From Chile to Camelot: Reception of the Arthurian Arc of Mampato and Ogú
By Jonathan F. Correa Reyes and Camila Gutiérrez
Mampato and Ogú is a Chilean adventure and science fiction comic strip originally published in a children’s magazine of the same name. Since its third installment, cartoonist Themo Lobos assumed creative direction of the comic, adding the creative elements that came to define the series. Primarily aimed at a young readership, the premise of the series is that Mampato, a young boy in possession of a time traveling device, can travel to any time and place. One narrative arc follows the journey of Mampato and his prehistoric friend Ogú to Arthurian England. Interestingly, this storyline was first serialized in the years leading to the democratic election of Salvador Allende in 1970 and republished in a compiled format a few years later during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.
Through the Arthurian arc of Mampato ‘the empire writes back.’ First serialized in 1969, the initial publication of this arc happens at a time of growing socialist sentiment in Chile that lasted through Allende’s presidency, which boasted a strategic plan called ‘The Chilean Path to Socialism’ (see Allende’s Commencement Speech). As Mampato navigates Arthurian Britain, he resolves different problems afflicting its inhabitants. Importantly, Mampato’s Chilean background stands for progress rather than backwardness, especially when compared to medieval subjects and their reliance on magic-based knowledge. By framing the narrative in this way, Lobos corrects the neocolonial rhetoric of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, which cast Chile as an underdeveloped country in need of England’s guiding hand.
The comic was republished in a compiled format in 1974, the year after General Augusto Pinochet led the coup d’etat that marked the beginning of a brutal, seventeen-year right-wing dictatorship. Considering the Pinochet regime’s strict censorship practices, it is worth noting that this republication was not significantly altered. So, how did a comic that seemed to resonate with leftist sentiment elude censors? The answer might lie in the long legacy connecting the Arthurian mythos to British fantasies of empire, a past celebrated by both England and the United States. Contextualized within Pinochet’s political agenda, which looked to both the United States and England as models, it follows that a narrative bringing together Chile and Arthurian England would prove appealing.
In an Afterword, Lobos describes the medieval period as a time of ignorance and religious fanatism, where ‘feudal’ lords abused their vassals.[1] Nevertheless, he praises the existence of supernatural entities such as dragons, giants, witches, faeries, and ogres in the medieval imaginary. This fascination for the medieval period balances his opinion of the time as a primitive age: ‘pese a todo, fue una época hermosa y mágica’ [despite everything, it was a beautiful and magical era] (48). Discussing the importance of fantasy, Lobos asserts that the Arthurian corpus belongs to all humankind: ‘Estas leyendas forman parte de la cultura humana. Todos los países las tienen. Ellas despiertan la imaginación y nos hacen mantener la esperanza en un mundo ideal’ [These legends are part of human culture. They exist in every country. They awaken the imagination and inspire us to hope for an ideal world]. Lobos claims that the Arthurian legend and its dedication to envision a better world are part of a global human heritage, thereby asserting his right to intervene in a narrative tradition that has been weaponized for centuries to justify British imperialist programs. We begin this essay by discussing how the comic discredits the colonial discourses that cast Chile as a primitive state in need of Britain’s ‘civilizing’ guidance. On a more speculative note, we then briefly reflect on what could have made this comic circumvent censorship under the dictatorship.
Initial Reception
The ‘informal’ British empire in Latin America absorbed Chile from the late-nineteenth through the mid-twentieth century. Britain’s neocolonial rhetoric of economic domination in Spanish-speaking American countries like Chile cast these spaces as premodern territories in counter-distinction to the capitalist modernity of Britain. ‘For the capitalist vanguard,’ Nadia Altschul explains, ‘the untouched character of American nature was a sign of the failure of human enterprise, and its alleged neglect legitimated the intervention of Europeans.’[2] To justify their exploitative projects, Altschul continues, nineteenth-century capitalist agents depicted Spanish-America as backwards, comprised of territories and peoples locked in a ‘medievalized’ existence. To usher a place like Chile into modernity, as understood in the exploitative logic of capitalism, the territory ‘needed’ economic reform guided by the experienced hand of Britain.
