Major Thomás: Reflections on Latinx Futurism

A wonderful essay by Professor Frederick Luis Aldama at UT-Austin

I’m humbled to present this essay by “Professor Latinx,” the Jacob & Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in Humanities and the Director of the Latinx Pop Lab at the University of Texas at Austin. #HookEmHorns ^🤘🏽

The lab is fresh off of hosting BIPOC PoP — a celebration of culture, gaming, animation and comics over the weekend. Although I wasn’t able to attend this year due to scheduling conflicts, Professor Aldama was kind enough to extend me an invitation to be a guest for next year’s show. I’m looking forward to it with an enthusiasm unknown to humankind!

Short of being able to attend this year’s show, Professor Aldama and I found another way to collaborate together with this essay he’s written as a reflection after reading my latest graphic novel, Major Thomás. This wonderful think piece will be included as part of a deluxe edition of Major Thomás that is TBD in terms of form factor and release date. However, I am happy and proud to share it here and now on Substack!

UPDATE: adding in a shout out to my man Pedro Iniguez, a wonderful writer, poet, comics creator and Latinx Futurist in his own right! You can check out Pedro’s stuff at his site, where he has exciting projects like The Fib and Mexicans on the Moon.

Major Thomás is Latinxfuturism at its best. In addition to all the hard sci-fi prerequisites mentioned above, it’s firmly rooted in Thomás’s past.

Major Thomás exemplifies Latinxfuturism because it doesn’t require (demand?) that Latinx audiences to constantly search for hints Latinoness; to exhaustively use our allegorical brain.

You can also read a review of the graphic novel by Rose Padilla of Latinx Pop Magazine, an media extension of UT-Austin’s Pop Lab.

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Thank you for reading! You can follow Omar Morales on any social media platform at: @omorales81.