Comics in a Revolutionary Context : Educational Campaigns and Collective Memory in Sandinista Nicaragua

When the Sandinistas came to power in Nicaragua in 1979, one central challenge was to communicate their politics to a population with an illiteracy level of more than 50%. They quickly realized that images needed to play a central part in their campaigns. Images were "a thousand times more efficient than words" as former Sandinista leader Sergio Ramírez put it in one of his essays. While murals were used to transform public spaces, comics also formed an important part of Sandinista political and educational campaigns. For example, the government distributed twenty health pamphlets illustrated with short comics of Mexican and Chilean caricaturists. Comics published in the official newspaper Barricada explained economic policy and also Nicaragua's most famous caricaturist Roger Sánchez Flores made regularly contributions to the newspaper. In my paper, I will first analyze the political use of comics in a revolutionary context. Second, I will show how caricaturists used local cultural codes as food and sports to communicate their messages. As Somoza is an important figure in most comics, appearing either as symbol of the past or as an epitome of everything negative, I will then outline, how those graphic images contributed to the collective memory of the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua. Finally, I will make some observations on the reception of the government campaigns in Nicaragua including a comparison with Chile during the Allende period.