Death As a Character

March 5, 1975, somewhere in Argentina: Carlos Trillo and Guillermo Saccomanno interviewed Héctor Germán Oesterheld (Oesterheld was living underground already for political reasons; the interviewer, Saccomanno, means the characters): 

"Why do you always kill them all?
Because of that character no one really takes advantage of, which is death." 

This Blog is dangerously becoming monographic, but a Blog is a log, after all, and I write about what interests me at any particular moment. The day my focus turns elsewhere my posts will change accordingly, of course... That said I feel more and more that, maybe, I should be writing in Spanish because Oesterheld's work will never be published in any English speaking country. I don't do it in the hope that many (yeah, right!) readers talking many languages (Spanish included) understand our modern (and post-modern) Latin.

The fact that no English speaking country will ever publish Oesterheld's work is yet another symptom that comics are not an art form like all the others. Even in today's Barbarian times it's a bit unthinkable (but is it, really?) that an English speaking country wouldn't publish Kafka or Proust. Worst than that though: excluding El Eternauta [the Eternaut], for political, more than aesthetic reasons, Oesterheld's work isn't even published (reprinted) in Argentina (Where's Randall, where's Sgt. Kirk, where's Bull Rockett, where's the complete Ernie Pike, Amapola Negra, Ticonderoga, Mort Cinder, 'Loco' Sexton in a restored fac-simile edition with good production values?)

Anyway... I started this post quoting Oesterheld himself talking about the death of his secondary characters and the death of his protagonists even (like Randall in the series "Randall, 'the Killer'"). In highly formulaic action stories the bad guys are always awful shooters while the hero kills twenty with a slug. Oesterheld couldn't go against that completely, of course, because he worked, after all, in a commercial context, but he could (and did) minimize the unconvincing parts of the formula. He used a few strategies to do that: the most important, because it has ethical consequences, was to avoid (again, not completely) Manicheism; another one explained his protagonist's victory with said protagonist's intelligence, rather than violent inclinations; the death of the good guys was another one (in a war no one is safe). His masterpiece, according to strategies one and three (it's not even a pop story, in my humble opinion) is "Amapola Negra - 'Black Poppy'." But "Amapola Negra" and "Ernie Pike" were published in Oesterheld's own Editorial Frontera (and so was "Randall"), which meant that he had more freedom to do whatever he pleased...

I'm not talking about Editorial Frontera here, though. The examples that I show below (besides the great death of Randall) are part of Oesterheld's career outside of his publishing house: in Abril and Columba (early to mid 1950s and early to mid 1970s).

  

Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), Hugo Pratt (a), Stefan Strocen (c), "El Sargento Kirk: El pais de los mungos" [Mungo Country], Editorial Abril, Misterix # 353, July 7, 1955. "El pais de los mungos" found the trio in a creative state of grace. It was in 1955 that Hugo Pratt found his later style and Stefan Strocen reached a peak in his work for Misterix.

I'm not completely sure, but I think that Dinard's death above may very well be the first disappearance of a main character in Oesterheld's oeuvre. It's interesting how Corto (yes, exactly like in Corto Maltese) deflates the drama. A fight was going on and they didn't have the time to stop and mourn. Here's what Corto said after Maha gave him the news of Dinard's death: "Good for him. What can a man want more than to die as he lived?"

Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), José Luis Garcia López (a), I don't know who the colorist was, "Roland el Corsario: Algo más que un reino" [something more than a kingdom], Columba, Fantasía # 236, January 1974.

Columba was a traditional highly commercial publishing house. Oesterheld ended up working there because he needed to put bread on the table. However, he was such a towering figure (the writer of El Eternauta, no less) that his editors and publishers gave him some creative autonomy. That's why he could kill off some of the characters, as seen above. 

Below, the poetic death of Randall...

Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), Arturo del Castillo (a), I don't know who the letterer was, "Randall, 'the Killer': Jinetes vengadortes" [vengeful riders], Editorial Frontera, Hora Cero Suplemento Semanal # 28, December 3, 1958. Here's what's in the captions in the three last panels: "It was then that the vital spring that tied him to life yielded. / Because of his efforts blood spurted from his reopened wound. The red lymph mixed with the recently stirred dirt... / ...and continued to run down, as if seeking to warm up the already freezing bosom of Martine."

Milton Caniff, "Terry and the Pirates," News Syndicate, the death and burial of Raven Sherman in three consecutive daily strips: October 15 - 17, 1941.

