The demon within sensationalism, crime, and morality in the comics of Mexican serial killer Goyo Cárdenas, the Tacuba Strangler

Drawing on history, literary criticism, and media theory, this paper addresses the comics of Mexican serial killer Goyo Cárdenas, the Tacuba Strangler. I argue that post-revolutionary Mexico’s sensational literature, particularly the <i>Nota Roja</i> and true crime comics set the context for the creation of Goyo Cárdenas popular legend. Based on the analysis of his comics, autobiographical books, and interviews with cartoonists, I argue that the comics’ criminal sensationalism allowed Cárdenas to construct a public moral façade, while at the same time the comics’ plots and format enabled him to project his murderous fantasies in a sanitised fashion. I conceptualise this process as the construction of an externalised morality around a set of detached lustful homicidal fantasies, which permitted Cárdenas to recreate himself as a reformed individual before public opinion in post-revolutionary Mexico’s pathological public sphere, within which Goyo’s stories contributed to the reproduction of a criminal literacy among Mexican popular classes.

本文结合历史学、文学批评与媒介理论，探讨墨西哥连环杀手——塔库巴绞杀者戈约·卡德纳斯（Goyo Cárdenas）的相关漫画作品。笔者认为，墨西哥革命后的煽情文学（尤其是<i>Nota Roja</i>与真实犯罪漫画）为戈约·卡德纳斯流行传奇的形成奠定了语境基础。通过分析其漫画作品、自传书籍及对漫画家的访谈，笔者指出：漫画中的犯罪煽情主义为卡德纳斯构建了公众道德假面；与此同时，漫画的情节与形式使其得以以一种净化的方式投射其谋杀幻想。笔者将这一过程概念化为：围绕一系列抽离的性欲谋杀幻想构建外部化道德——这一过程使卡德纳斯得以在墨西哥革命后病态的公共领域中，于公众舆论面前重塑自身为改过自新之人；而戈约的故事亦在此领域内，推动了墨西哥大众阶层中犯罪认知能力的再生产。