"Comics..." "Comics are a way of telling." "It is one of the... along with literature, one of the most cost-effective ways of telling stories." "My approach towards comics is more from a writer's point of view." "I express myself through drawings, and what gets my attention is that it is generally said," ""I read comics" and not, "I look at comics."" "A comic strip moves me more than a motion picture." "I believe it gets me more in the mood or also allows me to, let's say; fantasize for myself." "The paper world, at the same time, is a world that is closer to me." "It always has something to offer the reader." "I believe it is a fundamentally sane dose of escapism." "Escapism is not an intricately bad thing." "I remember reading in one of the essays, a great essay written by Tolkien, refering to fantastic literature, where he says:" ""What's wrong with wanting to escape when you are in prison?"" "And that is where I believe rests the reason for everything." "It is legitimate escapism." "Getting away from everything that brings us down, keeps us encaged, and suddenly exploring through imagination other lives, other places, other horizons." "Current comic book readers have a preference for Japanese comics." "Then there are those who like super heroes a lot." "And then there's the old timers like us JAVIER DOEYO" " EDITOR who like Argentine comics." "JAVIER DOEYO" " EDITOR" "I guess out of having read so much, perhaps out cultural appeal, nostalgia, I don't know." "But there are those who like Argentine comics." "Comics have always moved me greatly." "CARLOS TRILLO" " SCRIPTWRITER" "I was moved as a child, because..." "CARLOS TRILLO" " SCRIPTWRITER" "Well, I was a child that did not have a TV set yet." "I think they were still inventing it." "There were very pleasant things that we read with devotion." "For instance, "Sergeant Kirk"" "that was a comic that we would wait for with almost religeous fervor." "With "El Eternauta", we would get together every week to discuss what had happened." "And tried to speculate how it would end." "The ending of "El Eternauta" was for us a sort of revelation." "That story didn't end well because we all thought:" ""In the end, the good guys will survive."" "No sir, the story was different." "I managed to get hold of "El Rayo Rojo"" "ERNESTO GARCÍA SEIJAS" " ILLUSTRATOR" "And I was very impressed." "I didn't know how to scrounge up the 20 cents each magazine cost to buy it and submerge myself in that world." "THE GOLDEN AGE FROM 1940 UNTIL THE MID 60's." "In those days, comic books were truly read." "They were the great cultural formation of the kids and teenagers." "EDUARDO MAICAS ILLUSTRATOR - SCRIPTWRITER" "And that was the beggining of the 50's FRANCISCO SOLANO LÓPEZ" " ILLUSTRATOR in which the set up was ready for the prolegomenon of what was later called the Golden age of comics." "It was a Golden Age mainly because ENRIQUE BRECCIA" " ILLUSTRATOR comic books were being edited, ENRIQUE BRECCIA" " ILLUSTRATOR and the Argentine audience had always loved reading, was always avid for comic books, for adult comics." "Comics were an extremely popular genre." "ROBERTO FONTANARROSA ILLUSTRATOR" " WRITER" "ROBERTO FONTANARROSA ILLUSTRATOR" " WRITER" "The print run of some comic books was huge, and it was quite common to see" "people of all ages reading comics." "It was a very powerful market." "There was work for the writers, and work for the illustrators..." "JUAN SASTURAIN JOURNALIST" " WRITER because there was an audience that read and consumed JUAN SASTURAIN JOURNALIST" " WRITER several hundreds of titles." "And the big weekly comic books sold two or three hundred thousand comic books." "Most comics, just like nowadays, were not very good." "They were crap, just like today." "But, as always, there was the chance of gaining access to... to come across some of the icons of the genere, true artists, true writers." "I was lucky enough, just like many other kids those days, to see "Hora Cero" and "Frontera" when they appeared." "HORA CERO AND FRONTERA COMICS CREATED BY HECTOR OESTERHELD" "I think Oesterheld's enormous influence reveals another sort of comic book of a higher level, with a different way of narrating." "I think that after reading "Bull Rocket" or "Sergeant Kirk", one didn't go back to just any type of comic." "Through Oesterheld, Solano, Pratt and Breccia adventure for young Argentines and kids in the 50 ' s, stopped being a just a strange journey." "It ceased to be the mere development of a invulnerable hero." "It took on a high humanistic content that was not frequent in the mass literature at that time." "So it can be said that for many of us... and that adventure introduced us to the adventure of reading." "And that is what FRANCISCO SOLANO LÓPEZ in the Golden Age of the late 50's and early 60 's," "Oesterheld did to the group I belonged to, which I proudly and nostalgically recall, as one the memories of the good old days." "Argentine comics have that moment from the birth of Patoruzito in 1944 in 1944 or 1945, until the decadence of "Hora Cero" and "Frontera" in the late fifties." "This forms an arch of production with a very high peaks where there was massiveness, creativity and audience combined." "Later, the creators were dispersed, the media started collapsing and the audience went to TV." "There is an Argentine art school." "CARLOS TRILLO" " SCRIPTWRITER" "Just like there is a French art school, which gave way the to Clara line, and an Italian art school, and an American art school." "In the classification, any scholar will include the Argentine school of comics which includes Alberto Breccia, Arturo del Castillo," "Solano López and even Hugo Pratt, whom is more Argentine than Italian I believe." "He had even added and "H" to his name which in Italian is spelled with "U"." "The proof of my preference for Hugo is still present in my style of drawing, ROBERTO FONTANARROSA ILLUSTRATOR" " WRITER specially in the hands because I copied from him those almost artificial spaces between the fingers." "Because the hand is hard to draw." "There are many movable elements in very small space." "He separated the fingers to give them personality." "I consider that after the face, the hands are like two more little faces." "And, in close-ups, you can use them to add expression to the face." "For me it was very important to learn all these things, these solutions." "What does Hugo manage to draw better than anyone?" "Violence." "No one has ever better depicted, before or after, the violence, the blast, the wounds, JUAN SASTURAIN JOURNALIST" " WRITER the impact of the bullets than Pratt in his drawings for the episodes of Ernie Pike from 1957, to 1959 or 1960." "No one depicted it better." "For the first time..." "What did we read?" "We read heroic war stories like "Battler Britton"." "Any crap in which the