Readers reacted strongly against the death of both Randall and Raven Sherman. So much so that Oesterheld had to resurrect his character and MIlton Caniff never repeated such a stunt again. "Terry and the Pirates" was a mediocre juvenile adventure strip during the 1930s. It improved a bit during WWII, but, besides some good qualities (Caniff's female characters, Burma and Hu Shee especially, and some interesting story arcs - the excellence of the art, and I mean technically, and the colorful language aren't even worth mentioning) it never surpassed, if I remember correctly, stereotyping (Connie is overtly racist) and Manichean formulas. He explained very well why he killed Raven though (it's reason number 3):  

"Ever after that if somebody in the strip became ill or hurt or hit by a car or thrown off the back of a truck, the reader knew - well, Jesus, he killed off Raven Sherman, and now he's going to kill off this character. That's the real reason for doing it, to put credibility in there, instead of - oh, well, he'll get out of it somehow or come back to life or something. Soap opera stuff."

Héctor Germán Oesterheld's and Francisco Solano Lopez' Amapola Negra "Black Poppy"

Sometime ago I chose my top ten comics list for The Hooded Utilitarian. My indisputable number one was (and is) Amapola Negra, "Black Poppy" by Héctor Germán Oesterheld and Francisco Solano López. Unfortunately we know how things work in comics... A masterpiece of this huge magnitude would be recognized as such in any other art form... In comics, be prepared to be amazed: it wasn't even reprinted since it was first published more than fifty years ago (July 1958 - September 1959). It wasn't reprinted... until now that is... Unfortunately Amapola Negra "Black Poppy" is an Argentinian comic, so... in spite of being welcome (of course) this edition is very far from the production values that it deserves. It's way better than nothing, though... so: all in all, great news!...

Ten Years Already!

It was Thursday, September 25, 2008: the day I wrote my first post on The Crib.

In my last post I wrote "Ten years is a long time in a person's life". What changed, according to yours truly, natch, in these ten years, both personally and in the comics field?

Personally I don't have much to say: let's just disclose that I'm less and less inclined to write and leave it at that... Proof enough of what I'm saying is my failing to deliver (thanks again to the seven of you who showed interest in reading my putative twenty five texts!, unfortunately I wrote only two!).

In the comics field many things changed. If we take Berlin by Jason Lutes and Clyde Fans by Seth (I still haven't read these fine graphic novels, I'm sure they are fine, in a sitting, something I intend to do in a not so distant future) we reach the following conclusions: first there were the pamphlets, then the volumes, and now the brick (or, in Berlin's case, the third volume and the brick at the same time). These are hinge books that were done over a huge period of time. Hence they witnessed the end of the pamphlet, the end of the trade paperback collection, and the triumph of the graphic novel. 

Are we better or worst than we were ten years ago? Sincerely, I'm not sure... Maybe it's just me and I lost touch with the field (I still haven't read My Favorite Thing Is Monsters or Sabrina or Barcazza, for instance), but I don't see any improvements, on the contrary. Don't ask me to explain why either, it's just a vague feeling, maybe provoked by my insistence in following my generation of creators (those so many who promised so much at the beginning of the 1990s and remain so few now) and my lack of interest in finding new voices... their drawing styles and sterile experiments leave me cold, to tell you the truth...

Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), Francisco Solano López (a), "Amapola Negra - 'Black Poppy'," Hora Cero # 15,  July 1958.

Enough whining and on to another thing. Since I promised and I didn't deliver, as I said above, at least I'm posting the list of my favorite comics as a kind of commemoration for The Crib's ten years. It's a list of 34 with a couple of "anomalies": John Porcellino, for instance has two titles at number 7; ditto Seth at number 18. Is this list wanting in gender and ethnicity equality? Yes it is and I have no excuses: I also refuse any kind of positive discrimination. 

Could this list be different? Of couse it could. Early on I discovered that this is an impossible task. To do it right is a full time job in itself. Most of the stories below are there because I vaguely remember liking them years ago. Would I like them as much upon rereading? I'm not so sure...

There's no Picasso or Hokusai below. Needless to say that they would be number one and number two, with Jacques Callot following, in a more open minded list. These are my favorite restrict field comics, not my favorite comics, period.

