interview by Patricia Arano
Nelly, Hector Oesterheld´s Sister
Arriving at Nelly Oesterheld's house is like slipping into another universe. A trip back to childhood, with the smell of school, glittery figurines, bright colors, and above all, the light our eyes used to see when we were 9 or 10 years old. I breathe it all in as I knock on her door amid plants and barking coming from the inside or from the back of the jouse. She opens the door with a smile, followed by an expression of surprise: she didn't quite believe me when I told her I was going to bring her an apple pie that would brighten up that Saturday afternoon in October, amid words and memories.
Nelly Oesterheld: Look, I used to draw before started to wrote, like most kids. There were five of us in my family, and I used to play with my brother Héctor the most. But he didn't draw, he wasn´t able to! It was really hard for him! (laughs) He wrote stories, of course, but came was later. Do you know who he was?
Patricia Arano: ¡Of course! The author and scriptwriter of The Eternaut, the most famous among the vast number of stories he has written. But going back to your childhood, and later in life when you two worked together, was he the one who liked writing best?
Nelly: He loved drawing, but he was terrible at it! So he devoted himself to writing, and later on I illustrated his stories for children. Oh! Here, I've prepared something to show you about my work.
Nelly shows me drawings from colorful children's books. She unfolds them delicately, and fairies, bears, and princes dancing on a cardboard machine spring from the page, and then another and another. They all unfold and grow in size, and the kitchen ends up filled with characters that always look at you no matter where you place them.
Patricia: This is an ancient art, die cutting, perhaps?
Nelly: The ones you're looking at, I gave them to the publisher with all the instructions for cutting. I had to measure and fold them, and I specified where the publisher should cut, and they followed the instructions.
Patricia: So, except for the printed colors, you practically put them together yourself, which is very difficult work.
Nelly: It's almost a kind of engineering, I don't know (she laughs). In Brazil, the publishers called them “toy books” (She opens a larger book and it's a whole carousel with horses, straps, and a roof; the book touches the front and back covers, forming a perfect merry-go-round; two little girls watch me, laughing). As I was saying, the technique involved die-cutting, drawing by drawing! All these are samples that I kept. Over time, I gave most of them away to schoolchildren. That was before my coming here, to Trelew. Back when I worked in schools, there was a theory in education at the time that you have to introduce young children to reality through stories, and I think that even fairy tales are a way of showing reality; illustrated stories make the clash with reality less harsh.
Nelly proceeds to shows me an album of stickers with glitter in the shape butterflies and all kinds of characters from traditional stories. They look just perfect, and I think I would have done anything to play with them when I was eight. Maybe I did play with them, back then, in a schoolyard I have now forgotten. Nelly keeps showing me her original pencil drawing. Suddenly the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz appears, with his axe and one hand wiping away a round tear, a flower crowns an inverted funnel that is his hat, he looks to the left of the picture, into the distance, and I feel I´m falling in love with him at first sight.
Nelly Oesterheld: Look, I used to draw before started to wrote, like most kids. There were five of us in my family, and I used to play with my brother Héctor the most. But he didn't draw, he wasn´t able to! It was really hard for him! (laughs) He wrote stories, of course, but came was later. Do you know who he was?
Patricia Arano: ¡Of course! The author and scriptwriter of The Eternaut, the most famous among the vast number of stories he has written. But going back to your childhood, and later in life when you two worked together, was he the one who liked writing best?
Nelly: He loved drawing, but he was terrible at it! So he devoted himself to writing, and later on I illustrated his stories for children. Oh! Here, I've prepared something to show you about my work.
Nelly shows me drawings from colorful children's books. She unfolds them delicately, and fairies, bears, and princes dancing on a cardboard machine spring from the page, and then another and another. They all unfold and grow in size, and the kitchen ends up filled with characters that always look at you no matter where you place them.
Patricia: This is an ancient art, die cutting, perhaps?
Nelly: The ones you're looking at, I gave them to the publisher with all the instructions for cutting. I had to measure and fold them, and I specified where the publisher should cut, and they followed the instructions.
Patricia: So, except for the printed colors, you practically put them together yourself, which is very difficult work.
Nelly: It's almost a kind of engineering, I don't know (she laughs). In Brazil, the publishers called them “toy books” (She opens a larger book and it's a whole carousel with horses, straps, and a roof; the book touches the front and back covers, forming a perfect merry-go-round; two little girls watch me, laughing). As I was saying, the technique involved die-cutting, drawing by drawing! All these are samples that I kept. Over time, I gave most of them away to schoolchildren. That was before my coming here, to Trelew. Back when I worked in schools, there was a theory in education at the time that you have to introduce young children to reality through stories, and I think that even fairy tales are a way of showing reality; illustrated stories make the clash with reality less harsh.
