Under the Shadow of the Dictatorship: Comics and Culture During …camouflagecomics.com/pdf/08_torres_en.pdf · Under the Shadow of the Dictatorship: Comics and Culture During the

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Ernesto Torres

Translation by Giulia Luisetti

Under the Shadow of the Dictatorship: Comics and Culture During the Process of National Re-organization

Introduction1

In 1976, the military took power. The dictatorship’s rule would prove a turning point in Argentine history. However, military

coups were old news. Since 1930 Argentina had undergone five interruptions of democracy by military takeovers. However,

the genocide carried out during the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional (Process of National Reorganization) was unprec-

edented. The actions undertaken by the governing military junta severely altered Argentina’s economic, political, and social

structures. All this was reflected in different fields: culture, education, communication and science. Also, the county suffered

from economic concentration and denationalization of companies as well as exile and “disappearances.”

Argentinean comics were not oblivious to the times. In their works, some artists tried to convey signs, for the readers to

find, of the overwhelming experience of violence enveloping society, concealed by the regime and the media and unknown to

the majority of the population. However, owing to the control the government exerted over culture as well as the way com-

ics were produced in Argentine publishing companies, it only occurred partially and limitedly. It was at that very moment,

though, that the renewal of Argentine comics had taken off. This would be continued in the magazine Fierro after the restora-

tion of democracy.

The Process of National Reorganization

In a coup on March 24, 1976, the Argentine armed forces seized power and overthrew constitutional president María Estela

Martínez de Perón. The military junta that took charge of the dictatorship consisted of the commanders of each military

branch: Jorge Rafael Videla of the army, Eduardo Emilio Massera of the navy and Orlando Ramón Agosti of the air force.

This same junta appointed General Videla as new president and distributed the effective control of the state among the three

forces. Two codes were issued which would govern the so-called Process of National Reorganization: a statute and a body of

“Basic Objectives.” These documents had precedence over the national constitution and suppressed human and civil rights.

According to the act of the Process of National Reorganization, its main goal was

to restore the essential values that function as the foundations for the whole leadership of the State, with

emphasis on a sense of morality, propriety and efficiency, essential for rebuilding the national image and sub-

stance, eradicating subversion and promoting the economic development of the nation based on the balance

and responsible participation of the different sectors in order to guarantee the subsequent establishment of a

republican, representative and federal democracy, adequate to the reality and the demands for solutions and

progress of the Argentine people.

Ernesto Torres Under the Shadow of the Dictatorship www.camouflagecomics.com

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Some of the Basic Objectives emphasize “the validity of Christian moral values, national tradition and the honor of being an

Argentinean,” the “validity of national security, eradicating subversion together with the causes favorable to its existence,” the

“full validity of social and juridical order,” the “harmonic bond between State, capital and labor, with a stronger development

of corporation and union structures, complying with their specific ends,” the “constitution of a new educational system that

corresponds to the needs of the country, that truly serves the objectives of the Nation and consolidates the values and cultural

aspirations of being Argentine” and the “international position in the Western and Christian world, preserving the right to

self-determination and ensuring the reinforcement of the presence of Argentina in the concert of nations.”

Argentina underwent six military coups in the period spanning from 1930 to 1983; namely in 1930, 1943, 1955, 1962, 1966

and 1976. The coups led to significant changes of economic and social policies and attempted to condition the institutional

future of the republic. The 1976 coup intensified these trends by trying to make even deeper changes regarding the economic,

social, political and cultural areas, a genuine “national reorganization.” There are some analysts that characterize this regime

as “autoritario refundacional” (re-founding authoritarian) owing to its aim of transforming Argentinean society as a whole

and imposing an orthodox liberal social and economic order which would wipe out every trace of the populist policies of

Peronism (Cavarozzi 1989: 249). José Martínez de Hoz was appointed Minister of Economy and on 2 April announced his

program for controlling inflation, curbing speculation and encouraging international investment. Martínez de Hoz’s admin-

istration profoundly altered the economic reality of the country, laying the foundations for neoliberalism, made possible

through state terrorism. During this period, corporate, foreign, public and private debt rose rampantly. Later, the dictatorship

nationalized private debt. Subsequent democratic governments have never amended the measure.