1 – Amapola Negra – Black Poppy (Héctor Germán Oesterheld, Francisco Solano López)

2 – Matt Marriott: Isepinal the Apache (James Edgar, Tony Weare)

3 – Muno no Hito [The Man Without Talent] (Yoshiharu Tsuge)

4 – Convoy a Malta (Héctor Germán Oesterheld, Hugo Pratt)

5 – Zil Zelub (Guido Buzzelli)

6 – Sa-lo-mon (Chago Armada)

7 –  Sam / Perfect Example (John Porcellino)

8 – Le journal de Jules Renard lu par Fred (Fred)

9 – Randall: Jinetes Vengadores (Héctor Germán Oesterheld, Arturo del Castillo)

10 –  Fuck (Chester Brown)

11 – Les soeurs Zabîme (Aristophane)

12 – Sudor Sudaca (Carlos Sampayo, José Muñoz)

13 – The Most Obvious Question (Lynda Barry)

14 – Journal III (Fabrice Neaud)

15 – Conte demoniaque (Aristophane)

16 – La Orilla (Elisa Gálvez, Federico del Barrio)

17 – Nègres jaunes (Yvan Alagbé)

18 – Calgary, Clyde Fans (Seth)

19 – Graffiti Kitchen (Eddie Campbell)

20 – Haruka-na machi e [A Distant Neighborhood] (Jiro Taniguchi)

21 – Carol Day: Jack Slingsby (David Wright)

22 – Un tal Daneri (Carlos Trillo, Alberto Breccia)

23 – La bascule à Charlot (Jacques Tardi)

24 – Building Stories (Chris Ware)

25 – El artefacto perverso (Felipe Hernández Cava, Federico del Barrio)

26 – Le portrait (Edmond Baudoin)

27 – Par les sillons (Vincent Fortemps)

28 – Aruko Hito [The Walking Man] (Jiro Taniguchi)

29 – El prolongado sueño del Sr. T. (Max)

30 – Speak Low (Montesol)

31 – Somnambule (Anke Feuchtenberger)

32 – La Pluie (Philippe de Pierpont, Eric Lambé)

33 – Safe Area Gorazde (Joe Sacco)

34 – The Adjustment of Sydney Deepscorn (Barron Storey)

What Is a Hero?

Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w) and Francisco Solano López (a), "Amapola Negra 'Black Poppy': Octava misión", Hora Cero # 24, April 1959.

I said on this blog already that my all time favorite comic is "Amapola Negra 'Black Poppy'". In the page above (number 86 in the mini series) lieutenant Hugh Probst (former co-pilot of the Black Poppy, a B-17 bomber fortress) is being buried. The priest calls him a hero. Here's what lieutenant Abner Stiles (Black Poppy's pilot) is musing: "[...]Hugh was no hero./ Why did I say that he was not a hero? What is a hero, after all? A hero can't be a superman.../ Being a superman he can't be a hero. A hero must be simply a man like all of us. A man like all of us with a valuable life or a valuable death. [...]" 

How far we are from the fascistic superhero!... How far we are from comics juvenile subculture!...

My Comics Canon

It was February 24, 2004, 08:27 AM, on the Comics Journal Messboard. I'm not sure if this was the first time that I listed these comics there (probably not), but that's what I did in that particular occasion. If I remember correctly (unfortunately I didn't write a crib sheet at the time) I did previously post what I now call "my canon" because I was fed up with the accusation of not liking comics at all because I found children's comics (and I do like Carl Barks' oeuvre) somewhat wanting (melodrama and manichaeism in particular bother me plenty).

This is a different list because I added a few titles over the last years: My Canon:

