José Guadalupe Cruz

José Guadalupe Cruz Diaz was a comics and screen writer and actor born in Teocaltiche, Jalisco, Mexico, on January 31, 1917.

The events and experience that he lived through in his childhood during the Mexican revolution in the 1920s, lay the foundation for his fascination by the personalities that represent that era. He gave life to those personalities in the comics which he wrote later in his life, like the "Adelita" series and "La Tigresa del Bajío".

José G. Cruz published his first comic when he was 18 years old and his career became one of the most productive and successful in the Mexican comics-scene. In the beginning his works were printed in the magazines "Paquin", "Paquita" and "Pepin", and many of these stories captured his readers, like "Adelita y las guerrillas".

On February 10, 1940, José G. Cruz got married to Doña Ana Maria Ayala Cornejo, with whom he had his first son, José Gustavo.

In 1943 José G. Cruz started to use a system of photomontage to make his comics. He created novels of great power like "Carta Brava", "Percal", "Tango", "Ventarron", "Tenebral", "Dancing" and "Malevaje".

In 1947 he started writing for films and acted in more than thirty movies with directors like Ismael Rodríguez, Agustín P. Delgado, Chano Urueta, Miguel Morayta, René Cardona and Juan Orol.

In 1952, he founded his own publishing house, "Ediciones José G. Cruz", which published comics like "Muñequita", "La Pandilla", "Rosita Alvirez", "El Vampiro Tenebroso" and "Canciones Inolvidables". "Santo, el emmascarado de plata" was so successful that it was published for 30 years uninterruptedly and is one of the icons of Mexican popular culture.

At the age of 72 years on the 22 of November 1989 Cruz died in Los Angeles, California.