Nelly proceeds to shows me an album of stickers with glitter in the shape butterflies and all kinds of characters from traditional stories. They look just perfect, and I think I would have done anything to play with them when I was eight. Maybe I did play with them, back then, in a schoolyard I have now forgotten. Nelly keeps showing me her original pencil drawing. Suddenly the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz appears, with his axe and one hand wiping away a round tear, a flower crowns an inverted funnel that is his hat, he looks to the left of the picture, into the distance, and I feel I´m falling in love with him at first sight.
Nelly holds the die-cut book: The Carousel at the Park .
Patricia: How did you first approach publishers in order to start working for them professionally?
Nelly: Let me tell you one of my stories. Tito (her nickname for Oesterheld) and I were walking down the street after a meeting with publishers and he said to me, “It's not fair, I write the story and they pay me a pittance, and you get paid more for a mere eight drawings!” He was right: those books for children featured only eight illustrations back then, more than 40 years ago (she laughs out loud). But, of course... You see, the work of an illustrator is more complex because you have to maintain the same features of the character throughout the pages, whereas the scriptwriter can write one or two pages at a time. Of course, the illustrator has to follow the scriptwriter's instructions and not the other way around. Well, I don't know how it works now. But my brother was an excellent scriptwriter. He would give precise instructions to the his artists: how to being a particular dialogue with a close-up of the face, or what kind of landscape would fit the dramatic tone of the action... He was incredible... He had the whole work in his head, and—as in the movies—he imagined everything with camera movements in sequences. And he would supply all this to the artist: every panel he wrote came with an explanatory part so that the illustrator would be able to match his drawing to the script. As for how I got hired, it was thanks to Héctor, who had shown my drawings to a publisher without telling them they were his sister's. I had drawn a mouse, and he showed it to them and they liked it. And that's how I started working professionally with my brother. He wrote the texts for children´s books and I illustrated them. We worked on them together. Later on, of course, he went on to have a brilliant career.
Nelly: Let me tell you one of my stories. Tito (her nickname for Oesterheld) and I were walking down the street after a meeting with publishers and he said to me, “It's not fair, I write the story and they pay me a pittance, and you get paid more for a mere eight drawings!” He was right: those books for children featured only eight illustrations back then, more than 40 years ago (she laughs out loud). But, of course... You see, the work of an illustrator is more complex because you have to maintain the same features of the character throughout the pages, whereas the scriptwriter can write one or two pages at a time. Of course, the illustrator has to follow the scriptwriter's instructions and not the other way around. Well, I don't know how it works now. But my brother was an excellent scriptwriter. He would give precise instructions to the his artists: how to being a particular dialogue with a close-up of the face, or what kind of landscape would fit the dramatic tone of the action... He was incredible... He had the whole work in his head, and—as in the movies—he imagined everything with camera movements in sequences. And he would supply all this to the artist: every panel he wrote came with an explanatory part so that the illustrator would be able to match his drawing to the script. As for how I got hired, it was thanks to Héctor, who had shown my drawings to a publisher without telling them they were his sister's. I had drawn a mouse, and he showed it to them and they liked it. And that's how I started working professionally with my brother. He wrote the texts for children´s books and I illustrated them. We worked on them together. Later on, of course, he went on to have a brilliant career.
El "perfil” Oesterheld, marca de familia. Una muestra del buen humor de Nelly al dejarse fotografiar así para esta imagen "comparativa"...
Patricia: Your brother, in addition to collaborating with you, also worked with some of the great artists of the genre. I imagine you must have met some of them, who represented that golden age of our comics.
Nelly: Of course, I did. Alberto Breccia, the artist who drew that other version of The Eternaut (the 1969 version), Solano López, who did a lot of his drawings at our house in Belgrano. Our home was practically a publishing house, but I didn't talk much with them. In the 1970s, I moved to Bariloche and they would send me the books by mail. All this was before Videla's coup.
Patricia: your moving to Bariloche spared you from a lot of bad things.
Nelly: Yes, I was spared, but without even realizing it. I originally came here because I´d been hired for a very project: making maps for schools. It was like another world; the military coup hadn't happened yet. Tito was in another world too. But he participated in reality because he wanted to, committed to an ideology against the dictatorship, and not only against the military one but against previous ones as well. Look, Tito was anti-Peronist to the core; so much so that during student demonstrations, they would chase him away with gunshots.
Patricia: Being as close as you two were, did you accompany him to political demonstrations?
Nelly: No, I couldn't, even if I wanted to, because when I was very young, I suffered from sudden fainting spells, which were a kind of brief blackout. This went on for quite some time, until a treatment cured me. But until then, sometimes I couldn't travel or even walk a short distance on the sidewalk. This, along with other circumstances, unintentionally saved my life. In addition to the map work, I crafted about three hundred figurines that the Sigmar publishing house really liked, so they gave me a trip to Bariloche as a prize, and I was fascinated by the place. I had arrived by train, and the curves the train made before arriving were like a turning point in my destiny. I decided to stay. Perhaps that fascination came from my German paternal ancestry, the love of the mountains, whereas my mother was criolla (Argentine) mixed with Basque: Pujol or Puyol.
