Mat Brinkman's Skeleton Jelly, Part 1 (followed by Part 2)

Mat Brinkman, "Multiforce: Skeleton Jelly," Paper Rodeo # 6, October November 2000. Multiforce was collected in a tabloid sized book by Picturebox in 2009.

Feliz Día de la Historieta!

Francisco Solano López, tapa de Hora Cero Suplemento Semanal # 12, 20 de noviembre de 1957.

Hoy se celebra el Día de la Historieta en la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires (Capital Federal) y en toda Argentina.

Perspective As A Symbolic Form

Hector Germán Oesterheld (w), Hugo Pratt (a), "El Sargento Kirk: El pais de los mungos," Editorial Abril, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Misterix # 359, August 12, 1955 (page 665 of the series, 46 of the story). The original art was India ink on paper in the landscape format (three tiers: 2 x 3 x 2 panels); size of publication 5.7 x 9 inches, genre: Western.

In the last few days I praised the work of Hugo Pratt, Héctor Oesterheld, and Stefan Strocen in "El pais de los mungos" as if said work's excellence was obvious to anyone looking at my examples (it never is, of course). Today I want to look at one page of the story to see if a close reading sheds some light on the work of Oesterheld and Pratt (Strocen is absent because the page is in black and white). I will not convince anyone who dislikes the work of one of them or the work of both, obviously, because the critic can only "convince" the converted. Aesthetic choices, not unlike choices in the fields of politics or religion or sports are personal and not transferable. 

Anyway, I digress...

It would be very interesting to read Oesterheld's script to see if it's an Alan Moore kind of script or a somewhat looser one: Oesterheld chose the shots or Hugo Pratt planed it all? European fans of Hugo Pratt, some so-called critics among them, prefer to believe in this second option, but that's because they have a religion, they're Ugoprattians. Since I'm not part of that particular church I have to be Agnostic here: I simply don't know, so, from now on it's the work of Pratt/Oesterheld or the work of Oesterheld/Pratt. I put this disclaimer at the beginning just to get that shadow out of the way...

What the page above shows is basically a conflict situation. The page starts with an extreme close-up of Kirk (panel one). Kirk is alone because he needs to make a very difficult decision: will they try to save Tumiga from the Crows or will they abandon him in the name of the group's safety? Kirk chooses the latter option. The next shots are wide close shots showing the reaction of the group against Kirk (Corto) and in favor (Dr. Forbes) of Kirk's decision. Their silhouettes in panel three connote conspiracy, but we know that Corto will not confront Kirk, so, nothing will come out of that. In panel four the real danger to Kirk's leadership appears for the first time: Kani. Like Kirk she needs to make a decision and she knows that she's alone. So, like Kirk, she gets her full close-up (not as extreme as Kirk's, but her decision is not as difficult to make). The most important exception to the group's wide close shots though are not the close-ups, the most important exception, the panel that says it all, is panel six: a full high angle shot (it's a double contrast: of frame and point of view; it also contradicts the other composition solutions in friezes introducing the oblique line - between Dr. Forbes and Kani). She's diverging from the group and never was she bigger than when the perspective shows her smaller in the last panel.

Milton Caniff, "Terry and the Pirates," the last Sunday before leaving the series, December 29, 1946 (I don't know who the - great - colorist was). The sixth panel above reminds another panel that was ingrained in Hugo Pratt's brain (as seen on this blog already). The obvious difference is that Kani diverges while Jane converges.

It's a well known fact that Hugo Pratt started his career in comics under the powerful influence of Milton Caniff, but in "El pais de los mungos" another influence (an European one this time), and a not less powerful one, begins to show: Hergé and what was later called (by Joost Swarte) the clear line.

Hergé and Studios Hergé, "Tintin au Tibet," Le Lombard, Tintin Magazine # 20, May 20, 1959 (left); Hector Germán Oesterheld (w), Hugo Pratt (a), Stefan Strocen (c), "El Sargento Kirk: El pais de los mungos," Editorial Abril, Misterix # 357, July 29, 1955 (right). It may seem strange that I chose a 1959 panel to show its influence in 1955, but Hergé's (and Studios Hergé's) style was perfectly in place in 1955 when "L'Affaire Tournesol" [The Calculus Affair] was being serialized. Besides, Tintin au Tibet is another book in which footsteps in the snow are an important part of the plot.