Anon (Cantigas de Santa Maria de Alfonso X El Sabio)
Hans Holbein (Les Simulachres & Historiées Faces de la Mort)
Gilles Corrozet (Les Simulachres & Historiées Faces de la Mort)
Romeyn de Hooghe (The Siege and Liberation of Vienna in 1683)
Jacques Callot (Les misères et malheurs de la guerre)
William Hogarth (A Harlot’s Progress; Rake’s Progress)
Francisco de Goya (Los desastres de la guerra; Caprichos de Goya)
Katsushika Hokusai (Thirty-Six Views; One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji)
Gustave Doré (Histoire de la Sainte Russie)
Gustave Henri Jossot (Le credo; Dressage)
Theophile Alexandre Steinlen (La vision de Hugo)
Frans Masereel (Mein Stundenbuch; Die Stadt)
Pablo Picasso (Songe et mensonge de Franco; La suite Vollard)
Charlotte Salomon (Leben? Oder Theater?)
Francis Bacon (Triptych May - June 1973)
Héctor Germán Oesterheld (Ernie Pike; Amapola Negra, Mort Cinder; El Eternauta; Randall, Loco Sexton)
Alberto Breccia (Ernie Pike; Mort Cinder; Un Tal Daneri; Versiones; La Gallina Degollada; Buscavidas)
Hugo Pratt (Ernie Pike)
Carlos Trillo (Un Tal Daneri; Buscavidas)
Solano Lopez (Amapola Negra, El Eternauta)
Arturo del Castillo (Randall, Loco Sexton)
Tony Weare (Matt Marriott)
James Edgar (Matt Marriott)
David Wright (Carol Day: Jack Slingsby)
Chago Armada (Sa-Lo-Mon)
Guido Buzzelli (Zil Zelub; I Labirinti; L’Agnone; Intirvista)
Philip Guston (Poor Richard)
Roy de Forest (Too The Far Canine Range And The Unexplored Territory Beyond Terrier Pass)
Nicholas Africano (The Scream, Struggling with him, He's afraid of loneliness)
Martin Vaughn-James (The Cage, The Park)
Yoshiharu Tsuge (Red Flowers; Oba’s Electroplate Factory; L’homme sans talent)
Ana Hatherly (O Escritor)
Fred (Le Petit Cirque; Le journal de Jules Renard lu par Fred)
Dino Buzzati (Poema a fumetti)
Tardi (La bascule à Charlot; C'était la guerre des tranchées; La veritable histoire du soldat inconnu)
Edmond Baudoin (Le portrait; Le premier voyage; Éloge de la poussière; Terrains vagues; Couma àco)
Richard McGuire (Here)
Andrzej Klimowski (The Depository: A Dream Book; The Secret)
Martin tom Dieck (hundert Ansichten der Speicherstadt; Monsieur Lingus; Territirroirs)
Fabrice Neaud (Journal (I); Journal (III))
Chester Brown (The Playboy; I Never Liked You)
Lynda Barry (The Freddie Stories; The Most Obvious Question; One! Hundred! Demons!)
Anke Feuchtenberger (Die Hure H; Die kleine Dame; Somnanbule)
Katrin de Vries (Die Hure H; Die kleine Dame)
Geneviève Castrée (Lait Frappé, Susceptible)
Shannon Gerard (Unspent Love; Hung)
Debbie Drechsler (Daddy's Girl; The Summer of Love)
Kiriko Nananan (Blue)
Nick Drnaso (Sabrina)
Ben Katchor (Julius Knipl Real Estate Photographer;The Jew of New York)
Eric Lambé (Ophélie et les directeurs des ressources humaines; Alberto G.; La Pluie; Un voyage)
Stefano Ricci (Tufo)
Philippe de Pierpont (Alberto G.; Tufo; La Pluie; Un voyage)
Jiro Tanigushi (L’homme qui marche; Le journal de mon père)
John Porcellino (Sam; Perfect Example)
Ed Brubaker (Here and Now, An Accidental Death)
Stefano Gaudiano (Here and Now)
Eric Shanower (An Accidental Death)
Sylvain Victor (Le Doute)
Vincent Fortemps (Cimes; La Digue; (Coulisse); Par les sillons)
Olivier Deprez (Le Chatêau)
Olivier Marboeuf (Une Ville, un Mardi)
Pierre Duba (L'Absente; Racines)
Dominique Goblet (Souvenir d’une journée parfaite; Faire semblant c’est mentir)
Andrea Bruno (Sabato Tregua)
Chris Ware (Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth; Acme Novelty Library # 18; Building Stories)
Barron Storey (The Adjustment of Sidney Deepscorn; Slidehouse)
Carl Barks (The Twenty Four Carat Moon; Valley of Tralla La; Back to Long Ago; A Financial Fable)
Yoshihiro Tatsumi (Goodbye and Other Stories; Kept)
Harvey Pekar (American Splendor # 4; American Splendor # 8)
Robert Crumb (American Splendor #4; American Splendor #8)
Jose Muñoz (Sudor Sudaca; Alack Sinner)
Carlos Sampayo (Sudor Sudaca; Alack Sinner)
Gary Panter (Daltokyo; Cola Madnes)
Art Spiegelman (Maus)
Carel Moiseiwitsch (This Is a True Story)
Federico del Barrio (El artefacto perverso; Lope de Aguirre, la conjura; Las memorias de amoros; La Orilla)
Elisa Gálvez (La Orilla)
Felipe Hernandez Cava (El artefacto perverso; Lope de Aguirre, la expiación; Lope de Aguirre, la conjura; Las memorias de Amoros; Soy mi sueño)
Pablo Auladell (Soy mi sueño)
Ricard Castells (Lope de Aguirre, la expiación)
Aristophane (Les Soeurs Zabîme; Conte démoniaque; Faune)
Montesol (Fin de semana; Speak Low)
Ramon de España (Fin de Semana)
Joe Sacco (Palestine; Safe Area Gorazde; The Fixer; Footnotes in Gaza)
Mattotti (Stigmate; Il rumore della brina)
Jorge Zentner (Il rumore della brina)
Claudio Piersanti (Stigmate)
Eddie Campbell (The King Canute Crowd; Graffiti Kitchen; Alec: How to Be an Artist; From Hell)
Alan Moore (From Hell)
Mat Brinkman (Teratoid Heights; Heads 44)
Yvan Alagbé (Dyaa; Nègres jaunes)
Thierry van Hasselt (Brutalis)
David B. (L’Ascension du Haut Mal)
Daniel Clowes (Ghost World; David Boring)
Peter Blegvad (The Book of Leviathan)
Blanchet (La nouvelle au pis)
Max (El prolongado sueño del Sr. T.; Nosotros somos los muertos; Bienvenidos al infierno)
Seth (Clyde Fans; It’s a Good Life if You Don’t Weaken)
Rutu Modan (Jamilti; Exit Wounds)
Pedro Nora (Mr. Burroughs)
David Soares (Mr. Burroughs)
Filipe Abranches (A Morte do Palhaço)
Marco Mendes (Diário Rasgado)
David Mazzucchelli (Big Man; Discovering America; Asterios Polyp)
Moebius (Cauchemar blanc)