Patricia: did your family and other siblings remain in Buenos Aires while you lived in Bariloche?
Nelly: Yes, and let me clarify something else: when Tito started working for several publishers, we were already living in different parts of Buenos Aires. So when I left for Bariloche, we were all scattered around already: Tito lived Becar and I lived in Belgrano, and we didn't see each other as much as we used to anymore. I'm talking about the 1950s; you can imagine what it was like later.
Nelly: Of course, I did. Alberto Breccia, the artist who drew that other version of The Eternaut (the 1969 version), Solano López, who did a lot of his drawings at our house in Belgrano. Our home was practically a publishing house, but I didn't talk much with them. In the 1970s, I moved to Bariloche and they would send me the books by mail. All this was before Videla's coup.
Patricia: your moving to Bariloche spared you from a lot of bad things.
Nelly: Yes, I was spared, but without even realizing it. I originally came here because I´d been hired for a very project: making maps for schools. It was like another world; the military coup hadn't happened yet. Tito was in another world too. But he participated in reality because he wanted to, committed to an ideology against the dictatorship, and not only against the military one but against previous ones as well. Look, Tito was anti-Peronist to the core; so much so that during student demonstrations, they would chase him away with gunshots.
Patricia: Being as close as you two were, did you accompany him to political demonstrations?
Nelly: No, I couldn't, even if I wanted to, because when I was very young, I suffered from sudden fainting spells, which were a kind of brief blackout. This went on for quite some time, until a treatment cured me. But until then, sometimes I couldn't travel or even walk a short distance on the sidewalk. This, along with other circumstances, unintentionally saved my life. In addition to the map work, I crafted about three hundred figurines that the Sigmar publishing house really liked, so they gave me a trip to Bariloche as a prize, and I was fascinated by the place. I had arrived by train, and the curves the train made before arriving were like a turning point in my destiny. I decided to stay. Perhaps that fascination came from my German paternal ancestry, the love of the mountains, whereas my mother was criolla (Argentine) mixed with Basque: Pujol or Puyol.
Patricia: did your family and other siblings remain in Buenos Aires while you lived in Bariloche?
Nelly: Yes, and let me clarify something else: when Tito started working for several publishers, we were already living in different parts of Buenos Aires. So when I left for Bariloche, we were all scattered around already: Tito lived Becar and I lived in Belgrano, and we didn't see each other as much as we used to anymore. I'm talking about the 1950s; you can imagine what it was like later.
Let me tell you something I just remembered, which has to do with my drawings and my brother’s exacting nature, which ended up helping me make a living doing work that I loved for over thirty years. I had a bit of a tendency toward comfort: if I thought that a drawing or a character I had just sketched came out (in my view) right from the start, I’d just leave it like that and be done. But Tito would say to me, “Don’t be lazy, keep at it, do it over and over again. Look, to prove my point: think of a rabbit wearing a tie and figure out how to draw it.” He would give me a description and tell me to draw it—and then draw it again next to it, and then another, and yet antoher as many as I could. At first, I would fill out one page. Did you ever use those “Colossus” paper pads? They were huge. And I would draw that rabbit, tiem and again —until I had filled the whole pad! And it turned out that my brother was right: the last rabbit was perfect. Héctor didn’t draw, but he had a great critical eye, thanks to his background in the sciences.
Patricia: Geology, right?
Patricia: Geology, right?
Nelly: Yes, but he didn’t practice for long. Let me tell you how my brother’s career unfolded: he was working at a place where they analyzed both gold and silver metals and precious stones. But what he would actually receive to examine were nearly finished gold pieces mounted on cones, to determine the gold’s carat content. His coworker was a young man, the son of the director of La Prensa newspaper, a guy whose last name was Gollán. Héctor used to tell him that, just to keep himself from getting bored, he would sometimes write little stories for children. One day, he gave a few to Gollán, and without Tito knowing, Gollán took them to his father, the director of La Prensa. It turned out the stories were so well written that the director told his son to inform Héctor they would publish them in the paper’s literary section—under his own name. When my brother found out, he was thrilled, of course. But then, the head of the Geology Bank gave him an ultimatum: either stay and work there, or write—because, in his view, writing wasn’t compatible with the profession of a geologist; it undermined its seriousness. Tito didn’t hesitate, and that was the true beginning of his career as a writer and scriptwriter. Later, along with my other brother Jorge, he founded the publishing house Editorial Frontera and the weekly magazine Hora Cero Semanal. While at home in Belgrano, he was writing and creating The Eternaut with Solano.
