Ricardo Sánchez Bobadilla has spent two decades casting a satirical eye over the escalating narco wars in Mexico's Sinaloa state, creating characters inspired by the region's violence and drug trafficking. His cartoon follows the struggles of El Ñacas and El Tacuachi, two cartel gunmen navigating the underworld with dark humor.
Origins of the Cartoon
The drug trade first took root in Sinaloa more than a century ago, and today its homegrown cartel ranks among the most powerful organized crime groups in the world. Bobadilla grew up in the state capital, Culiacán, and found ideal subject matter for social commentary and black humor. The cartoon debuted almost 20 years ago in an irreverent magazine called La Locha, with El Ñacas, the lanky one with ideas, and El Tacuachi, the stumpy sidekick, figuring out where to hide a body. They end up wedging it into a seat in Congress with one arm pinned up, voting for every proposal.
Evolution and Risks
When La Locha disappeared after nine issues, the cartoon was picked up by Ríodoce, a local newspaper, where it has run every week since. Over the years, Bobadilla has populated his cartoon universe with narco-archetypes, from kingpins and politicians to wannabe narcos and glamorous girlfriends, all speaking vividly vulgar Sinaloan slang. Narcos don't always take kindly to being mocked, but Bobadilla has avoided naming names. He recalls thinking about his early work: "Maybe my frontal lobe was a bit less developed back then."
Personal Tragedy and Impact
El Ñacas was created around the time Mexico's then-president Felipe Calderón declared a "war on drugs," sending the army to engage cartels and unleashing a surge of violence. Bobadilla's brother, Miguel, was shot dead outside his home in 2008. Bobadilla remembers going to the prosecutor's office: "And the guy there asked me: 'Are you rich? Do you have powerful friends? No? In that case don't push this, because they will kill you.' But I knew who killed my brother – and not much later they were killed themselves. I guess justice arrived another way."
Continuing the Work Amid Violence
The death of his brother changed his work, as did the murder of Javier Valdez, his friend and editor at Ríodoce, in 2017. "When they kill a journalist, it muzzles all of us a bit," said Bobadilla. The older generation of the Sinaloa cartel are mostly dead or in US prisons, but for the past two years their sons have been fighting a war that has left more than 6,000 people dead or missing. Bobadilla says the current war is the most "vicious" he has experienced. Yet Sinaloa's journalists and cartoonists continue to cover it. "When something horrible happens – which is almost every day – I try not to make fun of it soon after," said Bobadilla. "Like Woody Allen said, tragedy needs a certain distance for us to find it funny."