Japanese were idiots, the Germans were worse than in "Combat!", while the English and Americans never broke a sweat." "They killed the enemies, which died like flies, while they never died, and when they did, it was like..." ""I feel the cold rising through me Hold me." "I feel tired..."" "And he died in his comrades arms." "But nobody ever got shot." "Ernie Pike was the first to illustrate that, and without being morbid." "And without being morbid." "Now, by Hora Cero's third or fourth weekly issue," "It read:" ""Comics for kids over 14"." "It was a dangerous comic strip." "It was subversive in terms of the good guys dying." "And they weren't dying from afar like in José Luis Salinas' strips in which the knives would only come up to here, and the arrows..." "No, no." "You could see the holes." "It combined the drawing without straying from the story." "I believe the true comics come from Hugo Pratt." "EDUARDO MAICAS ILLUSTRATOR" " SCRIPTWRITER" "He tells his stories EDUARDO MAICAS ILLUSTRATOR" " SCRIPTWRITER with a style that is personal and simple, that at the same time, is humanized." "The characters, despite having been drawn in an apparently simple way, possess a climate of seriousness that one can not be detached from." "I this Pratt is... awesome." "He was a writer that drawed." "OSWAL" " ILLUSTRATOR" " SCRIPTWRITER" "Or an illustrator that wrote with his drawings." "No one could tell it the way he did." "CARLOS TRILLO" " SCRIPTWRITER" "He teamed up with a scriptwriter in the 50's," "Héctor Oesterheld, and together they produced the most memorable characters of the best of the Golden Age." "Oesterheld considered himself an obscure intellectual worker." "He was an artisan that produced scripts." "He was also a man of enormous talent and probably the greatest adventure storyteller that ever lived here in the Pampas." "I thought it would" "How could a man like him make comic books?" "Someone of such great culture?" "I was very angry at him then." "We were already married." "I said: "How can you write comics?" Comics were a minor genre." "So he said," ""You know how I see it?" "Families who have access to books try to make kids to read, but the kids don't read very much, and the fundamental basis of education rests in reading." "And through comic books, we can find a way to teach and entertain children in a way that holds their attention like a movie does." "And that's what I'm committed to doing."" "He said that when he was asked OSCAR STEIMBERG" " SEMIOLOGIST" ""How do I make Ernie Pike?" By Breccia, he replied" ""Make an intelligent guy, with experience, who always knows the right thing to say, a guy like me."" "The other took him literally and drew Ernie Pike with Oesterheld's face." "He turned comics into an adult thing all over the world." "HORACIO ALTUNA ILLUSTRATOR" " SCRIPTWRITER" "It's not true that comics HORACIO ALTUNA ILLUSTRATOR" " SCRITPWRITER had become literature for adults after Guido Crepax or other European authors." "The first steps were taken by Oesterheld." "It wasn't the first time it was done in comicbook history, but probably the first time here." ""The interior monologue."" "Why would it not be there?" "Now, of course it's there, as something natural." "But I don't know if anyone had done it before Oesterheld." "He was a pioneer." "He was the inventor of the script written the argentine way." "ENRIQUE BRECCIA" " ILLUSTRATOR" "Of the comic book script in the Argentine way." "ENRIQUE BRECCIA" " ILLUSTRATOR" "The style that was succesful around the world." "I believe he represented Argentine characters and they were Argentine by how they acted and spoke." "It was fun to read as well, something not found before." "The characters before that were American, even if they were illustrated by an Argentine or created by an Argentine writer." "When you talk about "El Eternauta"" "which was a comic published in a cheap magazine, an 89 cent magazine, a magazine that was printed containing errors every week, and meant for kids, the readers were between 12 and 15 years old." "Those were the original readers of what has become a classic." "The guy created adventures from everyday human events." "I was recently rereading "El Eternauta"" "and one can not believe what "El Eternauta" is." "Because "El Eternauta" is like a piece of common sense." "It is everything we would do, is it not?" "Had "El Eternauta" been written in the United States, surely Juan Salvo would be a guy working for NASA, and when he is going out in the deadly snowstorm, he would surely be wearing a NASA spacesuit to go out into the storm." "Not Juan Salvo." "He makes one out of some overalls, a fishing mask, a hood, a pair of working gloves he tapes them up to keep the water out and hits the street." "That's what all of us would do." "See what I mean?" "Those are the things I liked about him." "Those kinds of things." "Oesterheld also added a special ingrediant, the ideological load, something that I've always valued because, for me, comics are a means of expression." "When was offered the chance, by Record Editions, to reconnect myself with Héctor Oesterheld to make none other than the sequel of "El Eternauta"" "I never thought it would turn out to be a revolutionary comic, which is what it was." "And once I was embarked on a revolutionary comic, it didn't make me very happy, because it seemed to me that the adventure of the Montonero rebels, due to the political reality they were faced with," "threaten to be what it ended up being, a tragedy." "But involved as I was in my job with Oesterheld and entrapped by the script, by the story, and by the commitment and determination" "I had for the work we were doing together," "I went along, but I always had a critical spirit and tried to make Oesterheld... on the very few occasions we had to see each other again, because he was practically in hiding, clandestine," "I tried to make him realize that it was not going lead anywhere." "It was, politically and humanly, a terrible mistake." "What was adventure to Oesterheld?" "Adventure was being placed in an extreme situation, how a man acts when faced with dire situations." "Adventure is the circumstance in which the average man, that's to say, all of us, faces a challenge in which he must question the meaning of his life." "What the hell am I doing here?" "Adventure passes right by any of us all the time." "Tackling an adventure, is being able to wonder about the meaning of one's life." "Is your life is worth living, or will you stay put your whole life?" "An adventure is finding oneself at the height of one's dreams." "That is Oesterheld." "Oesterheld's choices did not lead him on a safari in Nairobi." "No." "They led him to a revolutionary militia." "Why did Oesterheld live the way he did?" "Why did he end up the way he did?" "Because he lived at the height of his