Thursday, April 14, 2011

El Chivato vs. El Billito vs. El Kid

April 14, 2011

Still mulling the name for our next installment of Graphic Cinema. Our art director Dan Harshberger came up with a movie style logo for "el Gringo Kid," but a Facebook friend alerted me to a book with the very same title "The Gringo Kid," so that kind of took the joy out of that title.

I was talking on the phone to fellow Bang Ganger Buckeye Blake and he suggested "Billito," as in "El Billito," but when I asked around the office, everyone seemed so so on that title. Meanwhile, everyone I talked to still likes El Chivato (which is a name that the Kid was actually called in his lifetime, and is Spanish for "infant rascal") except Dan the Man, who thinks it's flat. Elizabeth Fackler, a member of this board, used the title "El Chivato" in the mid-nineties and, in fact, I used it in 1992 in my first edition of The Illustrated Life & Times of Billy the Kid.


I originally liked "El Kid," off of El Cid, but nobody has gotten very excited about that title. I want something that conveys a young outlaw who is fluent in Spanish and is a champion of the native New Mexicans. Come on. You are creative. Here's the title painting to get you in the mood:




"Choosing the right word is the difference between lightning and lightning bug."
—Mark Twain

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