In Mampato’s Arthurian arc, the protagonist is evidently fascinated by the chivalric codes of the Arthurian world. As the story begins, we see Mampato reading a book titled Los caballeros del rey [The Knights of the King]. Mampato is particularly taken with Sir Gareth, shouting: ‘“¡Por mi dama, mi rey, y mi honor!”—gritó Sir Garreth, atacando heroicamente’ [‘For my lady, my king, and my honor!’—shouted Sir Gareth as he attacked heroically’] (3; Figure 1). Sir Gareth serves as the model in whose image Mampato fashions himself. To understand Mampato’s interest in Gareth, we could do worse than turn to Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur, arguably the most influential version of the Arthurian legend. Malory devotes an entire book to Sir Gareth, who wants to prove himself through deeds, not lineage. Accordingly, Gareth disguises himself as a servant and works in the kitchens before accepting his first quest. Not knowing that the anonymous boy is Sir Gareth, Sir Kay assigns him difficult tasks and mockingly names him Beaumains (‘Beautiful hands’). To confirm his knightly honor, Gareth conceals his identity, pretending to be someone from a lower class. But albeit secretly, Gareth remains nobility, so he is still able to perform deeds of honor. Despite not being nobility himself, the young Mampato feels drawn to this ‘underdog’-turned-knight.
Figure 1.
Nevertheless, Lobos does not adapt the source material uncritically. On the contrary, the Arthurian arc of Mampato blends Arthurian legend with themes and circumstances that would have resonated deeply with a 1960s Chilean audience. There is room to read this comic as an example of what Jonathan Hsy identifies as an ‘antiracist medievalism.’ Hsy usefully defines medievalism as ‘a critical analysis of the Middle Ages, as well as the artistic reinvention of medieval pasts in literature and culture.’[3] Making evident the polemical essence of medievalisms, he explains that to invoke the medieval past is to interpret its meaning for the present. Several scholars have shown how extremist groups appeal to medieval history and culture to advance racist, Islamophobic, and antisemitic agendas (e.g., Lomuto 2016; Chaganti 2017; Otaño Gracia and Armenti 2017; Heng 2018; Kim 2017, 2019; Whitaker 2019). But Hsy reminds us that, for a long time, artists and intellectuals of color have been addressing the relationship between white supremacy and the historical and imagined Middle Ages.
The Arthurian arc of Mampato responds to Britain’s capitalist logic of economic exploitation. The narrative leads up to Mampato stopping Mordred’s assassination plot by saving Arthur from a poisoned arrow. If not for Mampato’s actions in the British past the Arthurian legacy would not exist. Countering notions of Chile as a stagnant place, Mampato is not a passive tourist of medieval England. Rather, he brings innovative solutions for the different problems plaguing the Arthurian world by applying his knowledge as a twentieth-century Chilean subject.
Early in their adventure, Mampato and Ogú find themselves aiding the lord of Coldfield against an invading force from Orphanoak.[4] Attentive to medieval technologies of warfare, multiple panels depict siege weaponry (19). After destroying the barbican, the attackers build a dam to drain the moat surrounding the castle. Before setting out to destroy the dam, Mampato asks for a man of science. Lord Coldfield points him towards the mage Boldán, whom he describes as ‘inútil’ (useless). After failing to summon a genie, Boldán admits that he is a failure, comically saying that he should become a politician instead. Mampato then asks him for ingredients for a bomb. Boldán supplies the requested sulfur and carbon, but he is not acquainted with the last ingredient: saltpeter. After Mampato describes the mineral, Boldán remembers that he has a white powder from Spain that served as fertilizer. The powder is saltpeter. Armed with the explosive, Mampato sneaks out and destroys the dam. The rushing water washes away the invading army and their tools of war.
Figure 2.