dreams." "So that anguishes me a lot." "I do not know what hope to possess in regaining a country which was devastated in such a manner." "But somehow the earth is always reborn and we must wait for something to grow." "I have a 10 year old great-grandson and I would like him to live in happier times than the ones in which my grandchildren lived." "That's all." "My main interest is adventure comics." "That is, to tell a story graphically." "When I started contemplating the possibility of this as a profession," "I imagined myself illustrating the three musketeers, perhaps a Balzac of Flaubert novel, the more psychology the better." "But it was the 40's and 50's." "No one was going to listen to me." "Solano is curious, I doubt he felt the same way I did." "Solano and I never saw each other in those days, never." "But I knew Solano was very young and he was about my age." "I always felt we were in a parallel race, in which we roamed together." "Hence I feel a sort of endearment for Solano that he ignores because I've never told him and he certainly has no reason to feel the same." "But that's why I followed his career with interest, and today, as we can see, both him and I, in the distance, that piece of work, "El Eternauta", that young man making "El Eternauta"," "who finds himself so committed to something as deep and meaningful as the story that Oesterheld gives us when his professional capacity is not yet fully developed." "Therefore intuition takes over, the desire, the heart..." "And that is how he was able to create that comic strip that was not surpassed later because technically..." "I believe that Breccia did not surpass that comic strip." "I say this with great regard for Breccia, whom I consider a grand master." "But intuition is very important, and Solano's was very alert at the time." "In that place, the epic ability to tell the adventure" "without placing the drawing between and the adventure and the reader." "In creating that epic transparency, that simplicity, lies the greatest virtue of "El Eternauta"." "Sometimes it's badly illustrated." "Some things were done in a hurry, they worked in extreme haste." "You could say, "Look at this face, this Favalli here, huh?"" "There is no excessive display." "But the air is there, the houses are there, the characters are there." "That is, what Solano draws is true." "It is true, that is the impression, "It's true"." "There is nothing more moving than to see the Robot Men passing by, dressed like death took them on the subway, with those same clothes, but with a rifle and stern stare, facing forward." "And that can only be done by a powerfully talented man." "The time comes when..." "OSCAR STEIMBERG SEMIOLOGIST ...for example, the design of the page becomes one of the expressive elements of the artists work." "Ever since the sixties with Breccia, for example." "My dad was a very talented comic book illustrator." "I believe in what is called the serious comic strip, ENRIQUE BRECCIA ILLUSTRATOR in order to distinguish him from the humorist and all that," "and above all "Mort Cinder"," "I believe nothing better can be achieved." "I believe he reached the pinnacle in terms of quality of what can be done with that kind of comics." "The Spartans that battle in the Thermopiles in the famous episode of "Mort Cinder"" "possess a certain Argentine carnage in the way of feeling." "Something clearly visible if compared to, for instance, ENRIQUE ALCATENA ILLUSTRATOR to that "Mort Cinder" of the Thermopiles with what Frank Miller did with "The 300"." "The same story." "In Frank Miller's case you have a typical American comrade." "The Spartans are the marines." "In "Mont Cinder", there is something much more profound and moving, that is the uncertainty of man before the face of death, and despite that, the possibility of finding a dose of heroism." "Something like Cruz who fights beside Fierro." "The half melancholic heroism typical of Argentina is very well reflected." "He was self-taught." "He started drawing, IRMA DARIOZZI DE BRECCIA because he really liked it and because he didn't like his job in Mataderos, and he wanted to escape that." "It was almost out of need that he became an artist." "When he started drawing, he was not very good." "He was just like the rest in the beginning, right?" "And he perfected himself simply by drawing." "His is a long very process of work stemming from difficulty." "That is clearly seen comparing him to Enrique, his son." "Enrique was gifted." "He is gifted." "An exceptional cartoonist." "Without trying to compare the two, because it does not apply." "But when, for example, he did the story of Che with Oesterheld in 1968, it was Enrique's first or second professional job." "He was 22 or 23 years old, and he was a genius." "And Alberto does it professionally." "Without much commitment to the job." "But Alberto at age 22 was not the artist..." "You couldn't expect him to become the artist he became." "Carrying the surname "Breccia" is like having your nuts tied to a anvil." "Because that is the true feeling." "It opened no doors for me." "On the contrary, it closed most of them." "Not because of my old man, but because of the belief that a son can't be as talented as his dad." "The old man had a reputation for being tough." "He possessed a certain..." "He irradiated authority." "For his prestige as much as for his appearance." "He was a serious guy, with very marked features." "He used to say that instead of a face, he had a topography." "He was very wrinkled." "He was very intimidating when he looked at you seriously." "Alberto was the Antiquarian." "He drew himself as an old man." "It's incredible." "He looked very much like the Antiquarian when he was older." "Breccia was an extraordinary man." "A truly dramatic fellow." "In his face, well..." "He was one of his comic strip characters." "He had a deep voice." "He said he worked out, that he got up everyday and did exercise." "He did sit-ups, pumped iron too." "It must have been true, because when he came over he had great agility when it came to lifting giant glasses of whiskey full of ice which vanished instantly." "Then he would leave me his with testimonials." "So I must have a collection of Breccia's worst drawings." "When he drank, he created fabulous caricatures." "And he made them for all the illustrators." "He had his times of alcohol." "Fortunately, he quit." "What troubled Alberto, was something that troubles many great artists." "He had extraordinary artwork." "People would say "Your a grand master"." "But no one would publish him." "It was too difficult, too strange." "It wasn't profitable or commercial." "So the old man kept gathering masterpieces, but he needed to eat." "The first time he released "Mort Cinder", it was this big," "the comic books would turn yellow from hanging in the newsstands." "Nobody