The military junta regarded the “eradication of subversion” as one of their main objectives. “Subversion” was the way right-

wing sectors used to call the armed revolutionary forces operating in Argentina since the end of the 1960s and during the

1970s. The two most important groups were the Montoneros, of left wing Peronist extraction and the Ejército Revolucionario

del Pueblo (ERP) (People’s Revolutionary Army), of the Revolutionary Left. At the beginning of 1976, the ERP was already

completely dismantled and the Montoneros had just a few months of active resistance left in them. This was also reported

in official documents of the armed forces and it was later confirmed by the leadership of both organizations. Although the

military government was well aware of the situation, it still pursued its plans of state terror intending to destroy every form

of popular political involvement. The regime unleashed implacable repression to any political, social or union actors, aiming

to subjugate the population in order to instill terror and then impose “the order,” ruling out dissent. Those responsible for the

Process of National Reorganization condensed all kinds of violations to human rights by implementing the policy of mak-

ing people “disappear,” the most consummate and cruel means of the Doctrine of National Security. This strategy involved

arbitrary detention, torture, ill-treatment, isolation, tearing people from their loved ones and from society at large, terror,

extrajudicial execution. This broke the population both spiritually and morally, especially the families affected by repression

(cf. Asamblea Permanente por los Derechos Humanos 1987).

Culture During the Dictatorship

In the Basic Objectives, the junta stresses the “validity of Christian moral values, national tradition and the honour of being

an Argentine” as well as the “constitution of a new educational system that meets the needs of the country, that truly serves

the objectives of the Nation and consolidates the values and cultural aspirations of being an Argentine.” All this in order to

eradicate “subversion,” together with “the causes that favour its existence.” These guidelines were the foundations of the strat-

egy the dictatorship adopted on culture, communication and education.

For years, the most progressive sectors of the Argentine cultural elite could not believe that the military had employed

a strategy towards culture. The aspect they highlighted was the blatant arbitrary irrationality of cases of censorship. For


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instance, books were censored because of their title, as with La cuba electrolítica (“The Electrolyte Cell”) which was deemed

pro-Cuban, or the ban by the military leadership of the province of Córdoba on math schoolbooks on vectors (Jacovkis 2002).

Another argument put forward was that some artists disappeared because they militated or because they were members of

guerrilla or left-wing organizations rather than because they were artists. Writer Noé Jitrik, while living in exile in Mexico,

asked himself the same question in Las Armas y la Razón, where he depicts the tragedy of Argentinean artists like Rodolfo

Walsh, Haroldo Conti, Francisco Urondo, Antonio Di Benedetto, Raymundo Gleyzer and David Viñas among many others,

and describes the abduction and disappearance of some of them and the exile of others. In this work he reflects that “in the

first place, perhaps these writers were not murdered or exiled for being writers, I agree. That may be the case.” But then he

turns his attention from individual cases to the possibility of a more global strategy regarding culture, observing that

there is something in literature that needs to be repressed and destroyed, subdued and calmed. The forces in

power that understand and sense this secret, have two ways of dealing with it: by removing books and/or by

removing writers which need not be the authors of those books (Jitrik 1977).

The military junta had an overarching strategy to rebuild the nation. Intervening in culture and education was part of that

plan. The “secret” Jitrik mentions was, according to the military, clearly defined. Cultural foes were labelled “Marxists” and

“subversives,” and “eradication” was the concrete action to be taken against them. In accordance with their objectives, the

military junta developed notions and cultural strategies recorded in intelligence documents and in public statements. After

a long period of time, records apparently found by chance proved that the dictatorship did indeed have such a strategy. In

March 2002, a clerk of the Ministry of the Interior found a great amount of papers piled up inside the former Banco Nacional

de Desarrollo (Banade) (National Development Bank), whose buildings had been loaned to the Ministry of the Interior dur-

ing the 1990s. Those papers turned out to be a hodgepodge of intelligence memoranda, reports, folders and drafts, and were

labelled “secret,” “destroy after reading,” “strictly confidential and secret” and “classified.” Most date back to the time of the

dictatorship. These official documents had been saved from the shredders even after the dictatorship’s last president, General

Bignone, had ordered the destruction of every document dealing with clandestine repression. The members of the Adjuntía

en Derechos Humanos (Human Rights Area) of the Defensoría del Pueblo de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires Ombuds-

man Office) sifted through the documents and found solid evidence of the existence of a national strategy of the military

government concerning culture and education. Some of these documents have been published for the first time in 2002 as

part of a research project carried out by Hernán Invernizzi and Judith Gociol under the title Un Golpe a los Libros (“A coup

on books”).

