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