The Giant Cardboard Superheroes of Ecuador

Remember the giant Space Jam effigies on the weekend thread, built for burning down on New Year’s Eve? Here’s a little context. Ecuador native and regular reader Federico Oporto sent me these great photos of some far superior offerings, along with an explanation…

Hi, I?m from Ecuador and wanted to share these pictures with you. We have a tradition, every december 31st people create or buy “a?os viejos”, paper and cardboard sculptures of their favourite characters may they be soccer players, cartoons or politicians (well those last are not favorites, we just would like to burn them for real i guess). and burn them on New Year?s Eve. Anyway, a couple of years ago, on Calle Portete in Guayaquil, they have started to make really large ones, and they are just amazing.

We may not have a Six Flags or Universal Studios, but where else could you take a picture with your family next to a giant , almost movie accurate Thor (sans hand) and then be held at the hand of Mazinkaiser? These ones are not burnt on New Years Eve, but exhibited so that the people can see them and then discarded at a later date.

I’m not sure they intended it thusly, but a hand-less Thor is actually accurate to at least one scene.