Patricia: Was this the same house where The Eternaut takes place?
Nelly: No, the Eternaut’s house was inspired on Tito’s family home in Beccar: a beautiful, large chalet.
Patricia: Did your brother ever tell you how the idea for The Eternaut came about?
Nelly: I can tell you how the main character was born. At that time, the American actor Burt Lancaster was at the height of his fame. Tito told a cartoonist to give Bull Rocket that face—but with an intelligent look (she aughs). And of course, the other names in The Eternaut are taken from Tito’s college friends—like Favalli, Juan Salvo, and many others.
Patricia: In Buenos Aires, for the 50th anniversary of The Eternaut’s publication, there were celebrations, exhibitions, and gatherings of comic artists. Were you ever asked to be interviewed about your brother for the occasion?
Nelly: No, and honestly, I didn’t do much to let people know where I lived—or even that I was alive (laughs). That habit of remining anonymous stayed with me from the time when I lived in Bariloche. My last name wasn’t common, and since my brother was politically active, I can tell you there were several attempts to trick me into revealing something, to make me slip up so they could locate him. But they never got anything out of me. Once, while I was busy at work, a young man came in, very rushed, barely introduced himself, and told me he had some drawings and wanted to know how to reach my brother Tito so that he could show them to him. I told him I hadn’t heard from him in ages and suggested he go to the publishing house to ask. But he kept insisting—until in the end, he left. Several situations like that happened. So I ended up keeping my distance from the comic book world, especially in Buenos Aires. That’s the reason for my anonymity. Also, I recently found out that I appear online listed as an illustrator—but with no further information. Also - did you know? There’s also a publishing house named Oesterheld.
Patricia: Thoughout your life you worked as a professional illustrator, with additional die-cutting skills. Would you say you were financially independent?
Nelly: Yes, I can say I always made a living from my work—and that I enjoyed it thoroughly. I did what I loved doing and got paid for it. And all thanks to those fainting spells I told you about earlier. Because that illness forced me to stay at home—I couldn’t take a job. So I’d get bored and start drawing. Now I can´t draw anymore... I have arthritis. But I do get invited to Children’s Book Fairs to exhibit my work in Trelew.
Patricia: Thank you, Nelly.
Nelly: Thank you for the apple pie! I don’t think it’ll last until tomorrow.
-Patricia Arano
English translation by MH, 2025
Patricia: Was this the same house where The Eternaut takes place?
Nelly: No, the Eternaut’s house was inspired on Tito’s family home in Beccar: a beautiful, large chalet.
Patricia: Did your brother ever tell you how the idea for The Eternaut came about?
Nelly: I can tell you how the main character was born. At that time, the American actor Burt Lancaster was at the height of his fame. Tito told a cartoonist to give Bull Rocket that face—but with an intelligent look (she aughs). And of course, the other names in The Eternaut are taken from Tito’s college friends—like Favalli, Juan Salvo, and many others.
Patricia: In Buenos Aires, for the 50th anniversary of The Eternaut’s publication, there were celebrations, exhibitions, and gatherings of comic artists. Were you ever asked to be interviewed about your brother for the occasion?
Nelly: No, and honestly, I didn’t do much to let people know where I lived—or even that I was alive (laughs). That habit of remining anonymous stayed with me from the time when I lived in Bariloche. My last name wasn’t common, and since my brother was politically active, I can tell you there were several attempts to trick me into revealing something, to make me slip up so they could locate him. But they never got anything out of me. Once, while I was busy at work, a young man came in, very rushed, barely introduced himself, and told me he had some drawings and wanted to know how to reach my brother Tito so that he could show them to him. I told him I hadn’t heard from him in ages and suggested he go to the publishing house to ask. But he kept insisting—until in the end, he left. Several situations like that happened. So I ended up keeping my distance from the comic book world, especially in Buenos Aires. That’s the reason for my anonymity. Also, I recently found out that I appear online listed as an illustrator—but with no further information. Also - did you know? There’s also a publishing house named Oesterheld.
Patricia: Thoughout your life you worked as a professional illustrator, with additional die-cutting skills. Would you say you were financially independent?
Nelly: Yes, I can say I always made a living from my work—and that I enjoyed it thoroughly. I did what I loved doing and got paid for it. And all thanks to those fainting spells I told you about earlier. Because that illness forced me to stay at home—I couldn’t take a job. So I’d get bored and start drawing. Now I can´t draw anymore... I have arthritis. But I do get invited to Children’s Book Fairs to exhibit my work in Trelew.
Patricia: Thank you, Nelly.
Nelly: Thank you for the apple pie! I don’t think it’ll last until tomorrow.
-Patricia Arano
English translation by MH, 2025