If we look closely though, there are also important differences between the clear line in 1955 and Hugo Pratt's style in the page above. Pratt uses linear perspective, but the space is never very detailed or deep. Except for the last panel the forest is more suggested than shown, but the main difference lies in the thickness of the lines. Figures in the foreground are outlined with thicker lines than the figures in the background. This is clear (no pun intended) in the last panel when the linear perspective is enhanced to guide the reader's eye from right to left (the "unnatural" way of reading in the West, suggesting the difficulties ahead) until we find fragile, and yet gigantic in her resolve, Kani. The lines have also a "nervousness" in them that is absent from the clear line (we may say that the clear line is here to decrease the drama, but Hugo Pratt doesn't want pathos to fade completely; also, the sticks look like needles adding a subtle expressionist touch). There are no shadows, no hatching or cross-hatching, but thick lines suggest drape folds and logs.

Snow falls from the beginning to the end of the page. This provokes a relentless, uncomfortable, visual rhythm. The clock is already ticking... the fates never rest...

Death As a Character - Coda # 2

Yesterday I said that, after the story arc "El pais de los mungos" [Mungo country]. Hugo Pratt's art declined. I didn't change my opinion since then, but there are some cinemascopic panels on the covers of the next long story arc, "Ruta de sangre" [blood route] (119 pages) that seem to disprove me. What happened is that Hugo Pratt realized at some point that, since Misterix had a landscape format (with three tiers) the best that he could do was to adapt drawing wide panels (that's, by the way, why his adaptation of the series to the portrait format in Ivaldi's Sgt Kirk magazine is so "unnatural" - I gave you an example of what I'm saying below already). These are some sparks in a rather gray panorama, though. The brilliance of "El pais de los mungos" was far behind...

It's not the first cinemascopic panel in the series by any means, but here's a good example before "Ruta de sangre":

Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), Hugo Pratt (a),"El Sargento Kirk: Blanca Sombra" [White Shadow], Editorial Abril, Misterix # 403, June 22, 1956.

Without further comments here are three examples of what I'm talking about above (the height of these panels is bigger than the height of the black and white panel because the cover had two tiers instead of three):

Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), Hugo Pratt (a), Stefan Strocen (c), "[El] Sargento Kirk: Ruta de sangre," Editorial Abril, Misterix # 422, November 2, 1956.

Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), Hugo Pratt (a), Stefan Strocen (c), "[El Sargento Kirk]: Ruta de sangre," Editorial Abril, Misterix # 426, January 2, 1957.

Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), Hugo Pratt (a), Stefan Strocen (c), "[El] Sargento Kirk: Ruta de sangre," Editorial Abril, Misterix # 430, February 8, 1957.

...Oh, and, by issue # 387 of Misterix it was Summer already:

Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), Hugo Pratt (a), "El Sargento Kirk: El Espantado" [The Startled One] Editorial Abril, Misterix # 387, March 2, 1956.

Death As a Character - Coda # 1

Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), Hugo Pratt (a), Stefan Stocen (c), "Tierra enemiga," Misterix # 345, May 6, 1955.

Readers of Misterix just needed to look at Hugo Pratt's art and Stefan Strocen's colors (with his somewhat reduced warm palette - it's a shame that only 22 out of 120 pages are in color in "El pais de los mungos") to see that something changed for the better in the Sgt. Kirk series at the end of "Tierra Enemiga" [enemy land] (page 104 - 608 of the series above), but especially during most of "El pais de los mungos"' [Mungo country's] run (from issue # 348, May 27, 1955, until issue # 377, December 23, 1955). After that Hugo Pratt's art went in a downfall until his Frontera years (maybe he lost interest in Sgt. Kirk - to the point that, in an interview with Dominique Petitfaux, 1528 pages seemed like 5000 to him). I don't know what happened exactly in Hugo Pratt 's private life during his Abril (and "El Sargento Kirk") years, but he's not known for being a workaholic exactly. Maybe he decided to, at least, moderate his nocturnal adventures in 1955 because this work stands out as some of the best that he ever created. I particularly like how it's Autumn at the end of "Tierra enemiga", with leaves falling from the trees, and the series continues through Winter in "El pais de los mungos", with snow falling and snow covered landscapes (see below).  

Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), Hugo Pratt (a), Stefan Strocen (c),"Tierra enemiga," Misterix # 345, May 6, 1955: Autumn.

Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), Hugo Pratt (a), "El pais de los mungos," Misterix # 359, August 12, 1955: Winter.

What about Oesterheld though? It's not that easy to realize at first sight that a story is greater than the one preceding it. Well, Oesterheld's narrator (see below) charged himself with the task of explaining to us that, after Dinard and General Harper died, this was not "an adventure like the previous ones..." 

Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), Hugo Pratt (a), Stefan Stocen (c), "El pais de los mungos," Misterix # 356, July 22, 1955.

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."

A Quick Note From Seth

In a private correspondence with Seth he pointed out that the stairs I mention below are two different sets of stairs because those are two different houses. I stand duly corrected.