Rolando Merida continued drawing Gayl until his death from cancer in 2019. A complete collection, Toda la Gayl (2020), was published posthumously by the Nicaraguan cultural collective Arte Diversa . Today, Gayl is studied in courses on Central American literature and visual culture as an early example of intersectional activism—addressing sexuality, class, and political repression simultaneously. Merida’s work paved the way for later LGBTQ+ cartoonists from the region, including Costa Rica’s Sofia Rodriguez and El Salvador’s Karla “Kape” Peña.
Internationally, Gayl was featured in queer comics anthologies such as ¡Queer Latino! (2005) and Strip AIDS (2009). Merida was invited to speak at comic festivals in Spain and Mexico, where he was celebrated as a pioneer. Rolando Merida Comic Gayl
In the late 1990s, Merida launched Gayl as a weekly comic strip in La Prensa (Managua) and later in the alternative magazine Muy (Costa Rica). The title is a portmanteau of “gay” and the common Spanish feminine name “Gail,” chosen to subvert expectations of gender in naming. The protagonist, Gayl, is a flamboyant, sharp-witted gay man navigating love, work, and social hypocrisy in an unnamed Central American capital city. Rolando Merida continued drawing Gayl until his death