bought them." "Now they go nuts to get their hands on one of them." "I have two that I kept from those days." ""Un Tal Daneri" was a comic that I created with Alberto Breccia, and something very special happened because it was one of the first job I did." "The day Alberto brought me the drawings for the first episode, the one where Daneri gets a scar," "that very day Altuna showed me scethches of "El Loco Chávez"." "I was starting off with comics, unknowingly, big time!" "Mostly because Alberto was an experienced author and famous artist." " Come in, Daneri." " Excuse me, good evening." "My son Julio urgently needs your services as a..." "How should I call it?" ""Detective"?" "Call it whatever you want." "What's his problem?" "A man with a scar on his face wants to kill him." "It's a strange story." "He wanted to draw Mataderos as he remembered it." "A sort of mystical Mataderos from his childhood." "And I wanted to write a dark detective story." "The ideas did not clash at all." "We had to get Daneri to move through the ghettos, through poverty." "Who was Daneri?" "He was most likely an ex-cop." "There's Julio." "Julio..." "I've noticed." "He's definitely a cop." "Julio!" "With something fantastic, with premonitions..." "Containing quotes by Borges." "There quotes by Borges in Daneri." "He was a sort of ruffian, but very cynical." "Comics were a way of getting to know myself." "Which is the most important thing in life." "It has no other transcendence, no other significance." "Some people like it, and some don't." "Some of those who like it, think I am phenomenal." "I believe no one is a phenomenal." "We are merely the result of that which we insist on." "I have the ability to draw and I make an effort because, as Breccia said," "I want to reach my limit in that." "If that limit is high or not, well that all depends on how it affects the reader." "And we'll have to rely on that creation of ours, and this I fully experienced, on that creation of ours, returning to us." "It happened to me with "Sonoman" in the year 1996." "Strangers starting calling me expressing gratitude for Sonoman." "I'm talking of 1996, and Sonoman came out in 1966." "30 years later." "That year, the rock band "Soda Stereo" renders tribute to Sonoman." "Ceratti told me:" ""I was about to dedicate myself to graphic design influenced by Sonoman"." "Zeta Bosio also told me something of the like." "Alberti listened, he was younger." "It was great because that closed a cycle of something that I had thought out when I was 29." "It came as a surprise." "People started thanking me all of the sudden." "Even today..." "You won't believe this, but I have a website, so I get messages there." "The least likely professions have been linked to Sonoman." "I recently got a message:" ""I am an Astronomer and I owe it to Sonoman."" "I warned you!" "With this music, you can fly." "What happens here is cyclical." "CARLOS MEGLIA" " ILLUSTRATOR" "Since about every 12 years, for cyclical reasons, our country goes to the shitter, the publishing houses automatically start closing down." "And they simply vanish overnight." "And then everything gets back into shape." "That era I mentioned before, the times of Oesterheld, Pratt, Breccia, Arturo del Castillo, all the great ones, came to a point where it started to decline further and further." "The publishers closed, everything closed, and there was a void." "Some publishers still remained that published their stuff, but far from the great success of "Hora Cero"." "SEVENTY YEARS OF COMIC" "SEVENTY YEARS OF COMIC" "When the Insituto Di Tella had their exhibit, a great comics exhibit held in the most modern part of the city," "comics were on the route to vanishing." "Not for long, because they made a come back and other products came out." "Columba Editorial took over the market with pitiful productions run of the mill and frankly sectarian." "In general, Columba was the editorial that never was..." "RICARDO VILLAGRAN" " ILLUSTRATOR" "It never had true aspirations in becoming a great comic book publisher." "But it managed to dominate the market, publishing 90% of all comics." "So all the illustrators ended up working for Columba, sooner or later." "My first comic in Argentina was "Argón, el justiciero"." "The editor was very straightforward told me:" ""Draw Nippur de Lagash"." "So I did and showed him and he said:" ""It looks just like him, great"." ""Now go home and add white paint on all his hair."" "I added white on Nippur de Lagash's hair." "When I returned he said:" ""That's Argón el justiciero."" "I sais: "But it's Nippur de Lagash with white hair."" ""That's the idea." "He's blonde, but the comic is in black and white"." ""Make three of these comics and I'll pay you."" "That's how I started." "In fact, Nippur was born..." "Robin Wood, the creator, the one writing it back then, was a good friend of Lucho Olivera, a great illustrator that passed away recently." "He proposed a comic called:" ""The man of Lagash"." "It was just one story, but it hit hard and letters started pouring in saying that they wanted more of that character." "Nippur is one city, Lagash is another one in Babylon." "But they merged them, concocting a strange blend." "But it was a success." "Nippur hit the hardest because it had a touch of heroic tragedy, and a political context" "Some people think that very profound political events were taking place here and Columba looked the other way." "Columba was not looking the other way." "If you read Nippur, there are very clear references to the political events in Argentina at the time." "Nippur touches on things like power, not just adventure and those we battle today." "The guy is always dealing with kings, princes, generals, priests." "Nippur is clearly a comic about power." "So that is how I think he found his niche, even with an audience like Columba's who probably didn't get the whole picture." "Because Columba's magazines targeted a public with limited economic resources, and even little access to education." "It sold even more than "La Nación" newspaper, and it was just one comic." "So it was a booming success." "I had job offers from the U.S. And preferred to work here, because it paid off to work here." "So you can imagine what it was like." ""Skorpio" magazine came out in 1974 because an Italian businessman named Alvaro Zerboni came along and made contact with Alfredo Scutti, who was a former comic illustrator, he wanted to be an illustrator he was a very mediocre one in the 50's and early 60's." "When he realized that he would starve an illustrator, he got into interior decorating." "Scutti did very well for years as a decorator until this Alvaro Zerboni came along and said:" ""Hey, you work in comic books, do you know any writers?"" "He replies, "Yes, a couple."" ""Well then, why don't we create a comic book containing