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Jose Alaniz 2023The Museum of South Texas History will host the online Sunday Speaker Series presentation, “The Compleat Moscow Calling,” featuring author José Alaníz at 2 p.m. on May 28 on Facebook Live.

Alaníz’s “Moscow Calling” is the first ongoing American comic strip in Russia, appearing in the English-language newspaper The Moscow Tribune. The comic strip is a 1990s epic of expat life in Russia. Innocent abroad Pepe Pérez finds himself in a vibrant post-Soviet Moscow of colorful personalities, extreme contrasts and a “mafiya” boss after his head. Worst of all, there’s no Mexican food. “The Compleat Moscow Calling” gathers and concludes the strip along with additional material, including the unfinished sequel “Cassie’s Turn” and the novella “Moscow ‘93.” Copies of the comic books can be purchased at the Museum Store.

Edinburg native Alaniz is a professor in the department of Slavic languages and literatures and the department of comparative literature (adjunct) at the University of Washington, Seattle. He has published two comics/prose collections: “The Phantom Zone & Other Stories” (Amatl Comix, 2020) and “The Compleat Moscow Calling” (Amatl, 2023). His work has also appeared in The Daily Texan, The Moscow Tribune, “Tales From La Vida: A Latinx Comics Anthology” (2018), “BorderX: A Crisis in Graphic Detail” (2020) and others. Currently, he produces a monthly comic strip, “We Live Here,” for Key Peninsula News. He and his wife live with many animals in rural Washington state.

This presentation will stream at 2 p.m. on the museum’s Facebook page www.facebook.com/mosthistory/live. Visit museum’s Facebook page or website for more details.

This program is made possible by the generous support from the Carmen C. Guerra Endowment. Mrs. Guerra was committed to educational causes in the Rio Grande Valley. This named endowment was created by her family to honor her memory and to continue providing educational opportunities for the community.

About Museum of South Texas History

The Museum of South Texas History is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. It is located downtown Edinburg at 200 North Closner Boulevard on the Hidalgo County Courthouse square. Founded in 1967 as the Hidalgo County Historical Museum in the 1910 Hidalgo County Jail, the museum has grown over the decades through a series of expansions to occupy a full city block. In 2003, following the completion of a 22,500 square foot expansion, the museum was renamed the Museum of South Texas History to better reflect its regional scope. Today, the museum preserves and presents the borderland heritage of South Texas and Northeastern Mexico through its permanent collection and the Margaret H. McAllen Memorial Archives and exhibits spanning prehistory through the 20th century. For more information about MOSTHistory, including becoming a FRIEND, visit MOSTHistory.org, like us on Facebook and Instagram, follow on Twitter, find on YouTube or call (956) 383-6911.

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