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The Under-appreciated Genius of Puerco "Porko" Comics While the phenomenon of underground "comix" that trace their lineage back to Crumb-Era happenings is well-documented, the often parallel birth and spread of Puerco (or "Porko" as it is now more commonly known) Comics during the 80s has been completely ignored, and left to develop outside the eye of a critical media. As such, its origins are shrouded in mystery. What is generally agreed upon is that Puerco comics were first the province of early-80s East L.A. where it had solidified into a unique pastiche of graffiti, political satire, and vulgar juvenilia. Though some afficionados point to Puerco influences in established underground works by Los Bros. Hernanadez, these kinds of genre crossovers are rare, if any, and unlikely in this specific case: Puerco "artists" were often ignorant of any other modes of comics (outside of the superhero variety), and were often illiterate. By the mid-80s, however, Puerco comics had spread to middle-class and suburban neighborhoods, where the Anglicized "Porko" moniker was adopted by its new, predominantly White constitutency. (While the ratio of Hispanics practicing Puerco decreased by the influx of this new deomgraphic, the most prominent Puerco artists remained Hispanic, or at least adopted Latino pseduonyms.) This time is regarded as the "Golden Age of Porko", during which Porko's ubiquity was manifest by drawers full of elementary school teacher confiscations. Unfortunately, most of these cultural artifacts were likely thrown away along with Garbage Pail Kids Cards, Pop Rocks, cap guns, and the like.