The emphasis on saltpeter is meaningful since the British empire laboriously extracted this mineral from Chile in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By having Mampato weaponize this mineral, Lobos demonstrates the value of twentieth-century knowledge over what he understands to be medieval knowledge, which in his Afterword he describes as a type of learning that relied on magic. In fact, after a celebratory feast, Boldán claims partial credit for the saltpeter bomb and attempts a demonstration by pouring the mixture into the fireplace. Mampato unsuccessfully tries to stop him, and the next panel shows a singed group angry at the mage. The final panel of the page shows them kicking Boldán out of the keep (29; Figure 2). The juxtaposition of Mampato and Boldán through their handling of the saltpeter explosive responds to the capitalist rhetoric captured in the travel journals analyzed by Altschul, which assumed that Chileans ignored how to exploit their natural environment. The young Mampato can weaponize the natural world better than the ‘erudite’ figures of a medieval Britain that looked to magicians for knowledge.
Mampato’s encounter with a giant further deflates the capitalist logic that facilitated colonial programs in Chile. After leaving Coldfield, Mampato and Ogú meet a nameless giant. Inverting expectations, the giant is friendly and shares his woeful tale. His parents (not giants themselves) could not afford to raise him because of his size and cast him out. Now, he is hounded by knights trying to kill him. As a crying Ogú commiserates with the giant, a panel shows Mampato looking at the two of them, saying ‘Ambos se entienden bien. Son como dos niños’ [The two of them understand each other. They are like two kids.] (33; Figure 3). Mampato, only nine years old, assumes the role of the paternal figure. Since Ogú comes from the dinosaur age, Mampato constantly ensures that he is not starting fights or disrespecting someone over the course of their adventures. Moved by the giant’s sad tale, Mampato assumes a similar role with respect to the giant.
Figure 3.
Mampato leaves them playing and returns to Coldfield to enlist the giant in the reconstruction of the keep. When Mampato brings back the contract of employment, a crying giant reads: ‘¡Ya tengo un trabajo! ¡Nadie me perseguirá para darme muerte!’ [I have a job! They will stop persecuting me to kill me!]. The giant then leaves them, excitedly shouting ‘¡Soy un profesional!’ [I’m a professional!] (37; Figure 4). The final panel of the episode shows him happily working beside a sign advertising his services as an engineer, while a narrative caption declares: ‘Así el gigante adquirió un lugar en la sociedad medieval’ [That is how the giant earned a place in medieval society] (37). The reason knights could kill him with impunity was that, on account of his unemployment, the giant was not protected by the law. The problem is not his body, which Mampato diagnoses as suffering from a hormonal problem (‘¡Cuestión de hormonas, según he leído!’ [A hormonal problem, from what I have read!] (32)). For the state to recognize him as a citizen, to be protected by the law, the giant must be a ‘contributing’ member of society. Mampato turns this medieval society into a place where communal belonging is determined through labor relations—which are articulated, as Camila Gutiérrez submits, through modern labor vocabulary (‘professional,’ ‘engineer,’ ‘job,’) at a crucial time in the Chilean presidential race of 1970.[5] Lobos peers through the veil of medievalism to imagine a community where any contributing subject, regardless of their bodies (perhaps even disabilities), is protected by equal rights.
Figure 4.
As the comic opens with Mampato reading stories about Britain’s chivalric past, one wonders if he is actually reading about his own deeds in Arthurian England. In other words, this comic, primarily aimed at middle-class children, prescribes a Chilean citizen as the ideal subject. There is no need to look for models beyond domestic borders. Even if Mampato fashions himself in the image of Sir Gareth, as the opening panels suggest, when he goes back in time to address the problems afflicting England’s ‘grandiose past,’ he already embodies the best qualities of a knight.
