Leticia Neria PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText ...

magic will punish those who are hurting others, sometimes by a side effect that the
person will need to be aware of, and which is always mentioned by Hermelida. In fact,
Hermelinda enjoys the misfortune of those who wanted to use sorcery to harm or kill
others.
The witchcraft always works and helps attain the goal; however, an outcome
often turns the potion against the person who is using it, or against someone who is
committing a crime. In the issue in which a man gets some chewing gum which forces
people to tell the truth, 10 the man realises that his son is a liar who has skipped school
and that his wife is unfaithful. The man cannot handle all this truth and dies. In the next
issue, the adulterous wife is killed by her lover. So, it is through these unexpected
reactions, or through the side effects that Hermelinda warned about, that the user of the
magical potion will discover a reality that maybe he/she did not want to learn, such as
the secret feelings of the wife in the previous example. Also those who act wrongly will
be punished, and this punishment is somehow related with the witchcraft. Therefore
there is always a lesson to learn, and we realise that, although we would love to use
sorcery to solve our biggest problems, there is a risk involved and is always better to
fight to reach our own aims instead of trying to find the easiest solution. Furthermore,
by observing how the wicked characters suffer the consequences of their acts, we might
learn that wrongdoing is always penalised. 11
The use of humour is very important in this comic book, since the topics that are
discussed can be cruel, serious, and even violent. Without witty comments and comical
situations, the content of the plots could be compared to that of the gutter press but with
caricatured images. Humour as a narrative tool changes the mood of the content and
10 Hermelinda Linda, 372, 373.
11 Personal communication with Óscar González, 15 July 2010.
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