Valeria Ontiveros & Peter Mellini of El Gordo: The teenage Flying Saucer

Sometimes things don’t go as planned. We start today with a false start. That really sets the tone for our very funny and charismatic guest:  Valeria Ontiveros is an excellent artist born in Los Angeles and raised in Mexico. She had a knack for drawing at a young age. She, like many artists, started by drawing on the first thing she could draw on, the wall of her house. Moving onto a more serious medium took some time, she originally wanted to be a Spanish teacher but opted for a career change towards the end of high school. When she took that one art class that changed her life’s direction. Going to the art institute of North Hollywood Valeria leaned towards character creating and story boarding. Learning how to create in her own way.

Valeria started reading comics when her sister came home with mangas. A form of comic that most of us are familiar with, she enjoyed the art and stories such as Rama ½ , Inuyasha, and One Piece. Getting her western comics from the local library she started with the usual Batman & Superman. But she really enjoys the grumpy characters with a soft heart like Wolverine and Ironman. She also enjoyed a sequential medium known as cartoons. Looking forward to the weekend for Saturday morning cartoons.  

Valeria is the head artist and straight-out co-creator of Gordo: The Teenage Flying Saucer, a comic started by Peter and Valeria. They were brought together by sheer serendipity. While Peter was setting things up for the East LA CAPE, Valeria was given the heads up by a family member on getting a table to vend at the show. Coming down to meet Peter to ask for a table application , she was given an opportunity to table at Nostalgic Comics free comic book day.

After the first CAPE and having the original artist drop off the book, Peter met up with Valeria to discuss the Teenage Flying Saucer. She graciously agreed and feverishly went to work on creating characters for the book. The book debuted at the following year’s East LA CAPE where she also created the promotion poster.

So take a listen as we discuss more about Valeria and the origins of the Gordo: The Teenage Flying Saucer with our friend peter.

XOXO

~CRUZ