Ernie Pike - Coda # 2

Enrique Cristóbal (a), Jorge Oesterheld (as Jorge Mora - w), "Ernie Pike: Operación Fritz," [Operation Fritz] Hora Cero Extra! # 4, October 1958.

Oscar Estévez (a), Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), "Ernie Pike," Frontera # 44, November 1960.

Walter Fahrer (a), Jorge Oesterheld (as Jorge Mora - w), "Ernie Pike; Rabia" [anger], Hora Cero # 29, September 1959.

Lito Fernandez (a), Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), "Ernie Pike," Hora Cero Extra! # 13, September 1959.

Abel Guibe (a), Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), "Ernie Pike," Hora Cero Extra! # 33, November 24, 1960.

Daniel Haupt (a), Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), "Ernie Pike: Jeep Popski," Hora Cero # 41, September 1960.

José Miguel Heredia (a), Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), "Ernie Pike," Hora Cero # 44, December 1960.

Tibor José Horvath (a), Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), "Ernie Pike," Hora Cero Extra! # 17, January 1960.

Martin Lobo (a), Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), "Ernie Pike," Frontera # 48, March 1961.

David Mangiarotti (a), Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), "Ernie Pike," Frontera # 47, February 1961.

Note: Leopoldo Durañona drew an Ernie Pike story, but I've never seen it. Franz Guzman also drew an Ernie Pike story, but the host doesn't appear in it. As a curio: Tibor José Horvath is the artist who drew more Ernie Pike stories (19) after Hugo Pratt (24).

Ernie Pike - Coda # 1

If you ask any European comics reader about "Ernie Pike" s/he will tell you that Ernie Pike is a comic by Hugo Pratt. Some, but not many, will tell you that "Ernie Pike" is a comic by Hugo Pratt, scripted by Héctor Germán Oesterheld. Few, if any, will mention Jorge Oesterheld at all. And none, I'm sure, will tell you that Hugo Pratt drew, give or take, 10 % of the series only.

Who drew the other 90 %, then? Well, 46 draftsmen did (not counting Ernie Pike Coleccion Batallas Inolvidables and Ernie Pike in Top and Skorpio)...

Today I'm starting a series of posts showing Ernie Pike, the character as drawn by all its creators in alphabetical order. Take this as a homage to all the artists who are forgotten!...

(As legend tells us, Oesterheld was inspired by the American war correspondent Ernie Pyle to create Ernie Pike. On the other hand Hugo Pratt created Ernie Pike using Oesterheld's likeness. He had done the exact same thing a few years before in Misterix with the character Scribe in the "Sgt. Kirk" series.)

Aguilar (a), Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), "Ernie Pike: Heroísmos inútiles," [useless heroisms] Frontera # 49, April 1961.

Victor Hugo Arias (a), Jorge Oesterheld (as Jorge Mora - w), "Ernie Pike," Hora Cero # 35, March 1960.

Jesus Balbi (a), Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), "Ernie Pike," Hora Cero Extra! # 37, February 29, 1961.

Victor Hugo di Benedetto (a), Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), "Ernie Pike: Un raro episodio," [a strange episode] Hora Cero # 52, August 1961.

José del Bó (a), Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), "Ernie Pike: Su mejor crónica," [his best column] Hora Cero Extra! # 41, May 16, 1961.

Alberto Breccia (a), Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), "Ernie Pike: El amuleto," [the amulet] Hora Cero # 24, April, 1959.

Gabriel Cafa (as Yabar - a), Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), "Ernie Pike: Ingenio," [ingenuity] Hora Cero # 50, June, 1961.

Al Caruso (a), Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), "Ernie Pike," Frontera # 46, January, 1961.

Juan Lucas Castro (a), Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), "Ernie Pike: Medalla del Congreso," [Congress medal], Hora Cero Extra! # 58, February 13, 1962.

Eugenio Colonnese (a), Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), "Ernie Pike: Medallas," [medals], Hora Cero Extra! # 12, August, 1959.

PS Many thanks to Carlos Altgelt for the data.

BilBOlbul 2014

IL BATELLO BRILLO (con Manuele Fior, Stefano Ricci & Eddy Vaccaro) from BilBOlbul on Vimeo.

Ernie Pike

Maybe I shouldn't post a whole story by the great Héctor, but I'm doing it just the same because I don't believe that this story will ever be republished (Hugo Pratt didn't drew it!, you see?!...). Maybe the Argentinian government will put their money where their mouth is and someday they will publish Oesterheld's oeuvre in a deluxe collection with great production values (getting the Library treatment, I mean...). While that doesn't happen, and I don't believe that it ever will, to be honest, here's my small contribution... Frontera # 48, March 1961: Héctor Germán Oesterheld (w), 19 year old Jesús Balbi (a). My translation.

