Fake Comics Part Two

Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), Hugo Pratt (a), no colorist was credited, "La barca del Missouri" [the Missouri barge], Kirk Western # 1, 1976.

We all know the story. Hugo Pratt spent more than a decade in Argentina where he mostly drew Héctor Oesterheld's scripts. After that he published most of this material in Italy under his name alone. It breaks my heart to read the flap text in Mondadori's Ernie Pike 1976 edition claiming that "during this fecund period he [Pratt, of course] created famous comic strips and characters: Kirk, Ticonderoga, Ernie Pike, Anna [of the Jungle], Wheeling." Reduce that to two: the mediocre Anna and the so so Wheeling. Genius simply isn't for everyone...

But enough... it's not this that brings me here today. Why are the Italian editions of Sgt. Kirk, like the one above, fake comics? Because the layout was altered (from landscape to portrait), the drawing suffered additions and cuts, and some of the text was cut off. This goes against Nelson Goodman's print rule which states that every copy must come from the original source. Besides, even comics fans (who adore Hugo Pratt) will understand that, if the additions weren't drawn by him (and I don't believe that I own something drawn by Hugo Pratt, frankly) we can't say that the drawings are entirely his, can we?

We've seen on this blog already how those changes negatively affected the work. But that's not my concern today, either. Today it's about fakeness and fakeness only.

Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), Hugo Pratt (a), "Cerco de muerte" [deathly siege], Misterix # 300, June 18, 1954 (page 409 of the "Sgt. Kirk" series).

Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), Hugo Pratt (a), "Cerco de muerte" [deathly siege], Misterix # 300, June 18, 1954 (page 410 of the "Sgt. Kirk" series)..

Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), Hugo Pratt (a; with someone else?), "La barca del Missouri" [the Missouri barge], Kirk Western # 1, 1976 (mock up for page 34).

As you can see above page 34 of the Italian (Cenisio) edition reprints one panel pf page 409 of the series (with the left arm of General Harper and some trees added on the left) and the first tier of page 410. The second panel of page 34 is also considerably altered with some ominous wind coming from the right side of the panel added and general Harper separated from Kirk and Dr. Forbes. To do this the anonymous drawer needed to add another left arm: Kirk's this time. The caption on the left of General Harper's daughter was suppressed, the shape of the speech balloons was altered also. In the end there's more negative space in the Cenisio edition and everything is less organic. You may say that the Italian edition is less cluttered, but it the decluttering is at the expense of Oesterheld's text, well... Again, though, this is a fake comic if I ever saw one.

Just for the fun of it I'll give you another example (lacking also the original, beautiful color) with the printed page this time. Notice the Ivaldi number "304" that the Cenisio hack didn't even bother to erase. The cuts reduced the pages from 398 to 304.

 

 Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), Hugo Pratt (a), Stefan Strocen (c), "Cerco de muerte" [deathly siege], Misterix # 298, June 4, 1954 (page 398 of the "Sgt. Kirk" series).

Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), Hugo Pratt (a; with someone else?), "La barca del Missouri" [the Missouri barge], Kirk Western # 1, 1976 (mock up for page 14).

Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), Hugo Pratt (a; with someone else?), "La barca del Missouri" [the Missouri barge], Kirk Western # 1, 1976 (page 14 as reprinted in the magazine).

PS  I noticed that the last but one panel of page 398 (last panel of page 14) may show another hand on the left side in the cross-hatching. Maybe I should say, then: art by Hugo Pratt and anonymous ghost artist. It's known that Hugo Pratt used ghosts, Gisela Dester and Mario Bertolini among them. This doesn't mean that the Editorial Abril page is in any way a fake. It just means that some hands remain uncredited.