Image:

Carol Day by David Wright (strip # 2963). In the last panel we can see a medium close-up of Adam Boone, a character "played" by Matt Marriott's co-creator, Tony Weare.

Monthly Stumblings # 7: Aristophane [Boulon]

Les soeurs Zabîme (the Zabîme sisters) by Aristophane [Boulon]

Can you imagine yourself in Kupe's lighthouse (that ideal comics library filled with books that don't exist in Dylan Horrocks' Hicksville)? I do sometimes, but, even if I wholeheartedly agree with Kupe's point of view (which is: "The official history of comics is a history of frustration. Of unrealised potential. Of artists who never got the chance to do that magnum opus. Of stories that never got told - or else they were bowdlerized by small-minded editors...") my particular lighthouse has a few books whose content does exist, but isn't available. Books like Santiago "Chago" Armada's Sa-lo-mon, or Rafael Fornés' Sabino, or James Edgar's and Tony Weare's Shannon Gunfighter or Isepinal the Apache, or Héctor Germán Oesterheld's and Francisco Solano López's Amapola Negra (Black Poppy), or Martin Vaughn-James' The Park...

Cuban artists "Chago" Armada (left) and Samuel Feijóo (photo published in Signos # 32, 1984). The drawing is Armada's.

Hector Germán Oesterheld's and Francisco Solano Lopéz's The Eternaut

Hector Germán Oesterheld (w), Francisco Solano Lopéz (a), The Eternaut, Fantagraphics Books, November 23, 2015 [Hora Cero Suplemento Semanal # 1, Editorial Frontera, September 4, 1957 - Hora Cero Suplemento Semanal # 106, September 9, 1959.] 

Fantagraphics will [...] reprint the series for the first time in English  (translated as The EterNOnaut because as Eternaut it sounds like "Eat her not"). 

Diego Cordoba on this Blog, December 5, 2014.

Oesterheld's work will never be published in any English speaking country.

Yours truly on this very blog on August 31, 2014.

Both quotes above are wrong, as you can see above. Kudos to Fanta! Now, if they only published Oesterheld's and Solano's masterpiece Amapola Negra - "Black Poppy"! That would be truly amazing...

Colecção de Romances Gráficos do Público

A primeira prancha de "Sudor Sudaca" ["Sudore Meticcio"] com dedicatória de Carlos Sampayo. Frigidaire # 19, Junho de 1982. 

