Oesterheld and Breccia — Mort Cinder

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“He [Héctor Oesterheld] had a literary background and was a great reader, like me and most of the young people of the time, novelists such as Jack London, Melville, Conrad, Alexandre Dumas, Jules Verne, Victor Hugo ... And Hector began, with that same style, to produce his own personal stories…” — Francisco Solano López, illustrator of the science-fiction comic El Eternauta

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by john adcock

In 1955, with his brother Jorge, Héctor Oesterheld, who left behind one of the saddest stories in comics, founded the Argentinian comic periodical Frontera, and wrote over 150 comic scripts for fifty artists. Among them were some of the finest adventure comic artists to ever walk the earth; Alberto Breccia, Hugo Pratt, Francisco Solano Lopez, and Arturo del Castillo. Author Jorge Luis Borges was a great admirer of Oesterheld’s imaginative storytelling abilities. Frontera declared bankruptcy in 1963

MORT CINDER, now released in English for the first time, was written by Héctor Oesterheld with art by Alberto Breccia. The bookish antiquarian, Ezra Winston (Breccia was his model) is summoned by supernatural forces to resurrect the immortal Mort Cinder from the grave. Shell-shocked at this turn of events he soon turns enthusiastic; there is some nice black humor when the sedate antiquarian gives in to his violent atavistic impulses against the unsettling leaden-eyed men who try to prevent the resurrection.

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Breccia’s expressive black and white drawings were influenced by Alex Raymond and other noteworthy illustrative American newspaper cartoonists. Mort Cinder began in the weekly magazine Misterix in No. 714, July 20, 1962 and ended with No. 800 on March 3, 1964.

Breccia’s Rip Kirbyish comic art is haunting and unforgettable, panels filled with brilliant light exploding out of the velvet blackness, sometimes splitting the panels in two, sometimes erasing the lines where light meets light, as in the cover image shown above. The only artist I can think of who came close to this spotlight-style of imagery was Angelo Torres, with his drawings for the Creepy and Eerie horror magazines, and he was basing them on photographs. Mort Cinder was the creation of an artist at the peak of his powers, spinning out masterful panels with pen and ink, brush, acrylic, sponge and paint-spattered razor-blades. Breccia added grays in wash and tint for effective contrast.

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Mort Cinder has long been considered a classic of world comics, widely known in Europe, but inaccessible to Canadians and Americans. Mort Cinder is brilliant, disordered, and un-nerving narrative fiction pondering timeless questions of death, decay, control and memory. This timely English edition is highly recommended. Fantagraphics plans further additions to the magnificent Alberto Breccia Library — Mort Cinder is one for the ages — get them while you can.

MORT CINDER. Héctor Oesterheld and Alberto Breccia, Fantagraphic Books Edition, November 2018, 224 pages, HERE

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Héctor Germán Oesterheld (1919 ----)

Héctor Germán Oesterheld, “one of the most extraordinary adventure comic creators of the twentieth century,” disappeared in Argentina, then under a dictatorship, on Christmas Eve, 1977, (*one source says it happened in April 1976) preceded by his daughters, Beatriz (19), Diana (23), Wake (24), and Marina (18). Beginning with Beatriz, his daughters began cruelly disappearing, one by one. Diana was pregnant when she went missing. The only body ever recovered was that of Beatriz. Oesterheld’s date of death is still not known. He is listed as number 7546 on the National Commission of Disappeared Persons list.

Ana Maria Caruso, writing from the grim prison mockingly called ‘the Sheraton,’ said “The old man spends the day writing stories which no-one intends to publish.” The sole survivor of the family, Héctor’s widow Elsa Sánchez de Oesterheld, said “the idealistic youth of that time was not able to see what was awaiting them.” The dictatorship lasted from 1976 to 1983.

Oesterheld was born 23 July, 1919 to a Jewish-German father and Spanish-Basque mother. He wrote numerous children’s books using the pseudonym ‘Sanchez Puyol.’ In 1951 he began writing comic scripts for Cinemisterio which published his first works. Bull Rocket appeared in Misterix and in 1953 he wrote Sergeant Kirk with art by Hugo Pratt.

In 1955, with his brother Jorge, he founded the comic periodical Frontera, and wrote over 150 scripts for fifty artists. Among them were some of the finest adventure comic artists to ever walk the earth; Alberto Breccia, Hugo Pratt, Francisco Solano Lopez, and Arturo del Castillo. Oesterheld wrote the adventures of Ray Kilt, Sargento Kirk, Indio Suárez, Bull Rocket, Ernie Pike, Ticonderoga, Randall the Killer, and Sherlock Time. Mort Cinder appeared in Misterix in 1962 with art by Alberto Breccia. Frontera declared bankruptcy in 1963.

Oesterheld’s principal creation was the Kafkaesque science-fiction work El Eternauta, illustrated by Francisco Solano López, born in Buenos Aires in 1928. López and his son, who was active in the resistance, left for exile in Spain at the time of the dictatorship. The first version of El Eternauta was published from 1957 to 1959, in Hora Cero Semenal, the second version in 1969, illustrated by Alberto Breccia.

The whole miserable story, El desaparecido Héctor Germán, with illustrations, can be found HERE. A newspaper interview with López HERE. Last a newspaper interview with writer Eugenio Zappietro HERE.

*Top Panel from Mort Cinder, bottom panels from El Eternauta, art by Breccia.