The scriptwriter and
his stories
his stories
Oesterheld on adventure narratives and literary tradition
Héctor Germán Oesterheld, referente
indiscutible de la historieta argentina
Héctor Oesterheld (51, father of four daughters) is—beyond any dispute—Argentina's most important comic book writer. Although he created countless characters, it would be enough to name just three—The Eternaut, Vito Nervio, and Sergeant Kirk—to define his stature. At the request of Siete Días, he spoke about the relationship between an author and their comic strips, a subject he obviously understands in depth through his own experience:
"I believe that, deep down, all the characters that can be created already exist in the author's imagination. I remember that with El Eternauta, for example, I went through a process of projection so intense that, serveral years later, some believed they could see traces of my own personality in the story's hero—an ordinary family man who resists an extraterrestrial invasion. Even many of my own emotions—about family, friendship, and the people around me—can become the secret, invisible, and unknown characters of my comics."
"I believe that, deep down, all the characters that can be created already exist in the author's imagination. I remember that with El Eternauta, for example, I went through a process of projection so intense that, serveral years later, some believed they could see traces of my own personality in the story's hero—an ordinary family man who resists an extraterrestrial invasion. Even many of my own emotions—about family, friendship, and the people around me—can become the secret, invisible, and unknown characters of my comics."
“As a boy, I never read comic books. Even as an adult, I read very few comic books, so I am by no means an expert. I do remember El Hijo Adoptivo, a story with very simple illustrations that appeared in Billiken magazine. It featured some touches of modernity, such as an amphibious vehicle, which was quite a novelty at the time."
"My characters were always true to themselves and never behaved in a Manichean way. Some of them, like Sergeant Kirk—a former U.S. cavalry sergeant who has left the Army after realizing that the Natives he was supposed to hunt down were human beings just like himself—even reflected the fondness I always felt for indigenous peoples. This character—born around 1951, died in 1956, and resurrected in Italy a few years ago (though I think he is finally dead)—was joined by a Native, a doctor, and a corporal, and their small group brought to life a small world of friendship, a kind of comedy of life that made it easy for readers to enter. And there was a secret to it: Sergeant Kirk and his companions would often falter; they were never perfect.”
“In addition to seeking points of interest for readers between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, I have always tried to convey an underlying message, even when the events unfolding in my country and around world did not directly influence my characters. This was partly because the process itself was not entirely clear to me at the time, but it also had a lot to do with my own process of maturation and professional bias. Undoubtedly, I did not interpret social phenomena back then as clearly as I do now.”
“The absence of local comic strips featuring national heroes and protagonists is due to the fact that printing imported comics is cheaper than having a local one made, and besides, imported comic strips are ready-made: you only have to translate them. The result is that a character coming from abroad creates a sense of alienation from our own reality in the reader. One can observe this distortion when, by reading classic comic strips, an Argentine child ends up learning more about the American Civil War than about the civil wars in their own country. In this sense, there is much to be said about Argentine comics. The comic strip hero Fabián Leyes, for example, is valuable for the atmosphere it conveys, for its respect for our own traditions, but as a character, he is not worth much, because he always remains in the realm of the trivial; his story has the same lack of depth as cheap radio dramas..”
“As far as Mafalda is concerned, if she were one of my characters, I would try to give her more love; she is a character lacks affection. I cannot understand how, being so intelligent, she has not yet found tenderness, poetry. In spite of this however, I consider Mafalda to be one of the best Argentine comic strips. And this leads me back to the shortcomings of Argentine comics: the fundamental issue is that the heroes they feature have nothing to do with our reality. The reasons for this mismatch are the same that explain the fact that we lack a literary tradition of writing adventures that reflect our own identity. Perhaps it all comes down to the fact that we do not see ourselves as worthy of being protagonists.”
From: "Historietas: el quinto poder". Revista Siete Días, nro. 204, 12 de abril de 1971.
"My characters were always true to themselves and never behaved in a Manichean way. Some of them, like Sergeant Kirk—a former U.S. cavalry sergeant who has left the Army after realizing that the Natives he was supposed to hunt down were human beings just like himself—even reflected the fondness I always felt for indigenous peoples. This character—born around 1951, died in 1956, and resurrected in Italy a few years ago (though I think he is finally dead)—was joined by a Native, a doctor, and a corporal, and their small group brought to life a small world of friendship, a kind of comedy of life that made it easy for readers to enter. And there was a secret to it: Sergeant Kirk and his companions would often falter; they were never perfect.”
“In addition to seeking points of interest for readers between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, I have always tried to convey an underlying message, even when the events unfolding in my country and around world did not directly influence my characters. This was partly because the process itself was not entirely clear to me at the time, but it also had a lot to do with my own process of maturation and professional bias. Undoubtedly, I did not interpret social phenomena back then as clearly as I do now.”
“The absence of local comic strips featuring national heroes and protagonists is due to the fact that printing imported comics is cheaper than having a local one made, and besides, imported comic strips are ready-made: you only have to translate them. The result is that a character coming from abroad creates a sense of alienation from our own reality in the reader. One can observe this distortion when, by reading classic comic strips, an Argentine child ends up learning more about the American Civil War than about the civil wars in their own country. In this sense, there is much to be said about Argentine comics. The comic strip hero Fabián Leyes, for example, is valuable for the atmosphere it conveys, for its respect for our own traditions, but as a character, he is not worth much, because he always remains in the realm of the trivial; his story has the same lack of depth as cheap radio dramas..”
“As far as Mafalda is concerned, if she were one of my characters, I would try to give her more love; she is a character lacks affection. I cannot understand how, being so intelligent, she has not yet found tenderness, poetry. In spite of this however, I consider Mafalda to be one of the best Argentine comic strips. And this leads me back to the shortcomings of Argentine comics: the fundamental issue is that the heroes they feature have nothing to do with our reality. The reasons for this mismatch are the same that explain the fact that we lack a literary tradition of writing adventures that reflect our own identity. Perhaps it all comes down to the fact that we do not see ourselves as worthy of being protagonists.”
From: "Historietas: el quinto poder". Revista Siete Días, nro. 204, 12 de abril de 1971.