An interview with h. g. O.
My 100 characters and me
Héctor Germán Oesterheld,
that most visionary creator of comic worlds
that most visionary creator of comic worlds
The famous Argentine scriptwriter, creator of The Eternaut, Ernie Pike, Sergeant Kirk, and many other well known characters of the genre, is preparing to publish his widely read adventures in book form.
When, back in 1893, illustrator Richard Outcault began drawing adventure sequences that included the words spoken by each character—the now classic speech bubbles—no one realized that this marked the birth of the comic strip, a narrative form that would end up becoming perhaps the most popular of all human creations.
After enjoying sustained success in the most important US newspapers—the strips were born in Joseph Pulitzer's World newspaper and later appeared in William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal—comic strips became a worldwide phenomenon, to the extent that today there is no print media anywhere that does not carry one or more such strips in its pages. Curiously enough, Argentina became one of the world’s leading producers of comic scripts and illustrations, spurred by a publishing industry that grew in the 1940s and reached its heyday in the 1950s.
Precisely, one of the architects of that boom—Héctor Germán Oesterheld (55, four daughters), who was the creator of the most memorable characters in national comics—has just released a written, novelized version of Sergeant Kirk, one of his most significant creations. On the occasion of its hitting the newsstands and bookshelves in Buenos Aires, Siete Días interviewed this tireless scriptwriter last week. Throughout more than thirty years of work, he has created more than a hundred characters who starred in around ten thousand scripts, in which, HGO boasts, smiling, “I must have killed no less than a hundred thousand guys.”
With a degree in Natural Sciences—specializing in Geology, he only needs to submit his thesis to earn his doctorate—Oesterheld worked at the National Directorate of Mines, YPF, and the mining laboratory of the Banco de Crédito Industrial until he cast his profession as a geologist aside to immerrse himself fully in scriptwriing in the early 1950s.
A tireless traveler who worked in geological prospection throughout the country, he credits his literary debut to a short story published in the newspaper La Prensa back in 1938. Having long forgotten about that initial literary achievement, three years later he received a call from a friend, Carlos Hirsch, who asked him to write the text for some illustrations about marine life, which were to be submitted to the recently created Editorial Abril publishing house.
“The experience was disastrous,” recalls Oesterheld. “They rejected my work outright. But ten days later they called me back because they had reread it text and found it original.”
From then until 1949, he worked as an editor of popular science books for chilñdren. “One day they asked me if I would like to write scripts for comic strips,” recalls HGO, “something I didn’t even have a notion of. I had always been an avid reader, and I think I’ve read every adventure book in the world, but I had always disliked the illustrations. Still, I gave it a try and came up with a detective story set in Egypt, with a character named Craizy. They liked it enough that I became a scriptwriter for that unforgettable magazine called Misterix.”
Craizy was followed by several other characters who together would go on to defined what would eventually become Oesterheld's trademark: : the warmth, authenticity, and humanity of his creations. This led to Ray Kitt, a police officer, and Lord Comando, the first war comic created in Argentina. At the time, Misterix magazine was trying to establish itself with abundant material from Italy.
“Their success,” said HGO, “allowed us to import talents such as scriptwriter Alberto Ongaro and illustrators of the stature of Hugo Pratt and Ivo Pavone. A group of guys in their early 20s who formed an exceptional team. In fact, Pratt drew Ray Kitt for me, and this collaboration immediately led to the birth of Bull Rockett, my first major character.”
When, back in 1893, illustrator Richard Outcault began drawing adventure sequences that included the words spoken by each character—the now classic speech bubbles—no one realized that this marked the birth of the comic strip, a narrative form that would end up becoming perhaps the most popular of all human creations.
After enjoying sustained success in the most important US newspapers—the strips were born in Joseph Pulitzer's World newspaper and later appeared in William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal—comic strips became a worldwide phenomenon, to the extent that today there is no print media anywhere that does not carry one or more such strips in its pages. Curiously enough, Argentina became one of the world’s leading producers of comic scripts and illustrations, spurred by a publishing industry that grew in the 1940s and reached its heyday in the 1950s.