O jornal Público vai editar uma colecção de doze romances gráficos, facto que se saúda. Devo acrescentar, no entanto, que, a meu ver, é mais uma ocasião perdida.

Dada a natureza deste blogue não podia deixar de redigir uma lista alternativa. A dita aqui fica:

Les soeurs Zabîme - Aristophane

Amapola Negra - Héctor Germán Oesterheld / Francisco Solano López

I Never Liked You - Chester Brown

Munô No Hito - Yoshiharu Tsuge

Matt Marriott: Isepinal The Apache - James Edgar / Tony Weare

Zil Zelub - Guido Buzzelli

Le journal de Jules Renard lu par Fred - Fred

C'était la guerre des tranchées - Jacques Tardi

Le portrait - Edmond Baudoin

Un tal Daneri - Carlos Trillo / Alberto Breccia

Sudor Sudaca - Carlos Sampayo / José Muñoz

Poderia ter escolhido outras coisas, como é evidente:   Ernie Pike de Héctor Germán Oesterheld e Hugo Pratt; Las memorias de Amorós de Felipe H. Cava e Federico del Barrio, para dar só dois exemplos... Ou... três: só poderia deixar de fora o extraordinário Journal III de Fabrice Neaud por razões práticas, ou seja, por ser tipo tijolo...

Hora Cero Suplemento Semanal # 58, October 8, 1958.

Héctor Germán Oesterheld's and Francisco Solano López's "Enterradores" (gravediggers)

A curious thing happened when Argentinian scriptwriter Héctor Germán Oesterheld found his own comics publishing house, Editorial Frontera. For a brief period of time, 1957 - 1963, mainstream adolescent comics raised much above the business as usual, pervasive formulaic dreck. Oesterheld proved to me a very simple and often forgotten truth: it's easy to dismiss a whole category if we base our judgment on the worst examples (usually those are the only ones that the judges know about). It's easy to debase something when the judge is socially much above the subject of her/his scorn; in these circumstances s/he can only be applauded by her/his peers while all outraged reactions can't be heard outside of the attacked subculture.
I don't defend adolescent comics, mind you, I'm just saying that when the best comics writer ever decided do try a hand at this particular genre (if we can call it that) the inevitable happened. Here's what he had to say in Hora Cero Suplemento semanal (zero hour weekly supplement) # 1 (September 4, 1957):

There are bad comics when they're badly done only. Denying comics all together, condemning them as a whole, is as irrational as denying cinema all together because there are bad films. Or condemning literature because there are bad books. There are, unfortunately in a huge ratio, lots of bad comics. But these don't disqualify the good ones. On the contrary, by comparison, they should underline their quality. [...]

Oesterheld is a German family name and Héctor inherited a German tradition which, according to Christian Gasser (in the Lisbon comics convention catalog, 2003) dates from the enlightenment:

This didactic interpretation of literature is a product of the 18th century. At that time, the qualities of literature and art were used to educate and morally elevate the common people. Meanwhile, these efforts became obsolete in literature, but not in the restricted domain of children's literature where people continue to ask: "Very well, what can a child learn from this book?" The pedagogic function continues to be overrated.

Oesterheld viewed the, then, popular medium of comics as an opportunity to reach hundreds of thousands of children and adolescents. At a certain point he felt the need to put the following warning on the cover of Hora Cero Suplemento Semanal: "Historietas para mayores de 14 años" (comics for those who are older than 14). The anti-comics crusade was still on and he didn't want any trouble. Anyway, he wanted to both educate and entertain. What he meant by "educate" wasn't exactly what may be on our minds today though...
He aimed at four goals: (1) to be accurate with his data (pedagogic texts about warfare punctuated his comics; he wrote stories in a lot of genres - Western, Science-Fiction, Historical, Noir –, but War - WW2, to be exact - remained the bulk of his magazines' content); (2) he didn't want to edulcorate reality or bowdlerize his stories; (3) he wanted to convey moral values of self-sacrifice, unselfishness, team work (he strongly opposed the individual macho hero as he - it's usually a "he" - is seen by North American mass artists; ditto the glorification of violence... besides, the main character is usually someone socially "invisible" who reacts unexpectedly in a stressful situation); (4) linked to (2): Oesterheld didn't want to hide what's darker in the human condition, but, at his best (he produced hundreds of stories, so, lots and lots of them aren't that good) he was never Manichean.
Four great draftsmen drew Oesterheld's stories at Editorial Frontera before working (immigrating even) exclusively for the UK. After these artists disbanded the graphic quality of Frontera's stories dwindled dramatically. Not even a young José Muñoz could equal them:

Hugo Pratt:

Hora Cero Extra! # 4 October, 1958.

