Robert Rosen

Last week's post about muralist Jorge Manjarrez went over so well on social media, for the holidays I'm posting another photo of Jorge's T-shirts. The two T-shirts seen here, with Robert Smith of The Cure printed directly on the shirt, and Jim Morrison as the King of Hearts printed on plastic and fused to the shirt, are only two examples of the wide variety of work Jorge does. He's best known for painting murals on Mexico City's subway stations, but also does illustrations for major Mexican newspapers and magazines, and has a line of playing cards illustrated with portraits of 54 (two jokers) different musicians and bands.

Julio Malone and I are collaborating with Jorge on turning our screenplay, The Diaries of Juan Dolio, into a graphic novel. This is the beginning of not only a beautiful partnership but what I think will be a most interesting collaboration.

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Jorge Manjarrez paints murals on the walls of Mexico City's subway stations. This is an official job, not graffiti. He also does illustrations for major Mexican newspapers and magazines; has a line of T-shirts featuring his portraits of rock stars, like the one above; and created a deck of playing cards, also illustrated with musicians' portraits. (You can see more of his work on Facebook.)

Jorge was recently in New York to paint a mural on the wall of a Mexican restaurant in Yonkers. Roberto Ponce, my editor at Proceso magazine, asked me to meet Jorge—because he's interested in turning a screenplay I wrote many years ago, in English and Spanish, with Julio Malone, into a graphic novel. The screenplay, The Diaries of Juan Dolio, was Roberto's idea. He thought he could get it produced in Mexico. The story is a fictional outgrowth of my book Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon.

In the screenplay, Juan Dolio is a diary-keeping Mexican rock superstar living in New York City. When he's murdered by an insane fan, his personal assistant, Luke, liberates the diaries, and with Dolio's widow's security thugs in hot pursuit, makes a run for the Mexican border intent on returning the diaries to the Mexican people as part of their cultural heritage.

Well, Jorge made it back to Mexico with the screenplay, and I look forward to sharing some of his illustrations for The Diaries of Juan Dolio, sooner or later to be a graphic novel.

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All my books are available on Amazon, all other online bookstores, and at your local brick-and-mortar bookstore.

I invite you to join me on Facebook or follow me on Instagram or Threads.