things like this and that, we buy the material in Argentina and sell it in Italy."" ""Skorpio" is launched and competes against Columba." "In some way, what Columba was doing paved the way for "Skorpio."" "It had interesting things because it had interesting collaborators, no doubt about that." "But if I have to analyze it as a comic book," "I probably wouldn't find a very defined political stance." "Scutti, having been bred from comics from the 50's, summons the same guys working with Oesterheld on "Frontera"." "He calls Oesterheld, Solano, del Castillo, Roume and Breccia, and hires the guys that had appeared during that last period, over that last four to six years like Horacio Lalia, Robin Wood, Carlitos Albica, Trillo," "Enrique Breccia." "Skorpio had an outstanding cast back then." "Skorpio launch during my high school senior year, it must've been in 1974." "And I remember saying:" ""Wow, what a great magazine!"" "Because it was very different, from a graphic point of view, from what we were used to seeing in Columba." "There was a variety of styles, but had better drawings." "It was esthetically more ambitious, and with a fundamental touch of Pratt opening the magazine with "El Corto Maltés"." "Just imagine it!" "They became millionaires publishing that in Italy." "Comics were cheap in Argentina and expensive in Italia." "The guy made a killing." "He prospered for many years and made a lot of money." ""Skorpio" was also more ostentatious than Columba, because it didn't possess those boring texts, it had less frames per page, you could see tits even during the dictatorship, the good guys didn't always win." "Come were more daring in terms of the subjects, like "El Eternauta Il"." "They had a huge impact in those days." ""Bárbara", "Alvar Mayor", "Necrodamus"." "So, for years, "Skorpio" became a safe haven for the most talented authors in Argentina." "It marked Argentine comics as much as the more advertised magazine "Fierro"." "Both coexisted in a certain period in which "Fierro" dislayed a more rebel stance, but I think that, in terms of solid narration of adventure comics," ""Skorpio" had the edge." "That's why I think I went to Record before Columba, because "Skorpio" impacted me." "I liked what "Skorpio" was doing." "I didn't work there long, mainly cause I had left Columba because the didn't respect author copyrights and Scutti didn't either." "So I made very few comics, just enough to get by on." "In general the Argentine editor has always been a sort of pirate in that sense." "I worked for Record, for Scutti, for many years." "All of "Alvar Mayor", "Peregrino en las estrellas"" "and all I did with Saccomano, they are thousands of pages." "I had to sign a clause, the same went for all of us." "Like Mandrafina, like Fernández, Macagno, Seijas, all those that worked there, where we relinquished all our rights." "There was no there way." "It was take it or leave it." "Those comics were later republished in Italy, and they blatantly stole our originals." "I do not have a single page of any of the things I have mentioned." "Not one original page of Alvar Mayor, or Peregrino nor of anyone." "That desire to treasure, to keep the originals, on behalf of Abril Publishing, Dante Quinterno, and Ramón Columba..." "Ramón Columba owned a house FRANCISCO SOLANO LÓPEZ ILLUSTRATOR which he used exclusively to ILLUSTRATOR" "The place was later abandoned, the editorials went bankrupt, and the originals were scattered on the floor or dumped in the trash." "I would say that he acted in a not very noble way." "Amassing for the only reason of preventing us from continuing taking advantage of what we had done." "The publishing houses in the seventies..." "JAVIER DOEYO" " EDITOR" "Columba had been around, but reached its peak and boomed in the seventies." "Record Editions came out in that era." "They are publishers that don't respect copyright." "They followed the old "Patoruzito" method, that dates back to that immortal era of comics, in which the authors were like publishing house employee." "They turned in their work, got their money, and left." "That material was published a thousand times and with that collaboration, the author left the material and the publisher then owned it." "That ended with Cascioli who created the first publisher to return the originals." "You took the originals, they were copied and returned." ""The work is yours, here's your money for your collaboration."" "That style of working set up the today's manner of working, and Cascioli set the stage for that." "EDITOR" " ILLUSTRATOR" "EDITOR" " ILLUSTRATOR" "When he knows the work belongs to him and that he may, as has happened, some of them have contacted people abroad and had the same comics published in other countries." "But they sold it themselves, I had nothing to do with it." "I believe the rights are theirs." "And they put more love into it." "It will be more important." "It's their work." "I provided them with a media which was a good business for me because I was publishing the best the market had to offer," "and I think it worked out well." "Columba made a mistake there." "Dispite having met people like Altuna there." "When I was working in "Satiricón" in 1973," "Trillo was also working in "Satiricón"." "I was going to illustrate a comic with Trillo as the author." "Then I thought:" ""Why should I illustrate it, if there is a guy at Columba that is excellent, and makes "Nippur de Lagash"." "I called Horacio, and then in 1973, Trillo met Horacio Altuna." ""El Loco Chávez" is and icon of the work I did with Trillo." "It was created in 1975 and the first six months he developed his comics abroad HORACIO ALTUNA ILLUSTRATOR" " SCRIPTWRITER and it had no kind of insertion within the reader, HORACIO ALTUNA ILLUSTRATOR" " SCRIPTWRITER it had no success." "So we decided he come to Argentina and the mere act of stepping foot in Buenos Aires, and for his comics to take place in Buenos Aires, provided us with a sort of anchor into reality and I believe that to be the most rewarding" "and most important aspect of "El Loco Chávez"" "and the 13 years it came out in Clarín newspaper." "I was 12 when I discovered Humor magazine'ss" ""Las puertitas del Sr. López"." "Altuna's chicks were hot, it was the 80's, there weren't naked chicks anywhere." "I was 12 or 13 and things started happening to me." "When I discovered "Las puertitas del Sr. López" I thought:" ""Cool, this guy is a genius!"" "In "Las puertitas del Sr. López"" "there was a deeper critical social search." ""Las puertitas del Sr. López" was created during the dictatorship, and there was Señor López, he was a scary sort of man, incapable of modifying his own reality and in no way was he a guy" "who was a hero, not even an antihero." "He was a poor man worthy of pity." "I never managed to publish a serious comic." "ROBERTO