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| Zorro's debut 95 years ago today. |
Zorro is a
character created in 1919 by New York–based pulp writer Johnston McCulley. The
character has been featured in numerous books, films, television series, and
other media. Zorro (Spanish for "fox") is the secret identity of Don
Diego de la Vega, a Californian nobleman living in Los Angeles during the
era of Spanish rule.
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The first Zorro film (1920)
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The character has undergone changes through
the years, but the typical image of him is a dashing black-clad masked outlaw
who defends the people of the land against tyrannical officials and other
villains. Not only is he too cunning and foxlike for the bumbling
authorities to catch, but also delights in publicly humiliating them.
Zorro debuted in McCulley's 1919 story
"The Curse of Capistrano", serialized in five parts in the pulp
magazine All-Story Weekly.
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| El Coyote, Spanish Zorro? |
El Coyote (The Coyote) is the name of a fictional character
very similar to Zorro, although acting 100 years later. He first appeared in
the novel El Coyote (1944) by Spanish writer José Mallorquí. Between
1944 and 1953 El Coyote appeared in 192 pulp-like novels.