Reception During the Dictatorship
"It is tempting to imagine Pinochet smiling while reading Mampato, exclaiming: 'the true Chilean subject, willing to risk his life on behalf of his king!'" (Artist Sebastián Franchini)
Ironically, the insertion of a Chilean subject in England’s legendary past likely made the Arthurian arc of Mampato appeal to other audiences as well. During Pinochet’s dictatorship, the state harassed, arrested, exiled, or eliminated thousands of employees working in the cultural sector (see Journalism is Not a Crime 2015). Anything that sounded remotely like a critique of the regime or its neoliberal economic agenda was closely scrutinized by censors. The regime even dissolved the state publisher, Quimantú, during this time. Amidst this frightening climate of political surveillance, a true ‘cultural blackout,’ the publisher of the Mampato magazine, Lord Cochrane, reissued old Mampato comics in compiled formats titled ‘Extra Mampato.’ The Arthurian arc of Mampato is the second entry in the series. The new edition of the Arthurian arc, titled Mampato and Ogú in King Arthur’s Court [Mampato y Ogú en la corte del rey Arturo], costed 1500 escudos, almost five times the price of the original magazine, which sold at 300 or 400 escudos.
So, what made the Arthurian arc of Mampato and Ogú find success under Pinochet’s dictatorship? To begin piecing together an answer (and we invite others to pursue this thread), it bears saying that the decade leading to the 1973 coup saw renewed interest in the Arthurian matter. Walt Disney released his adaptation of The Sword in the Stone in 1963, and the hit-musical Camelot premiered in 1960 (both adaptions of T.H. White’s novel The Once and Future King). The musical was in turn adapted into a popular film in 1967, also titled Camelot, which played in Latin American theatres. Moreover, in 1963, four days after the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy, his widow Jackie Kennedy wove a moving narrative about her husband’s presidency. Quoting Camelot, her husband’s favorite musical, she famously said in an interview with Life magazine: ‘Don’t let it be forgot, that for one brief, shining moment there was Camelot.’
Jackie Kennedy’s interview demonstrates that ‘Camelot’ served as a shorthand for a political golden age in the 1960s. Although we hesitate to argue too strongly for direct influence, it could very well be that the Pinochet regime likewise felt tempted to see itself as a new Camelot of sorts. If this were the case, the irony is not lost on us. The Arthur of Camelot optimistically imagines a just kingdom where the state regulates violence through laws. Pinochet’s military regime violated human rights, canceled elections, shut down political parties, and suppressed both trade unions and the press.
Nevertheless, while the Arthur of Camelot would have been horrified to witness the horrors taking place under Pinochet’s dictatorship, the longer tradition of the Arthurian legend offers numerous examples of Arthur ruling with an iron fist. Early in the tradition, Geoffrey of Monmouth paints an image of Arthur as a king bent on conquest. An influential source for the Arthurian legend, Geoffrey’s Historia regum Britanniae [History of the Kings of Britain] (c. 1136) inspired hundreds of translations and adaptations in the Middle Ages and beyond. Geoffrey’s characterization of the king is just one example (albeit an influential one) in which Arthur rules through might. Narratives influenced by Geoffrey’s Historia could have easily made their way to Latin America as early as the sixteenth century with the arrival of the Spanish and the Portuguese.[6]
Furthermore, other texts like Malory’s Morte also portray Arthur as a ruler bent on expansion and conquest. The first extant Spanish translation of Malory’s text, Muerte de Arturo by Francisco Torres Oliver, is published in 1985. But Malory’s tales were known to many readers in Spanish before that through at least two literary adaptations for younger readers: a children’s edition by Manuel Vallvé that blended Malory’s Morte and Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, titled Los caballeros de la tabla redonda; leyendas relatadas a los niños [The Knights of the Round Table; Legends for Children] (1914); and Pilar Grimaldo Tormos’ Los caballeros de la tabla redonda [The Knights of the Round Table] (1963), a juvenile, illustrated adaptation of Malory.[7]
As a celebration of imperialist projects, the narratives that comprise the Arthurian corpus often center values that would have resonated with the values of an authoritarian regime such as Pinochet’s dictatorship. Seen in this way, the appeal of the Arthurian arc of Mampato for more right-wing readers becomes clearer. By traveling back in time, Mampato inserts himself into the Arthurian legend. If the Arthurian world was indeed a source of fascination for Chile under this authoritarian regime, Mampato’s Arthurian arc allowed Chileans to imagine themselves as part of this legendary corpus. In other words, Chile adds to Camelot’s grandeur.