Precisely, one of the architects of that boom—Héctor Germán Oesterheld (55, four daughters), who was the creator of the most memorable characters in national comics—has just released a written, novelized version of Sergeant Kirk, one of his most significant creations. On the occasion of its hitting the newsstands and bookshelves in Buenos Aires, Siete Días interviewed this tireless scriptwriter last week. Throughout more than thirty years of work, he has created more than a hundred characters who starred in around ten thousand scripts, in which, HGO boasts, smiling, “I must have killed no less than a hundred thousand guys.”
With a degree in Natural Sciences—specializing in Geology, he only needs to submit his thesis to earn his doctorate—Oesterheld worked at the National Directorate of Mines, YPF, and the mining laboratory of the Banco de Crédito Industrial until he cast his profession as a geologist aside to immerrse himself fully in scriptwriing in the early 1950s.
A tireless traveler who worked in geological prospection throughout the country, he credits his literary debut to a short story published in the newspaper La Prensa back in 1938. Having long forgotten about that initial literary achievement, three years later he received a call from a friend, Carlos Hirsch, who asked him to write the text for some illustrations about marine life, which were to be submitted to the recently created Editorial Abril publishing house.
“The experience was disastrous,” recalls Oesterheld. “They rejected my work outright. But ten days later they called me back because they had reread it text and found it original.”
From then until 1949, he worked as an editor of popular science books for chilñdren. “One day they asked me if I would like to write scripts for comic strips,” recalls HGO, “something I didn’t even have a notion of. I had always been an avid reader, and I think I’ve read every adventure book in the world, but I had always disliked the illustrations. Still, I gave it a try and came up with a detective story set in Egypt, with a character named Craizy. They liked it enough that I became a scriptwriter for that unforgettable magazine called Misterix.”
Craizy was followed by several other characters who together would go on to defined what would eventually become Oesterheld's trademark: : the warmth, authenticity, and humanity of his creations. This led to Ray Kitt, a police officer, and Lord Comando, the first war comic created in Argentina. At the time, Misterix magazine was trying to establish itself with abundant material from Italy.
“Their success,” said HGO, “allowed us to import talents such as scriptwriter Alberto Ongaro and illustrators of the stature of Hugo Pratt and Ivo Pavone. A group of guys in their early 20s who formed an exceptional team. In fact, Pratt drew Ray Kitt for me, and this collaboration immediately led to the birth of Bull Rockett, my first major character.”
How did Bull Rocket come about?
My publishers asked me to write a script featuring a heroic test pilot. But I didn’t like the idea, so I came up with a more scientifically-minded character, someone who knew a little about everything and could also throw a punch when needed. Of course, they rejected it and chastised me for not having followed their instructions to the letter. And that was the end of it—until the following month, when César Civita, the owner and editor-in-chief, burst into the office, shouting that it was the best script he had ever read. He immediately had it translated into Italian and sent to Italy to be illustrated by Campani. It became my first big success, which lasted for about five years.
And what about Sergeant Kirk?
We were thinking of creating a comic strip with a cowboy as the main character for Pratt to draw, as he was becoming increasingly famous. Initially, I thought of writing the adventures of an Argentine sergeant on our frontiers, but this wasn’t deemed commercially feasible. So, I decided to set the story in the American West instead. I invented this renegade who, after having participated in raids against the natives, changes his mind and befriends them. The tragedy of Wounded Knee played a significant role, helping me portray the psychology of the natives across all three Americas (North, Central, and South America). The main idea was to create an atypical character—it was about telling a human story and avoiding the typical superhero mold.
-Did you have to study American history, for example?
-Not necessarily. I had done my research, as I’ve done all my life, in order to create each character. But I did learn some interesting things, like the fact that the mustang (wild horse) is nothing more than our pingo criollo, descended from the Spanish mostrenco. I also learned that the word sheriff has its roots in jerife, which means “local chief” in Arabic. It probably made its way to the United States via the Spanish in Mexico or the Florida peninsula.
What happened after Rockett and Kirk appeared?
