Angeleno of the Week: Lalo Alcaraz

When the Los Angeles Times suddenly dropped the comic strip "La Cucaracha" this week, creator Lalo Alcaraz didn't just get mad -- he got organized.

One day later, his strip had been restored -- a stunningly fast reversal, which is why we're making Alcaraz (above, celebrating the turn of events in "Dewey Defeats Truman" style) our Angeleno of the Week.

Alcaraz woke up Monday morning clueless to the fact that the Times had yanked his strip. (The paper had actually dropped "La Cucaracha" the day before, when it didn't appear in the redesigned Sunday color comics section.)

The cartoonist remembers that he opened the paper Monday morning while his kids were getting ready for school -- and immediately had to "hold back the nausea and panic."

"Daddy was for all intents and purposes unemployed on Monday morning," he tells Franklin Avenue. "I later explained to my brilliant 8-year-old daughter and wicked 6-year-old boy that Daddy actually got a big Christmas gift from the Times."

Recovering from that initial shock, Alcaraz says he called his editor, Greg Melvin (who happens to be the former editor of the famed and now-defunct Aaron McGruder strip "The Boondocks").

"They had no inkling," Alcaraz says of his distributor, Universal Press Syndicate. "(Melvin) then suggested, 'You gotta fight!' Later, he told me, many papers tried this on 'The Boondocks' and lived to regret it."

Alcaraz then sent the word out to friends and fans -- whom he labels the 'Cucaracha Army' -- and asked them to e-mail the Times.

"I didn't even have to tell them too much of what to say," he says. "They wrote some eloquent stuff I had no business editing or even being the subject of."

Alcaraz asked people to copy him on their emails -- and so far he has received almost 300 emails, asking the Times to restore the strip. He also got a little bit of help from some high-profile but unnamed friends.

"Some 800 pound gorilla or two contacted the Times too, but to me they are all part of a quick organized movement that got its progressive goal done, relentlessly, with the tenacity of the cucaracha," Alcaraz says.

The result: Alcaraz was contacted by the paper on Tuesday afternoon and told that "La Cucaracha" would be back in the paper effective Wednesday. Ultimately, the strip was canceled for just three days.

"My editor said its gotta be a world record for a comic strip reversal," he says. "I agree."



Still, Alcaraz is surprised that he had to sic the "Cucaracha Army" on the paper in the first place.

"The Times coulda done a bit of research to see if I was just the janitor who submitted some scribbles that everyone hated, or was an actual nationally syndicated cartoonist somewhat respected by his colleagues (that everyone hated) and maybe recipient of a donkeyload of awards and honors," he says.

Alcaraz, who launched "La Cucaracha" five years ago, has been penning editorial cartoons for the L.A. Weekly (under the "L.A. Cucaracha" banner) since 1992. He also hosts the weekly radio show "The Pocho Hour of Power," Fridays at 4 p.m. on KPFK-FM.

The cartoonist says he's been inspired through the years by "Doonesbury," "Bloom County" and the old Latino-themed strip "Gordo."

As for the L.A. Times funny pages, Alcaraz expresses disappointment that "Candorville" remains cut.

"('Candorville' creator) Darrin Bell is a cool guy and really believes in what he does -- why can't there be a black and Latino-centric strip in the L.A. Times?" Alcaraz asks.

If it were up to him, the paper would drop strips by "guys dead over 20 years."

"That'd keep 'Peanuts,' and kill 'Blondie' and other 'legacy strips,'" he adds.

One more thing: "The Times needs editorial cartoons, by say, a local Chicano who eally cares about Los Angeles," he adds.

This Monday on Franklin Avenue: We speak with "Candorville" creator Darrin Bell, who's still hoping to get his strip also reinstated at the Times.