FONTANARROSA ILLUSTRATOR" " WRITER" "I even took a correspondence course by the twelve famous artist from the Escuela Panamericana de Arte, mostly captivated by the presence of Pratt." "When I finally receive my diploma, after I finish the course, despite what my convictions or assumptions," "I was in no condition to work professionally." "I tell that to my son Franco all the time." "He is a musician." "I say: "Look, neither in music, nor soccer, nor in drawing is there a diploma."" "If you're a soccer player, you can't hold up your diploma in your hand and say:" ""I graduated from Rosario Central soccer club"" ""Go play soccer." or "go play the bass," like my son, or draw." "I have only had two characters, then there were other very circumstantial events that take place in 1970 at Hortensia magazine which take an unexpected turn cause it wasn't like I said:" ""I'm going to make a guy that is going to possess specific characteristics, the supporting characters will be a dog, a woman, the Indians, etc..."" "Perhaps a month earlier I sent to Hortensia..." "Mainly I wanted El Negro Crist to receive it as a gift, it was an ink based parody of Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry", an American movie that was in style at the time." "I named him, "Boogie, el aceitoso" though I could have given him any name." "Good evening, madam, we are conducting a survey." "How thrilling!" "Nobody ever asks me anything." " No one cares what I think." " We do, madam!" " Come in." " I'm with a colleague of mine." "Come in, young man." "It's a pleasure." "I can't believe it!" "What television program are you watching?" ""El corazón de Juli", on channel 8." "You're not watching "Quince para el quince"?" "Oh no!" "That's unbearable." "Have you watched it before?" "I could only take two minutes." "It's awful!" " You should pay more attention." " No way." "It's horrible." "Observe." "Look closely, madam." "Oh, God!" "There's that idiot!" "Look closely in order to make an opinion..." "I don't want to watch!" ""Quince para el quince" is a good show." "No!" "I hate it!" "I'll break your arm, stupid hag!" " Do you like it or not?" " You'll have to tear out my eyes!" "Say you like it, you old saggy hag!" "Yes, okay..." "I like it." "Sign here." "The programming director is happy, Boogie." "Your coming along makes the investigation more costly, but the results are better." "THE 1980'S HUMOR" " SUPERHUMOR" " FIERRO" "ILLUSTRATOR" " WRITER" "It's the one that became the most famous of them all." "So I went back to editing." ""Humor" gave me the chance to explore new ideas." ""Humor" did well despite trouble with the government." "But we worked it out and got around them, and we managed to enrich it with serious journalism." "Always close to many cartoonist which allowed me to, when Humor paid the necessary amount of money," "I was able to kick off other projects." "In "Sex Humor" I did "Yironside", a bold and conflictive character." "It was a woman..." "EDUARDO MAICAS CARTOONIST" " SCRIPTWRITER who worked the streets in a wheelchair." "EDUARDO MAICAS ILLUSTRATOR" " SCRIPTWRITER" ""Yironside" stood for whore, and "Yironside" was a paradox for "Ironside" who was a lawyer who was in a wheelchair in an old American series." "It had... many supporters and its share of critics." "We unveiled the magazine at the San Martín theater." "Better yet, the illustrators of the magazine." "At that time there was great eagerness to meet them." "It was a time for take off." "We held a magazine event at the San Martín theater," "So Fabre introduces the illustrators to the audience, and when he names me..." "For those who don't know me, I have a bad leg." "So when he introduces me," "Fabre says: "Here are O'Kif, Rep, Meiji, Maicas"," "Someone from the audience shouts:" ""You're the guy who does Yironside?"" "The place was packed." "And I say, "Yeah, that's me."" "He says: "I always thought the one who made 'Yironside' was either a cripple or a son of a bitch."" "So Rep gets up and says:" ""He's both."" "ILLUSTRATOR" " WRITER which had battled with the military government had become very political, and was losing it's essence as a comic book magazine, so we contemplated heavily in making Fierro." "It was the comic book of the publishing house which created and interesting space." "But I was always did these projects because the illustrators were there ready and waiting." "I had the chance to work alongside Andrés Cascioli again making Fierro magazine in 1984." "The circumstances were different, it was a very special time JUAN SASTURAIN JOURNALIST" " WRITER one hailed as, or could be describe as..." "JUAN SASTURAIN JOURNALIST" " WRITER" ""The Democratic Spring of Alfonsin"." "Fierro magazine took part in some way of that climate." "It was part of a wave..." "of a creative wave, one of cultural creativity of those years that coincide with certain moments when society believes that what's coming will be better than what they had previously." "I think the great magazine at that time FERNANDO ARIEL GARCÍA JOUNALIST" "JOURNALIST mainly because it must had been the last one to possess Argentine identity, in the sense that it mentioned the things that were happening in Argentina through comic strips." "With a vision somewhat journalistic, or one that used journalism through comics to talk about other things that were happening out of frame." "Above all... a perspective of what had happened during military regime, the layout, the birth of democracy in Argentina and the problems that could arise from that." "It was a kind of magma, there were a lot of young people." "It was very important." "Some of us had been working for years HORACIO ALTUNA ILLUSTRATOR" " SCRIPTWRITER for ten to fifteen years." "HORACIO ALTUNA ILLUSTRATOR" " SCRIPTWRITER" "There was a middle-aged group and the new ones:" "Marinero Turco, Max Cachimba, all those guys that came along later were also very important in the creation of new comics and the new esthetics of Argentine comics." "At that time, no one was wet behind the ears." "JUAN SASTURAIN" " WRITER" "Everyone was in there forties, JUAN SASTURAIN" " WRITER" "I'm referring to Altuna, Mandrafina, Breccia, not Nine because he was just starting out, although he was about the same age." "José Muñoz, Fontanarrosa, etc." "Because I believe he had ROBERTO FONTANARROSA CARTOONIST" " WRITER a selection of marvelous artists." "ROBERTO FONTANARROSA CARTOONIST" " WRITER but not at the same level as the scriptwriters." "Except the most famous ones, it turns into an elite comic, in the sense that they are much more complex comics, where one does not..." "I am a reader of classic tales where lies an enigma, where there is something to unravel, where the tale leads somewhere, where a story is told." "With Fierro, many times I would turn the page and say:" ""That's it?" "That's the