San Antonio de los Baños, belonging to Havana Province is located 36 kms far from the center of the capital, having about 40 000 inhabitants and a territorial area of 126 km². It limits to the North with Bauta, to the South with Güira de Melena and Alquízar, on the West with Caimito and to the East with Quivicán and Santiago de las Vegas, its land is fertile and very productive, rich, especially, nobody knows why, in humor.

In 1979, during March 17-18 this place witnessed the First International Biennial of Humor, opening also the International Museum of Humor, unique in its type then and in 1986 the International School of Cinema and Television was founded.

Since 1861, date of appearance of El Ariguanabo Journal, this town has have 105 publications, 22 of them devoted to cultural topics, 13 having humorist or satiric character, 6 on other topics, 3 devoted to country topics and 2 approaching topics related to female affairs. The rest were journals of general information. Two of the most outstanding ones were El Zorro Viejo and Punto y Coma, the latter lasted 22 years.

Two tobacco men, having none academic education, Manuel Alfonso and Oven Pérez, who made caricatures and jokes about the most picturesque characters from that place, are considered the founders of the graphic humor in the village. These drawers had the further company of Eduardo Abela, who was an eminent representative from the 20s and 30s`Cuban painting last century, giving name to the Humor Prize conferred in these biennials.

It's been said that in the Martí Café, meeting center for artists, the young Abela made a caricature to Alfonso, who smiled and presented him as a great artist. This man, Alfonso, received a scholarship on painting and as a friendship sign, he gave it to Abela , who was younger. So, Abela could study at San Alejandro School ann at overseas academies too.
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Using as unique feature a three number upside down, Abela… created a caricature which was the genesis of the popular character El Bobo, who became paradigm of the political caricature. It was, for many decades, the little dummy misleading the censure and laughing at the power.

Afterwards, another character, El Loquito also could hoodwink the censure, this one is son of another Ariguanabo-born artist René de la Nuez, who made a landmark in the Cuban graphic humor.
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Nuez also joins such notable names as Jesús de Armas, Peroga, Villamil, Boligan and José Luis Posada , a pure Galician settled in San Antonio. And, of course, the strip cartoonist from El Hueco, at the Mella Magazine, singer/songwriter Silvio Rodríguez, who sang to his people in''…I'm from a river begins''.

The duet Abela-Alfonso in 1915 made their first group exhibition of humor ever known in Cuba. During the 50s, a salon of Ariguanabo Humor was organized to present the Posada`s artwork, who was making his bow at the graphic arts. Around these years another salon took place, featuring pieces by Nuez and the follow up exhibitions were by Armas and Peroga.

In 1978, as initiative from the Casa de Historia de la Villa, all attendants to the First Forum of Humor were invited to spend the last day at San Antonio. The attendants of this meeting in Havana traveled to the village and adopted two important agreements: the creation of a museum treasuring the entire creation of Cuban graphic humor and to work for the celebration of an event biennial gathering the works of the humorists from all over the world.
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On March 18, 1979 , the museum opened its doors to the public in an exhibition on Cuban humor, featuring exhibits with more than 100 years of creation on this genre. A decade later, in the context of the week of the Ariguanabo culture, the museum convoked to the First National Salon of Personal Caricature ‘'Juan David'', which later on allowed the emergence of another salon: the First National Salon of Satire and Humor celebrated in March of the same year.

With all these actions focusing on graphic humor, stronger in any new edition, San Antonio achieved a name that embellishes it almost since its beginnings: Village of Humor.

See the entire article in La Jiribilla.