Well it’s MayDay, and we’re going to Cuba, so I thought this just might be a good time to show you this!

This a facsimile of a very popular comicbook /save-them-all sticker book celebrating the Cuban revolution. It has 32 pages with places to paste in 268 trading cards, each a historical mini-story of who did what, to who and sometime why.  Each page is filled with line art of daggers, tanks, grenades, canteens, flags and carbines. All in all a far cry from ordinary kids stuff. Can you imagine a similar project hereabouts, about our revolution? Gimme the card on the court marshal of Paul Revere for cowardliness. Or how about Hamilton and Adams and a slew of Federalists yearning for the return of George III?

Some nice Communist contradictions here, like the head of José Marti floating religiously in the heavens, and the entire project brought to you by the commercial company, Cia. Industrial Empacadora de Dulces, S.A., full frontal on the back cover.   Buy our canned fruit – collect them all – whata revolution!
But all-in-all a remarkable document, and an effective teaching tool, lest we forget the evils of the Batista regime and America’s role in that coup.

And let’s not forget the music, like Celeste Mendoza’s  “Cuba Corazón de Nuestra América” and Pío Leyva’s “Rumba de mi Patria.”  It’s rumoured that these and 13 other Revolutionary titles can be found on a companion CD of sorts from Cuba Soul Records (Álbum de la Revolución Cubana Music, 2000), but we can’t seem to locate it.

Another audio plus is a sticker showing a pistol totin’ announcer mistakenly broadcasting the death of the dictator.  Even though it’s a facsimile, the cards are all loose and pasted in.  If you’d like to thumb through the entire album, it’s online here, http://www.dropby.com/AlbumDeLaRevolucionCubana/