Follow up on the Memin Pinguin situation.

Yesterday post gathered a lot of responses, not here on my blog but on the blogs that linked to it. I'm glad I took my time to read those answers, even if I still don't know if it would be wise to answer them one by one, because it really nailed it to me what the whole problem is.

American people are complaining about the ART in Memin Pinguin, more specifically, the way Memin and his mom are drawn.

Mexican people are defending the STORY of Memin Pinguin, trying to put some emphasis on the fact that it was the story we paid attention to, not the art that sure is dated.

As long as the argument runs around those lines, we're not going to get anywhere.

So I was talking with my business partner Aurea Freniere, and we decided that while we don't have the power to change the way in which Memin was drawn, and the industry in our country is not in the shape to support a complete re-make of the series, we can at the very least do something to show that we understand the problem and that, if we could, we would change it, and, at the same time, try and showcase exactly why we love Memin and his pro-equality (Because, in the end, Memin preaches equality in every way) message.

Yesterday I made an open call in my DeviantArt account to all mexican and spanish-speaking members who knew Memin to redesign Memin. To take him away from the racist and stereotypical designs from which he took influence as a drawing, and instead focus on the good things he gave us. To show how we wish Memin looked now so his message wouldn't be lost and we could have avoided both controversies. After all, we can't expect every one who sees Memin in the states to understand Spanish enough to understand the context, and while I still maintain that before condemning the whole country as racist and ignorant the people behind the media reports should've done a better research, I am not saying that people in general got offended 'for nothing'. They had the right to be offended, they had the right to protest, and I hope this shows that, even when we're powerless to make a bigger change (say, get that modernized comic), we understand, and we're willing to learn and to change for the better.

And if you're still interested on this whole thing three months from now, tune in here for the announcement of the page where Aurea and I will recopilate all the new Memines.

I firmly believe something good can came out of all this, that we can use this to understand each other, and make those cultural differences smaller, respecting both cultures at the same time.