Kaliman, el Hombre Increible

For quite a while, my husband Rick used to buy every issue of the Mexican comic book Kaliman, el Hombre Increible. They sold it at Read All About It in Pike Place, but unfortunately it seems to have been discontinued.

First issued in 1965, Kaliman was very popular across Latin America. It ran until 1991 and sold over a million copies. Reissues of the comic started to appear in 1998. As far as I know, they are still reissuing the old comics. Here are some of my favorite covers from Kaliman.

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“HALT! NO ONE CAN BUY MY POWERS.”

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“HA HA HA!”

“AH! THAT LIGHT WILL PUT AN END TO MY EYES!”

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Kaliman is a master of martial and mental arts, and spent a large portion of the series completely blind, but able to still defeat his enemies through his amazing powers, and always without the use of weapons other than tranquilizer darts. He is also always saying wise things like:

“En nuestro mundo no viven malas personas, viven aquellos que permiten que las otras sean malas.”

There are no bad people in the world, but there are some who allow others to be bad.

One of the pleasures of reading Kaliman as an English speaker is the language. I’ve studied Spanish, but for people who haven’t, it’s still fairly easy to figure out what is happening most of the time.

There is a Kaliman website in English, and at least two very official-looking sites in Spanish, here and here.

More comics

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~ by lolarusa on May 20, 2007.