-Almost at the same time as Kirk, I created Indio Suárez, a retired boxing coach. The surname was a tribute to the great Argentine boxer Justito. He was drawn by the Spaniard Freixas and published in Rayo Rojo magazine. At the same time, I was working on the children's magazine Gatito, whose characters I also created, including Ogro Rompococo and Pilín, Princess Tilina, and King Panza. These were illustrated short stories for children that were very successful back in 1953. Around that time, I also worked on Donald Duck, doing a serial about Dippy, who today, for some reason, is called Tribilín (Goofy)
-Who did you work with? Always with Italian illustratorss?
Practically all of them drew for me, without exception. But there was a time when I devoted myself to publishing books with prose stories that I had written, based on the strips of Kirk and Bull Rockett. I launched them under Editorial Frontera, with my brother, and we sold between 12,000 and 15,000 copies of each title. When I left Editorial Abril, I started publishing my own magazines: that's how Frontera and Hora Cero were born, two publications that made history in the world of comics. My brother, under the pseudonym Jorge Mora, and I were the only scriptwriters, and the group of artists was exceptional, the likes of which has never again been assembled: there were Pratt, Arturo del Castillo, Carlos Cruz, Ivo Pavone, Alberto Breccia, Alfredo Moliterni, Carlos Roume, Solano López, Cirilo Muñoz, Emilio Zoppi, Carlos Vogt, Ernesto García, and the young Leopoldo Durañona. We sold 90,000 copies and an impressive batch of stories and characters was born. In 1961, we went bankrupt.
-Was that the era of Ernie Pike, your other acclaimed comic strip?
Not just Ernie Pike, which was, admittedly, one of the most important. During those years (1956-1961), Ticonderoga also emerged, where Pratt showcased his soft watercolors; Randall, drawn by Arturo del Castillo, which was translated into English and published in England under the name Ringo. And note that in an interview, Beatle Ringo Starr acknowledged that he adopted that nickname because of his fanatical admiration for my character, not because of the story they made up about the rings he wore. Also from that period is Sherlock Time, a science fiction story set in a villa in San Isidro and drawn by Breccia; Patria Vieja also emerged during this time, a series of episodes of Argentine history illustrated by Roume. Finally, during that period, I created my greatest story: El Eternauta.
-Is it true that Ernie Pike´s features are based on yours? He does resemble you. .
-His features are indeed based on mine. But the character was inspired by an American war correspondent named Ernie Pyle, surely the greatest journalist who lived through World War II. He was known for telling small, secondary stories that were profoundly human, rather than chronicling the great battles. Because of this, his stories were always rejected by Time and Life. His life was a tragedy, and he was finally killed by a sniper on Iwo Jima in 1944. Well, I took him up as a character and started making up stories that he supposedly reported on. As for his face being based on mine, it was a joke by Pratt: when I sent him the first script for the character, I told him to draw him with a fun, noble, and good-natured demeanor. As a lighthearted remark, I ended the note by stating, "Well, you know — like me!" and Pratt played along and ended up drawing him exactly like me.
-What was the reason for its success?
Very simple – it was the first time ever that Americans weren’t universally portrayed as the good guys and the Germans as the altogether bad guys. There were heroes on both sides, even among the Japanese. The only villain in my stories is war itself.
-You just said that El Eternauta was your greatest work. Why?
Because I believe – even if I’m being immodest by saying it – that it was the best story ever written within Argentine science fiction. It’s a story that hasn’t aged; on the contrary, it’s still relevant. I had previously worked on that extraordinary science fiction magazine called Más Allá, published by Editorial Abril. Since then, I had been thinking about writing about a group of friends who are playing cards while the whole city dies around them, killed off by deadly snowflakes. The idea was to write a quick, short story, but it was so successful that it became a weekly serial that lasted two years. It was illustrated by Solano López, who excelled in bringing it to life over more than 350 pages of 12 panels each, creating a comic strip that resonated deeply with the public.
-Have you ever won an award for your work?
No, I haven’t. But may of the illustrators of have drawn my scripts have. That’s life, and I’m not complaining.
Source: Siete Días magazine Nº 381, September 23rd 1974