(1/2) A rosary of shadows is coming down the mountain. /  (1/3) The artillery grunts relentlessly at the heights. It seems like the monstrous organ of a nameless cathedral. / (1/4) There, on my side, is a soldier, wounded in an arm, but also wounded elsewhere, a lot deeper than the flesh, because his eyes are trembling when they go from one body to the next... / (1/5) "Are you searching for a comrade?"

(2/1) "Yes, I'm searching for Stanislas... I let him in the trenches when they evacuated me..." / (2/2) "Maybe he's still there, in the trenches...." "No... he can't be... They told me that that trench was sweeped. There was a German counter attack..." / (2/3) "Well, one never knows, of course... Stanislas always manages to get out of trouble... Yes, he always gets out of trouble...." / We are at the front in Montecassino. Our troops try to advance as much as they can. They bleed to death to conquer a hill, but another one follows and the enemy doesn't give up, fighting with all they've got for every yard.... / (2/4) An endless rosary, the mules with the bodies are still passing by. They go up transporting ammunition and they return transporting death. / (2/5) "It's starting to snow, my boy... Soon it will be night. They will come no more today...." / (2/6) "No... they will come no more... I'll have to wait until tomorrow..." / (2/7) "Don't take it like that, my boy, you will meet Stanislas safe and sound soon. You said so yourself, he always manages to get out of trouble..."

(3/1) "Remember Company C. They said that it was licked when they appeared on the ridge they had just conquered to the Germans... but..." / (3/2) "Where's the soldier? Where is he?" / (3/3) "Hey! Come back here! Where are you going?" / (3/4) "He went... to the frontline..." It didn't even cross my mind to go after him. It snowed and he was a lot more faster than me. He soon disappeared behind the rocks. Besides, I have enough with my writing shores. If one tries to follow every man with a problem, this would be the never ending story... / (3/5) The next day it continued snowing. And the next I didn't even remember the soldier with the wounded arm. There're so many things going on at the front that every day seems like a century. / Again the mountain threshed its black rosary of mules and corpses... / "The mules again..." / (3/6) "The wounded come with them... Those who can walk, I mean... who knows what the others do..."

(4/1) "Yesterday the fight was ugly... the mules are more loaded than ever..." / (4/2) "But... that arm?" / (4/3) "The boy with the wounded arm..." / Yes, I recognized him immediately... it was him... / (4/4) "You knew him scribe?" "More or less... What happened to him?" / (4/5) "What was bound to happen... He appeared in the trench looking for a certain Stanislas... he was beside himself... he said that he had been in all the other trenches searching... that he had to find Stanislas..." / (4/6) "The sergeant tried to stop him... He told him that he had to go behind the lines... but he escaped and jumped the parapet..." 

(5/1) "And he went into the snow, onto the enemy. They saw him immediately, of course... The machine gun almost cut him in two..." / (5/2) "He had to be cuckoo. Why search his comrade in such a way?" / (5/3) "In the end, we are all always looking for someone..." / (5/4) "We... we are all searching for someone..." / (5/5) "The wounded man continued his path. And the endless passing by of the mules continued..." / (5/6) "Never, not even in the middle of the desert, did I feel so alone. Yes, we are all always looking for someone..."

Im Herzen von Strapazin

EDMOND, un portrait de Baudoin - Coda

If you read the quote below you will understand perfectly why the comics milieu (comics publishers especially) is my enemy.

I also wonder why the State (and I mean every State) spends so much money sponsoring the arts while completely forgetting art comics. It's no one's land, really... Great comics fall outside the industry and outside mainstream culture as well...

...And yet... for a while, at the beginning of the 90s (and during most of the decade), everything seemed possible... somehow...

EDMOND, un portrait de Baudoin

EDMOND, un portrait de Baudoin (trailer) from Kaleo films on Vimeo.

Pour justifier son refus de lui accorder un prix prestigieux, un éditeur lui confia un jour: "Si vous aviez été récompensé, cela aurait tué la bande dessinée telle qu'on la connait aujourd'hui. Vous, Baudoin, vous ne faites pas la bande-dessinée, vous faites de l'art, de la poesie. Ça ne nous intéresse pas.

To justify his refusal to give him a prestigious award a publisher admitted one day: "If you had received it, it would have killed comics as we know them today. You, Baudoin, you don't create comics, you create art and poetry. That doesn't interest us.