By the end of the comic, Mampato saves Arthur from an assassination attempt orchestrated by Mordred. It is tempting to imagine Pinochet smiling while reading Mampato, exclaiming: ‘the true Chilean subject, willing to risk his safety on behalf of his king!’ Readers will see what they want to see.
Conclusion
The Arthurian arc of Mampato is open to radically contrasting interpretations. On the one hand, some audiences likely received it as a reevaluation of Chile’s relationship with England which had thus far been understood by the subordination of the former to the latter. On the other hand, the story could have been read as a celebration of the Arthurian legend that imbued Chile with the same kind of cultural prestige claimed by England and the United States. Ultimately, this study shows that, despite the success of Arthuriana to remain relevant within currents of global circulation, the finished products negotiated the Arthurian matter with local forms and interests. The Arthurian legend helped twentieth-century Chileans reject the enduring legacies of colonial discourses.
Author and Artist Bios:
Jonathan F. Correa Reyes is an Assistant Professor of English at Clemson University. He holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from The Pennsylvania State University. His research explores formulations of race and race-thinking in medieval romances. He has publications forthcoming in Speculum, Postmedieval, and Viator. His research has been supported by the Ford Foundation. Jonathan is also a co-founder and co-producer of The Multicultural Middle Ages Podcast.
Camila Gutiérrez is an Assistant Professor of Arts and Humanities at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Her research focuses on the aesthetic influence of Japanese visual culture on Latin American historietas and video games. She has published on the formation and global circulation of shōjo aesthetics, particularly via Boys Love media. She has forthcoming articles in Fashion Theory and Arthuriana. ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3305-0616
Sebastián Franchini is a freelance illustrator from Santiago, Chile, where he lives with his wife and their two cats. He has done work for books, board games, animation, advertising, comics, and video games, among other things. He collects retro games, music CDs and comics. When he's not working, you can find him watching movies, reading a book or just trying to stay in shape.
Notes:
[1] Themo Lobos, Las Aventuras de Mampato, Ogú y Rena. La Corte del Rey Arturo (Santiago: Dolmen, 1997), p. 47. Future citations will be in-text.
[2] Nadia R. Altschul, Politics of Temporalization: Medievalism and Orientalism in Nineteenth-Century America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020), p. 42.
[3] Jonathan Hsy, Antiracist Medievalisms: From ‘Yellow Peril’ to Black Lives Matter (Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2022), p. 3.
[4] These place names are made up. In the 1970 and 1974 versions, the names appear in Spanish as ‘Campofrío’ and ‘Roblehuacho.’ They are translated into English in the 1990s editions.
[5] Camila Gutiérrez, ‘Mampato and Ogú in Camelot: Knighthood Reimagined During Cold-War Politics,’ Arthuriana (forthcoming).
[6] For the reception of Geoffrey’s Historia in the Iberian Peninsula in the Middle Ages, see Paloma Gracia, ‘The De gestis Britonum in Castile’ in A Companion to Geoffrey of Monmouth (Leiden: Brill, 2020), pp. 432-6; Nahir Otaño Gracia, ‘The Reception of Geoffrey of Monmouth in the Crown of Aragon’ in A Companion to Geoffrey of Monmouth, ed. ed. Joshua Byron Smith and Georgia Henley (Leiden: Brill, 2020), pp. 437-41; and Santiago Gutiérrez García, ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth in Portugal and Galicia’ in A Companion to Geoffrey of Monmouth (Leiden: Brill, 2020), pp. 482-6.
[7] Fernando Galván, ‘Malory Revisited: From Caxton to Steinbeck,’ Selim 8 (1998): 32-2 [31-71].
