Author: Cecilia Battauz

Peer-Reviewers: Kathryn McClain and James Fleury
Website Developer: Kristen Figgins

Visual Storytelling in El hombre de Maisinicú / The Man from Maisinicu

Course: FLAS 424. Advanced Hispanic Literature: Latin American Comics & Graphic Novels

Summary

The Advanced Hispanic Literature course at Colorado Mesa University is taught entirely in Spanish and uses authentic materials as they were published (i.e., real-world, unsimplified, and unedited materials, written by and for native speakers, as opposed to materials created for second-language learners). Each time it is taught, the course focuses on a different genre, literary period, or topic, depending on faculty expertise. Consequently, despite being an upper-division course, it usually includes introductory lessons and materials, especially when students have not had sufficient exposure to the main genre or topic in previous literature survey courses.

This lesson plan is part of my second iteration of the course focusing on Latin American Comics & Graphic Novels (Fall 2025) and is taught over two consecutive class periods (75 minutes each) in the second week of the semester. By then, students have been introduced to different definitions of comics, a basic historical timeline of the medium, and its main characteristics. In addition, they have had some practice with detailed observation. To improve students’ detailed observation skills, I use techniques suggested by Shari Tishman in Slow Looking: The Art and Practice of Learning Through Observation. Although the course does not fully explore adaptation as a field of study due to time constraints, students are introduced to a few graphic novels that adapt or have been adapted to other media, which they can use for their final projects.

One such case is the graphic novel El hombre de Maisinicú / The Man from Maisinicu (see Image 1), published in 1979 in Cuba—20 years after the Cuban Revolution that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. In 1952, Batista had seized power after a coup d’état, crushing the emergent Cuban democracy; for seven years, different revolutionary groups inside and outside the island worked to overturn his regime. The graphic novel adapts the 1973 homonymous film (see Image 2) directed by Manuel Pérez and starring Sergio Corrieri, who won Best Actor at the 8th Moscow International Film Festival. The film is based on the true story of Alberto Delgado, a former member of Fidel Castro’s revolutionary army who infiltrated a group of counterrevolutionaries in the Escambray Mountains in 1964 and was brutally murdered for that reason. The counterrevolutionaries, who were terrorizing the locals, planned to reestablish contact with the CIA to retake control of the government.

The graphic novel adaptation starts by introducing the reader to the hideous crimes of the counterrevolutionaries, who, in the first few pages, kill a young schoolteacher because he represents the power for change. Furthermore, the region where this violence takes place is Alberto Delgado’s birthplace. These changes in the narrative structure make the storyline more comprehensible, especially for new audiences. For this lesson plan, only the first section of the graphic novel is used (pp. 1-8). This selection responds to time limitations and learning objectives. At the same time, these pages form a complete narrative unit that can be compared with the considered film fragment.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of the lesson, students are expected to:

• Describe a panel in detail and explain how the different elements in the scene interrelate to convey meaning; 
• Recognize different types of panels in terms of key shots, color, size, and position on the page and explain their general effect in storytelling;
• Apply this knowledge when analyzing the first section of El hombre de Maisinicú / The Man from Maisinicu;
• Communicate ideas, observations, and interpretations in Spanish both orally and in writing at an appropriate level (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, mechanics).

Materials

• Classnotes on structure and page design in comics and graphic novels.
• Eisner, Will. Comics and Sequential Art. W. W. Norton & Company, 2008 (Selection of images includes: Reading track and page frame, pp. 42 and 82; The frame, p. 43; Scene interpretation, p. 40; Representation of time, p. 32 and 46-47; Splash page and frameless panels, p. 76; and Use of text, pp. 130-131).
• El hombre de Maisinicú. Manuel Pérez, Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC), 1973, 0:00:00-0:05:52.
• Morales, Fidel, Sánchez, Vicente, and Ponce, Mario. El hombre de Maisinicú / The Man from Maisinicu, Editorial Gente Nueva, 1979, pp. 1-8.
• Tishman, Shari. Slow Looking: The Art and Practice of Learning Through Observation. Routledge, 2017.

