''¡Alarma!'' was a Mexican

news magazine A news magazine is a typed, printed, and published magazine, radio, or television program, usually published weekly, consisting of articles about current events. News magazines generally discuss stories in greater depth than newspapers or new ...

published by Publicaciones Llegó. It specialized in graphics and shocking pictures of crime and corpses, including murder victims and traffic accidents, as well as pictures of scantily clad

women A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl. Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functional u ...

History and profile

Pitched by journalist and writer Carlos Samoaya Lizárraga as a magazine exclusively about crime, ''¡Alarma!'' was launched on April 17, 1963, with an initial print run of 3000 copies per week. The magazine became notorious for publishing graphic images of corpses and using shocking headlines such as "''Raptola, violola y matola con una pistola''" ("He kidnapped her, raped her, and killed her with a gun"). ''¡Alarma!'' got an unexpected boost in 1964, when it publicised the case of the González Valenzuela sisters, who forced women into prostitution, killed them, and repeatedly bribed authorities to avoid arrest. The case and the ensuing court process, covered by journalist Jesús Sánches Hermosillo, became a nationwide media circus. After publishing the incident's graphic details, ''¡Alarma!'' increased its print run from 140,000 to 500,000 copies per week. The magazine enjoyed another sales boost during coverage of the

1985 Mexico City earthquake The 1985 Mexico City earthquake struck in the early morning of 19 September at 07:17:50 (CST) with a Moment magnitude scale, moment magnitude of 8.0 and a maximal Modified Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli intensity of IX (''Violent''). The ev ...

's aftermath, which increased the magazine's print run to 2-2,5 million copies per week. It was also printed in countries such as the United States, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Japan. The magazine was cancelled in 1986 due to a political standoff between Publicaciones Llegó and the Mexican government but returned in 1991 as ''El nuevo Alarma!''. ''¡Alarma!s final issue was published on February 17, 2014, one month before the death of its editor-in-chief Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Vázquez due to a heart attack.

In popular culture

The song ''Alármala de tos'' on Botellita de Jerez's eponymous debut album was inspired by the typical kind of violent and macabre stories published by ''¡Alarma!''.

References

External links

Official site
1963 establishments in Mexico 2014 disestablishments in Mexico Defunct magazines published in Mexico Magazines established in 1963 Magazines disestablished in 2014 Magazines published in Mexico Monthly magazines published in Mexico News magazines published in South America Defunct Spanish-language magazines Obscenity controversies in literature Censored works {{Mexico-media-stub