Mexico: Imitators of Alarma, 1980s and 1990s

The 100 year history of Mexican nota roja, – of newspapers and magazines devoted to crime – is the focus of a great deal of interesting, recent historical analysis. Other galleries on this site are devoted to earlier Mexican crime magazines, like Detectives or Magazine de Policia. In the future, we will offer a gallery of covers from Alarma! (1963 – 2014), probably the most important example of nota roja in Mexican history. For now, we are offering images of the front pages of a number of magazines which emerged to compete with Alarma! in the 1980s and 1990s, borrowing many of its stylistic features and categories of coverage. Titles like Custodia, Enlace, Homicidio, Justicia, Peligro, are Sentencia were mostly short-lived. We may assume they emerged to capitalize on Alarma’s own popularity during these decades, particularly after the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City, when Alarma‘s coverage resulted in a significant growth in its circulation.

There had been earlier competitors of Alarma!, most notably the long-running Alerta, with its distinctive red borders. By the 1980s, Alarma’s use of the color yellow had become one of its most stable features, and it is this color that the new wave of competitors made their own.

Please be warned that some of these images contain violent and potentially disturbing images.