end?" "What happened?"" "It let out the feeling that there wasn't a good story to tell." "There were great cartoonists." "I believe it was an excellent magazine, with covers done by Ciccone which were marvelous." "But for a more specialized audience, those who would analyze, and study the comic, the introspection..." "It was no longer a massive popular item." "We always said, not without irony, that it was a magazine that nobody could like entirely." "That is, those that enjoyed science fiction by Juan Jiménez, and the art of UFOs and monsters, could not stand the contrast of light or exaggerated black and whites of José Muñoz for example." "They didn't understand Perramus or just preferred other of stuff." "The illustrations by Lizán coexisted with Jorge Varlotta's, with the comics by Horacio Altuna for example, or by Trillo." "That was a very interesting proposal." "Throughout eight years Fierro represented, it was representative of a great part of the history of comics made in Argentina." "Fierro never sold well." "Fierro was a great comic book but never sold a lot." "CARLOS TRILLO" " SCRIPTWRITER" "Regardless, the whole world remembers it." "Now many might wonder:" ""If everyone remembers it, why did it sell so poorly?"" "Well, go figure." "Maybe just by reading one issue, one never forgets it." "Sasturain did some notable editing work there and selection of material that, in some way, attracted some authors that were publishing abroad and presented the things they created, and also incorporating very young authors, for instance;" "Pablo De Santis who worked with Max Cachimba on some of the best stories for Óxido de Fierro, as well as including local authors and topics." "It was a very interesting comic strip, which probably didn't know how to find its audience, or they simply went out of business too soon." "I don't know." "I had very serious problems because the same comics that were published here, ILLUSTRATOR" " EDITOR the copyrights ILLUSTRATOR" " EDITOR most of the artists, also published in Spain, in Spanish magazines" "and afterwards, with this indiscriminate importation through this open market which Menem's government imposed, allowed for other magazines to arrive, and the newspapers here bought them by the kilo because they were rejects from Spain and included many of the same strips that were in Fierro." "And that was the end of Fierro." "That ended with Fierro." "We'll have to wait and see what happens now." "QUIQUE ALCATENA" " WRITER" "There are no publications but there are plenty of kids that are interested in comics and start to draw." "And they don't have a publisher to accept their work or to pay them but they do it for fun." "Aware that they will never publish, or with great effort through self publishing." "So, ever though you don't see them at the newsstands, and only find them at comic book stores within impenetrable display cases, the kids reach out to comics and keep telling tales combined with drawings and they keep at it until they becoming fascinated." "And they keep at it until they becoming fascinated." "FANZINES - 1990'S" "Well, the fanzines are byproducts ANDRÉS ACCORSI" " CRITIC of the boom produced with the launch of Fierro in the mid 80's." "There were literally, hundreds of kids who wanted to publish their comics in this new medium which now appeared." "There was room to publish ten, 10-12 comics in Fierro." "Not many more." "But there were hundreds." "Therefore, what could we do?" "This added to the photocopiers that were available and photo duplication, which didn't exist in the 70's, allowed the kids to make their own copies of their owned photocopied comic books to show their work." "Many gathered and created anthologies which repeated the classic formats, like Fierro, Skorpio, and so on, and they showed their comics in the format." "The fascination that came from seeing your work published was huge." "That magic of..." "with any kind of magazine, ROBERTO FONTANARROSA ILLUSTRATOR." "WRITER" "The magic of creating it, taking the challenge, contemplating it, ROBERTO FONTANARROSA ILLUSTRATOR" " WRITER going to the printer to check it and see it finished and in print..." "That's very seductive." "Besides, it eliminated the frustration of drawing to simply have it stowed in a drawer somewhere." "Comics sort of withdraw from the market in 1992-1993." "ANDRÉS ACCORSI" " CRITIC" "Especially national comics and published anthologies, from Fierro, Skorpio, Puertitas," "Columba starts relaunching old material, etc," "And that spectrum of national comics has no representation in the market." "A vast group of authors that want to work in that style remain as well as readers that want to read that style of comics, with nothing to buy or nothing to read." "There was a time from the early 90's until 1994, SALVADOR SANZ ILLUSTRATOR" " SCRIPTWRITER when everything started to die." "SEBASTIAN CANTERO ILLUSTRATOR" "It was a time when Fierro, Skorpio, all of them just died." "SEBASTIAN CANTERO ILLUSTRATOR" "We appeared in 1994, JULIO AZAMOR ILLUSTRATOR as did Comiqueando by Accorsi, a couple of fanzines..." "Then in 1995 or 1996, I recall this frenzy appearing which was called "the boom of the fanzines."" "Then came an independent magazine boom." "JAVIER ROVELLA ILLUSTRATOR" " SCRIPTWRITER" "The "AHl" was formed, The Independent Comic Association," "There were roughly 80 magazines enrolled." "The events like Fantabaires started to appear, and a sort of Fanzine trend started to take place." "There were even exclusive Fanzine events." ""El Historietazo" was the first." "Then came "Historieta Bajo Tierra"" "and even events in other provinces." "But we weren't anything, just people starting off, learning, with questions, with a desire to show our work, since there were no publishers, JAVIER ROVELLA ILLUSTRATOR" " SCRIPTWRITER we wanted to show our work our way." "The first time I saw Catzole magazine was on a bus, and Julio was by chance riding the same bus which was weird because our schedules never matched," "I asked him: "What are you up to?" and he replied," ""I'm about to launch a comic" and showed me the Catzole." "And I said:" ""Oh!" "I also make comics,"" ""I want to publish there."" "And he said: "No, this one will be out tomorrow, its going to the printers today."" " "I'll to publish in the next episode." - "Go for it."" " "I want to do the cover." - "Ok, go ahead, make the cover."" "And that's how I got published in the second issue." "It was a very characteristic Fanzine." "You immediately recognized it, "Oh!" "A Catzole."" "ILLUSTRATOR" "And that was fantastic." "I have an interesting example." ""Cazador" was a fanzine EDITOR" " ILLUSTRATOR and well, fortunately, they managed to sell 1500 copies, something like that, in black and white." "I was very fond of Lucas' ideas." "I said, "Publish that comic, but have