¡Alarma! (magazine)
¡Alarma! was a Mexican news magazine published by Publicaciones Llegó. It specialized in graphics and shocking pictures of crime and corpses including murder victims and traffic accidents,[1] as well as pictures of scantily clad women.
History and profile
[edit]Pitched by journalist and writer Carlos Samoaya Lizárraga as a magazine exclusively about crime, ¡Alarma! was launched on April 17, 1963, with an initial print run of 3000 copies per week. The magazine became notorious for publishing graphic images of corpses, and using shocking headlines such as "Raptola, violola y matola con una pistola" ("He kidnapped her, raped her and killed her with a gun").
¡Alarma! got an unexpected boost in 1964, when it publicized the case of the González Valenzuela sisters, who forced women into prostitution, killed them, and repeatedly bribed authorities to avoid arrest. The case and the ensuing court process, covered by journalist Jesús Sánches Hermosillo, became a nationwide media circus. After publishing the incident's graphic details, ¡Alarma! increased its print run from 140,000 to 500,000 copies per week.
The magazine enjoyed another sales boost during coverage of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake's aftermath, which increased the magazine's print run to 2-2,5 million copies per week. It was also printed in countries such as the United States, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Japan. The magazine was cancelled in 1986 due to a political standoff between Publicaciones Llegó and the Mexican government, but returned in 1991 as El nuevo Alarma!.
¡Alarma!'s final issue was published on February 17, 2014, one month before the death of its editor-in-chief Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Vázquez due to a heart attack.[2]
In popular culture
[edit]The cover art of Matando Güeros, the first album by American extreme metal band Brujeria, is a photo of a severed head taken from an issue of ¡Alarma!.
The song Alármala de tos on Botellita de Jerez's self-named debut album was inspired by the typical kind of violent and macabre stories published by ¡Alarma!.[3]
References
[edit]- ^ Bernardo Loyola (9 June 2010). "Gruesome photos are Mexican magazine's specialty". CNN. Retrieved 9 November 2014.
- ^ Miguel Angel Martinez. "Miguel_Ángel Rodríguez, El editor¿de_hierro?". Archived from the original on 29 March 2014. Retrieved 29 March 2014.
- ^ Claudia González Alvarado (2023-04-13). "Alármala de tos: la historia detrás del clásico de Botellita de Jerez". Chilango (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 2023-12-08. Retrieved 2024-05-17.
External links
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- Defunct magazines published in Mexico
- Magazines established in 1963
- Magazines disestablished in 2014
- Magazines published in Mexico
- Monthly magazines published in Mexico
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- Defunct Spanish-language magazines
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