Before He Was Guapo: The Story Behind Me llamo Víctor

Hey, remember this guy?

This is Víctor in his prime.

Swaggering through Guapo, supremely confident in his own good looks, and completely certain that everyone else sees exactly what he sees when he looks in the mirror.

Of course, things don’t go particularly well for him.

In the sequel video, La confesión de Víctor, that magnificent self-image begins to crumble.

Eventually, I even gave Víctor a happy ending. Ish.

Years later, I returned to an older Víctor in Feo.

His glory days were long behind him. He was older, bald, unemployed, and had pretty much failed to launch.

But Feo also gave him something he had never really had before: love, perspective, and a little peace.

We’d seen him at his most ridiculous in Guapo. We’d watched everything fall apart in La confesión de Víctor. And in Feo, I’d even given him something resembling a happy ending.

There was just one problem: I still didn’t know how he had become that person in the first place.

So I went backward

Who was Víctor at 15? What did he care about? What was he afraid of? And how did that kid eventually become Guapo?

I decided to tell that story as a Spanish graphic novel. In fact, it became two.

Víctor’s past became Me llamo Víctor, one story told across two graphic novels.

The Víctor I discovered wasn’t Guapo at all

As I started writing and Juan Carlos Pinilla started drawing, I realized pretty quickly that 15-year-old Víctor wasn’t some pint-sized version of the guy from Guapo.

He was actually a fairly awkward, lonely kid. He didn’t really have friends. And wherever he went, he lived in the enormous shadow of his older brother, Amado, one of the biggest celebrities in the world.

Everyone adored Amado. His classmates. His teachers. His parents. Meanwhile, Víctor was entirely invisible.

But he wasn’t some glum recluse. He had his own life. He loved to read. He was a gifted piano player. He had his own interests and passions. He was both interesting and interested.

And then he finally made a friend

Fairly early in the story, Víctor meets Lucía. And for probably the first time in his life, he has a real friend.

She sees him for who he is. She likes him for who he is. And, maybe most importantly, she isn’t remotely intrigued by the celebrity of his older brother. In fact, she finds him kind of ridiculous.

Lucía is one of my favorite characters I’ve ever written. She’s genuinely warm-hearted and caring, but she also has a very strong sense of who she is. She doesn’t exist simply to support Víctor or help move his story along. She has her own life, her own values, and her own lines she isn’t willing to cross.

And that becomes increasingly important as Víctor begins to change. Lucía really does care about him. But she’s also deeply wary of the path he’s starting to choose for himself.

In that sense, Lucía becomes a kind of counterweight to everything pulling Víctor in the other direction. She represents a life in which he doesn’t have to compete with anybody. He doesn’t have to be famous. He doesn’t have to be impressive. He gets to just be Víctor.

And that became the real story I wanted to tell.

How does someone like this become the man from Guapo?

Me llamo Víctor is a fall from grace

The graphic novels are very funny, and they still live very much in the same strange world as the videos.

But at their core, they tell a sad story.

They’re about watching this awkward, thoughtful, talented kid slowly shed the things that make him interesting. The things that make him him.

He starts wanting things he never used to care about. Attention. Popularity. Status. And little by little, those things begin to matter more than the people and interests that once gave his life meaning.

You’re watching Víctor become corrupted. You’re watching him become shallow. And because you already know Guapo, you know exactly where all of this is heading.

And that changed the way I saw all of the Víctor stories

Once the graphic novels existed, Víctor’s story suddenly had a much larger shape. The kid we meet in Me llamo Víctor gives everything that happens afterward a different meaning.

By the time he begins finding his way back to himself in Feo, we finally know what he’s finding his way back to.

Read Víctor’s story

Me llamo Víctor is one complete story told across two graphic novels.