Hugo Pratt did very rare unprejudiced portraits of black people in the 50s. In this Hora Cero Extra! cover he illustrated a story by Oesterheld about Senegalese soldiers fighting for France during WW2.

Arturo del Castillo:

Hora Cero Suplemento Semanal # 58, October 8, 1958.

An impressive Western scene from "Randall." Castillo would do for the UK the best The Man in the Iron Mask comics illustrations ever.

Carlos Roume:

Frontera Extra # 7, May 1959.

Roume was a great animal artist. In this Frontera Extra cover he drew Pichi, the Pampa dog. A story scripted by Héctor's brother, Jorge.

Alberto Breccia:

Misterix # 749, March 22, 1963.

Alberto Breccia and Héctor Germán Oesterheld's Mort Cinder (a series that, in my view, isn't as good as Ernie Pike) remains one of the most famous of Oesterheld's creations (along with Argentinian cultural icon: El Eternauta - the eternaut). This doesn't surprise me because of comics fans' bent for fantasy. Even so the story to which the above page belongs, "En la penitenciaria: Marlin" (in the penitentiary: Marlin), is one of the series' best ones.
I immersed myself in Oesterheld's oeuvre for the last year. Reading hundreds of his stories I can safely say that he could have been one of those world famous South American writers like Jorge Luis Borges. Borges and Oesterheld knew each other and used to take walks together. Oesterheld was an inventive plotter and a purveyor of ideas and great phrases. Even when the story is no good at all (as I said, he produced too much) a phrase sparkles suddenly making the reading worthwhile.
I stumbled upon lots of Oesterheld's great stories, but I had to choose one for this Stumbling. I chose "Enterradores." In it a German major freshly arrived from Berlin to the Stalingrad front is shocked when he discovers that two German soldiers (Wesser and Hofe) of the disciplinary battalion (whose mission is to bury corpses) are burying Russians and Germans together:

Hora Cero Extra! # 1, April 1958.

The drawings are by Francisco Solano López. To be honest I don't like Solano's drawings as much as I like the work of those four artists above. I find his understanding of the human figure a bit strange and his lines a bit heavy and formless sometimes. Even so it seems to me that he captured the facial expressions of the veterans well in contrast with the major's. The overall darkness of the atmosphere is more than adequate to convey the theme of the story.

[The captain explains to the major how desperate the situation is (he wants to excuse the two men's lack of discipline). Here's what Oeserheld wrote in the last two strips: "It was in the Steppe, near the Don. / There stayed a shared grave different from all the others. A grave in which Russians and Germans mixed. / That grave was the revenge of soldiers Wesser and Hofe of the disciplinarian battalion." Equally impressive are the eerie shadows walking into oblivion at the end...
Can you imagine such a story in a children's comic today? It wasn't even suitable for a children's comic back in the 1950s. And yet, Argentinian kids bought Hora Cero and Frontera in their various incarnations. Judging from Oesterheld's example, maybe I'm not against children's comics... maybe I'm against children's comics that insult their readers' intelligence, that's all...

[PS After my post on July 25, 2010 at The Hooded Utilitarian I had the great joy and honor of receiving the below comment by José Muñoz. Moments like this are priceless, and make all the effort of writing pro bono more than worthwhile!

Fifty years ago we were already there, another five years passed by… and Los Enterradores, Amapola Negra (I’ve worked there with my brush plenty of water with black ink doing clouds, mechanical interiors of the B 17, Messerschmitts and lots and lots of used leather jackets…to search the right light on them was, is, a giant pleasure) El Eternauta, El Cuaderno Rojo, are part of my central memories.
I’m so touched by your interest, respect and conmotion around the superbly well done works of my masters.
Roume camina con Del Castillo
por las calles de mis barrios,
el polvo de las Pampas y del Painted Desert
entra en la ciudad,
Solano, Pratt y Breccia los esperan
en el Bar La Comedia, Corrientes esquina Paranà,
Oesterheld està llegando con su tìmida sonrisa.]