, or the maid, in the background. She’s going to be in the forefront. There’s room for all of us, but there’s a necessity to represent all of us as well.”
The comic will debut at the Café con Comics event in New York later this year. Miranda-Rodriguez and Run-DMC member Darryl McDaniels are co-founders of Darryl Makes Comics!, but they have not decided whether La Borinqueña will be published by them or another publisher. Either way, a cut of the sales will go to the National Puerto Rican Day Parade organization’s scholarship program.
