Cartoonist Ricardo Sánchez Bobadilla satirizes Sinaloa's drug cartels for two decades

For two decades, Ricardo Sánchez Bobadilla has crafted a satirical comic strip featuring El Ñacas and El Tacuachi, two hitmen navigating the bizarre realities of Sinaloa's drug trafficking scene. This cartoon first appeared almost 20 years ago in the irreverent publication La Locha before transitioning to the local paper Ríodoce, where it has been a weekly fixture ever since. Bobadilla's characters encompass drug lords, politicians, aspiring narcos, and their glamorous partners, all engaging in colorful Sinaloan slang. Despite the dangers of ridiculing cartels, he refrains from mentioning real names. His work is deeply influenced by personal loss: his brother Miguel was killed in 2008, and his friend Javier Valdez was murdered in 2017. Bobadilla highlights the ongoing conflict among the sons of the previous cartel generation, which has resulted in over 6,000 deaths or disappearances, describing it as the most brutal period he has witnessed. In April, the US government implicated Sinaloa's governor and nine other officials in cartel connections. Nevertheless, Bobadilla persists in creating the strip, offering a darkly comedic take on the violence.