it edited."" "We created a marvelous product, but it started out as a Fanzine." "We manage to achieve, that a magazine that sold 1500 - 2000 copies, managed to sell over twenty thousand," "I believe we turned it into something else." "Because, in the end, Art is made to be shown." "Lucas had great passion and Ramirez had great class." "They worked tremendously slow." "OSWAL" " ILLUSTRATOR" "It could take him a year to finish one page, he didn't like a frame and he would cut it out." "Then he'd show me the page with the missing frame." "They made a good duo." "When we started making "Cazador Argentino"" "we decided to make it Argentine." "JORGE LUCAS" " ILLUSTRATOR and that he be an immortal guy JORGE LUCAS" " DIBUJANTE" "Let's face it, every comic strip character has to possess a certain degree of immortality." "He's very foul spoken." "A guy always down on his luck, who wore a mask for who knows what reason, and got into fights with everyone." "Because the Cazador kids were making Cazador CARLOS MEGLIA" " ILLUSTRATOR and Cazador came out in black and white." "CARLOS MEGLIA" " ILLUSTRATOR and I had bought a Mac, which had cost me a fortune." "It had an 80 mb hard drive 80 mb, and an 8 mb RAM." "It was used to paint." "When I was painting, the kids from Cazador had also started painting Cazador, but Cybersix had come out a week earlier." "So, I guess it was the first to use color like this." "It was hard work, really hard work." "Because we had no experience." "I would add a red that was spectacular!" "And the prints would come out violet." ""What's with the violet?" "I used red."" ""No, they're virtual colors." "You have to consider the percentages"." "And sure, you noticed that you had 90% blue, so, surely that made violet." "And we eventually got the hang of it." "It's hard to decide which character one is able to like more." "ERNESTO GARCÍA SEIJAS ILLUSTRATOR" "Almost always the last one." "One of the last ones was "Especies en Peligro"" "where a child was the main character." "When he ran, he looked like one of my grandchildren, who is older now, and I used to say that he ran "flying low"." "I even imitated my grandson's attitudes and it was something wonderful to do." "I had read statements by great cartoonists OSWAL" " ILLUSTRATOR, SCRIPTWRITER that said that drawing wasn't simple, and though it was very nice and fun, sometimes you had no choice but to draw." "One would tell about how one night the lights went out and how the original had been finished under candle light." "But something more definite happened to me than a blackout." "I once had to turn in an original and just then, my father died." "And even though I hadn't finished the original, I left home." "I went to the publishing house, and since I was trying to deny what had happened," "I finished the drawing very nervously, and the though faded so I handed in the work," "I left and did the oddest thing a man could do at a time like that:" "I went to the movie theater." "I got in, got my ticket, the curtains drew and lights went out, the movie started and I ran out of there." "I hope that someday comics will have the acceptance that other artistic means have today." "I don't hear anyone say, "No, I don'st read books."" "Or: "No, I really don't care for cinema."" "If you say that people stare at you." "It's like saying: "I don't like Coke"," ""I don't like dulce de leche", "I don't like going on vacation."" "But some say: "I don't read comics." And it seems normal." "And their not considered mutant freaks with tentacles coming out of their foreheads." "If you say "I don't like theatre." I personally don't." "When I say "I don't like the theater" They say:" " "Are you nuts?" "You don't like theatre?" " "No, I don't."" "I know it's not normal." "But it's also not normal for someone to say:" ""I don't like comics"." "The market went down hill until it vanished." "Why did the local authors have to disappear here, had to go work with for the Americans, Italians, and French?" "I dare not say, but we did something wrong, no doubt about it." "I think that when these magazines closed down, no one realized what was being lost." "EDUARDO MAICAS ILLUSTRATOR" " SCRIPTWRITER" "I get the feeling it was obvious they were going to close down." "EDUARDO MAICAS ILLUSTRATOR" " SCRIPTWRITER" "They had completed their cycle, they had stopped selling and eventually went down hill." "But I don't think anyone realized the source of work that was being lost and the importance of an artistic way of expression being shut down." "ILLUSTRATOR" " EDITOR" "I have such fond ILLUSTRATOR" " EDITOR" "I had always loved comics, but I think everything that happened is very sad." "Because it was a time full of happiness." "When we made Súper Humor and Fierro we were in our moment of glory." "Which was lost, everything was lost here." "I always curse the day publishers disappeared, because there are great artists, CALOI" " ILLUSTRATOR, SCRIPTWRITER kids struggling to make their fanzines CALOI" " ILLUSTRATOR, SCRIPTWRITER which would guarantee comics a long life." "But it seems to be an artform in extinction." "And they possess a zest to communicate ERNESTO GARCÍA SEIJAS CARTOONIST with the Argentine audience because once upon a time we have always felt that the public enjoy comics, but the conditions for a comic to express itself today do not exist" "neither is there an audience." "Comic books nowadays are a means of entertainment, ENRIQUE ALCATENA" " ILLUSTRATOR not for an exclusive elite, but for a devoted minority who really enjoys comics, the comic book advocates, not just a casual reader, like the average Joe who read "El Tony" on the train." "If there remains an avid audience of comic book readers," "I believe there will be more releases like Fierro, more people daring to invest in comic books." "If not, I don't know, it will just disappear." "But I am optimistic about it." "TO ROBERTO FONTANARROSA" "I've been reasonably happy, and that includes having been and comic strip writer." "It would be nice to..." "with new tools, new methods, captivate the kids of today." "ACKNOWLEDGES" "TO ALL THOSE WHO WORKED" "ON THIS FULL LENGTH DOCUMENTARY" "TO EACH AND EVERY GUESTS" "AND PROTAGONISTS OF THIS DOCUMENTARY" "FOR THEIR SUPPORT" "THE AUTHORITIES AND PERSONNEL AT THE:" "INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE CINE Y ARTES AUDIOVISUALES" "SICA" "ASOCIAClÓN ARGENTINA DE ACTORES" "SADEM" "SUTEP" "MUSEO DEL CINE" "DIRECClÓN GENERAL DE MUSEOS" "MUSEO DE LA CARICATURA SEVERO VACARO" "MY PARENTS Y SISTERS (THANKS!" ")" "STUDIO "LA CORTE"" "THANKS TO ALL ARGENTINE COMIC BOOK WRITERS" "I wish we could find the formula to prevent this form of expression from ever dying." "ALL THE COMICS AND CARTOON CHARACTERS IN THIS DOCUMENTARY" "BELONG TO THEIR RESPECTIVE AUTHORS" "THIS FILM AIMS TO PROMOTE ARGENTINE COMICS"