Each month, followers are eager on Instagram as they refresh Check- In Mela’s account to see if the horoscopes are up. The friendly “astrologist” comments a similar message every month, basically saying: “if you ask when will I publish your horoscope one more time I will leave you for last.” Making her way from the Puerto Rican local scene to places around the world like Mexico and South America, this is how Check-In Mela came to be.
Mariela “Mela” Pabón Navedo, famously known as Check-In Mela, started what she describes as her webcomic in 2014 and has grown her social media presence over the years. Born in New York, raised in San Juan, and graduated from Creative Writing at the University of Puerto Rico, the comedian has brought her illustrations to other places like New York, Mexico, and Colombia. Mela also studied theatrical improvisation in Colombia, an experience that later helped her in her stand-up comedies. She did not study drawing or illustration; but, inspired by other Latin American illustrators, she discovered another possible way to take over the comic world.
In an interview with Primera Hora, Mela explained that her social media name came because of her job as a front desk clerk. She started sharing her experiences with tourists when they would come to check-in. In order to entertain herself, she would draw these experiences based on the humor and sometimes the occasional disrespect she would receive.
Her rise came after hurricane Maria when she decided to write her own horoscope to look for some positivity. With the awesome feedback, she decided to write the rest of the horoscopes to bring some encouragement to Puerto Ricans. Fast forward to four years later, and now Mela has 936k followers on Instagram.
She presents basic daily encounters from a feminine perspective in her graphic designs. While sometimes they’re based on personal experiences, others are inspired by her friends or “what-ifs”. The common denominator is that they always have a little touch of dark humor.
During the pandemic, she collaborated with EL PAIS México by organizing a “Querida Mela” consulting service where she would answer some questions sent by readers about different things they were going through while being in quarantine. Her “bad advice” along with her humor is like talking to a friend who tells you the brutal truth; and it is exactly this friendly undertone that has made Mela stand out amongst your typical astrologists and horoscope enthusiasts.
With her illustrations and online work, she brought “Madame Mela” to life with whom she creates a monthly horoscope for each sign. What started as a creative process based on her friend’s behaviors and their signs ended in the artist immersing herself into the astrology world. The character has led Mela into studying the topic to create her own book, No eres tú, es el cosmos, which was published this summer.
Beyond inspiring laughter with her imagination and creativity, she hopes to inspire her followers to achieve their goals and stay motivated for the next month’s content.
Another thing that stands out about her works is the addition of Puerto Rican slang. Mela has a lot of followers from different parts of the world who don’t always catch the references or words in the illustrations . Due to the constant demands of some of the words’ meanings, she decided to add definitions of the words that are part of Puerto Rican daily life.
Mela has stated that astrology is, in a way, part of the Latin culture as most of us grew up watching Walter Mercadoー a national icon within the world of astrology who she admired and planned to collaborate with, but who unfortunately passed away.
Doing the horoscopes, people were asking her serious and personal questions, so she decided to step in and point out that she’s not a mental health professional. However, she often talks openly about the topic of mental health and how self-care is important.
Her work has also been acknowledged by artists like Ricky Martin, J Balvin (she even read his horoscope!), and Bad Bunny, with whom she collabbed as part of his X 100PRE Tour.
Each month we receive such unimaginable and creative illustrations and messages from her part. As a creative writer, the artist has mentioned before that she would love to explore other ways of doing what she loves outside of social media, like writing a series. But one thing is for sure, and that is her creativity is out of this world, and that she will surely blow our minds with the next big thing she plans to do.