Lesson Outline

Day 1

• Warm up: Review of terms and elements of comics/graphic novels learned during previous lessons (see terms from Eisner in Materials section). 
• Presentation: Students are introduced to new elements of comics structure and design: size, position, distribution, and sequence of panels; use of framed and frameless panels; representation of time and movement; use of the speech balloon; use of color; different uses of text, onomatopoeia, and textless panels; plot and storyline (see associated pages from Eisner in Materials section).
• Practice: For each element, students are given examples—such as various types and styles of speech balloons to represent different forms of communication, emotions, and sound; or changes in color to signal flashbacks—and they work in pairs to describe the effects they produce. 
• Application: Students watch the beginning of the film El hombre de Maisinicú / The Man from Maisinicu (0:00:00-0:05:52), which includes a running text explaining the historical context and shows a group of armed men (counterrevolutionaries) attacking and murdering locals in a rural village. The first few minutes are silent, followed by a voice-over narration. After watching, student pairs discuss and summarize the clip to ensure comprehension. 
• Students are introduced to the graphic novel El hombre de Maisinicú / The Man from Maisinicu and asked to apply slow-looking techniques (see Tishman) to the first splash page (i.e., a panel that takes up a whole page). After they complete the task individually, they spend a few minutes sharing their ideas in small groups, including a comparison to the images in the film. Each group then reports their observations and interpretations.
• Closing: The instructor summarizes the main points of the class and presents the homework assignment, which will be the basis for the next class.

Homework assignment

For this task, we analyze an excerpt from the graphic novel El hombre de Maisinicú (pp. 1-8), applying the elements we have studied so far. Follow these steps:

• First approach: Read the first 8 pages of the graphic novel, paying close attention (i.e., slow-looking) to the details of the images and text.
• Review: Write a brief review of this excerpt from the story: What happens? What is the historical context? Where does the story take place? Who are the characters? What problems or tensions can you observe in the excerpt?
• Design: In this excerpt, we can see that the panels vary in size and layout on the page. Analyze these differences: How do they affect reading? Why do the first on p. 1 and the penultimate panels on p. 7 (see Image 3 as example) take up the entire page? What similarities and differences—in terms of structure and the information they convey—do you see between panels 5 and 6 on p. 2?
• Color: Look at the transition from pp. 5-6 and analyze the use of color. How does it change, and what effect does it have on the narrative?
• Storyline: The last two panels on p. 3 introduce two characters who reappear on pp. 5-6. What effect does this order have on the narrative?
• Text: The text in this graphic novel is used in different ways. What are these ways, and how do they contribute to the story?
• On the last page (p. 8), the first panel is very different from all the other panels in this excerpt. Analyze how it is constructed and what effect it has on the story/narrative and on your reading experience.

Day 2

• Warm-up: The instructor lists the main elements (page design, color, narrative elements, use of text) on the board/screen for students to have in mind when presenting their analysis of the excerpt (homework assignment). The instructor asks students to provide concepts, definitions, or explanations for each of them. 
• Practice: Students give informal oral presentations of their analysis. While they speak, the instructor lists their main ideas on the board, connecting similar ideas and highlighting different approaches. 
• Closing: a) As a whole class, students comment on which parts in the excerpt were difficult to understand, and they look for clues for understanding in the excerpt; b) Students consider the main differences between the beginnings of the film and the graphic novel and explain their effects on the narrative and the audience.

Author Bio

Cecilia Battauz is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Colorado Mesa University, where she teaches Spanish and courses on Hispanic literature, history, and culture. She has designed and taught courses on Latin American comics and graphic novels at different institutions in the United States, and has presented her research on Latin American graphic novels at national as well as international conferences. Her most recent publications include the review “‘Nobody is saved alone.’ El Eternauta / The Eternaut (2025) and the Comeback of the Collective Hero” published in Adaptation and the book chapter entitled “Criticizing the Norm in the Pampas. Inodoro Pereyra, el renegau and the Myth of the Argentine Cowboy,” published by Routledge as part of the collection Comics and Norm-critical Pedagogy: Intersectional Perspectives on Graphic Storytelling (edited by Lars Wallner y Robert Aman). Currently, she is working on two anthology chapters: one on graphic narratives written by women in 21^st-century South America and another on the work of Argentine artist Lautaro Fiszman.

About the Adaptation Today Pedagogy Series

Adaptation Today is a free, accessible resource for all academics and students who are interested in adaptation, especially graduate students, contingent scholars, and early career researchers. The pedagogy series creates a space of community and resource-sharing, with rolling deadlines for submission. See our CFP page to see how you can submit your own syllabi, lesson plans, assessments, and blog posts for publication.