However, there had been clear clues on the existence of such a strategy before this discovery. The most conclusive were

the statements of the members of the military government themselves. On July, 1978, Chief of Staff of the Army, General

Suárez Mason, announced that “it would be absurd to think that we have won the war against subversion just because we

have eliminated its armed face.” A few days later, the Minster of Education, Juan Llerena Amadeo, reinforced this idea by say-

ing that “ideologies should be fought with ideologies and we have our own.” In October 1978, at the University of Belgrano,

commander in chief of the army, General Roberto Viola, maintained that “the final objective of the operations being carried

out is the human mind, the inner system of convictions of each human being.” The junta had declared a “war” and that “war”

was also a cultural “war.”


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The Cultural Strategy

Special report n°10 is one of the most relevant documents of the so-called “Banade files” regarding cultural strategies. It was

prepared in October 1977 by the General Staff of the Army, its third division Operations Headquarters, Sub-headquarters “B.”

Special report n°10 is a ten foolscap page document examining various aspects of the problem of culture. Part of it consists

in defining the concept of “culture”; several attempts are undertaken. The document discusses which elements or values are

characteristic of “Argentine culture,” its role in national life and how it is jeopardized by “subversion,” the threat the junta has

to face. From that point onwards, the report elucidates the model of a strategy to deal with the problem. There is an account

of the instances capable of carrying out these strategies as well as the legal situation and possible national and international

repercussions of limiting freedom of speech.

Our country possesses a culture of its own, born out of the legacy inherited from Hispanic Ameri-

ca which has matured ever since our emancipation and which is still growing so as to shape its own dis-

tinct features into becoming a national culture. Its highest spiritual values and mainstays of its valid-

ity are under attack by subversion intent on corrupting and replacing these values by something borrowed.

Sex, violence, drug addiction, unquenchable thirst for profit or power and incoherent liberalism, among other

ills of our times, provoke cultural apathy and effect culture’s subsequent decline. Having achieved the progres-

sive regression and loss of national culture, acculturation would become possible, the transfer of culture they

want to impose. This is the problem, and a solution must be found.

The strategy in special report n°10 suggests that the cultural policies of the regime should be jointly devised by the Ministry

of Planning and the Ministry of Culture and Education. Once the strategy is in place, a structure should be set up in which

“horizontally coordinated, the Ministry of Culture and Education would lead the whole cultural process of the nation and the

Ministry of the Interior any issue concerning MCS (media of social communication), ranging from its creative direction to

restrictive sanctions.” This was eventually put into practice. In reality however, of the two ministries in charge of implement-

ing the strategy it was the Ministry of the Interior that assumed the main role. General Harguindeguy led this Ministry for

five years, and he also temporarily held the office of Minister of Culture and Education.

The department of the Ministry of the Interior charged with cultural surveillance was the Dirección General de Publica-

ciones (General Office of Publications) (DGP), which centralized – on a national scale – the control over all printed publica-

tions, except dailies. The Ministry of the Interior was also in charge of supervising other cultural activities, such as theatre for

instance. When the DGP needed advice, it had at its disposal the numerous departments of the Ministry: Dirección General

de Asuntos Jurídicos (General Office of Judicial Affairs), Subsecretaría del Interior (Undersecretary of Interior), and the de-

partments that reported to the latter: Departamento de Inteligencia (Intelligence Department), Dirección General de Seguridad

Interior (General Office of Homeland Security) and the Dirección General de Asuntos Policiales e Informaciones (Police Affairs

and General Office of Information). These departments provided the DGP with reports about authors, no matter whether

these authors were Argentine or just based in Argentina. They also prepared reports on organizations, institutions, companies

and other entities, either for the DGP or following their own initiative. When it was necessary, Federal Police would be asked

for advice and ordered to investigate individuals and organizations. The DGP was also able to count on the cooperation of

the intelligence services of the three branches of the military as well as the SIDE (Servicio de Inteligencia del Estado or State

Intelligence Services), which provided the DGP with reports, condemnations, guidelines, advice and recommendations of

all kinds. The DGP was also in touch with the Executive Power and provincial police so as to request information or declare

publication bans. As stated by Invernizzi and Gociol (2002: 55),


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in order to try and imagine the extent of state machinery devoted to these issues, it may suffice to mention

that regarding print media, military intelligence services produced daily reports assessing the ‘behavior of the

media of social communication’. There were weekly and monthly summaries of these reports. A staff structure

equivalent to a newspaper editorial team was needed to produce them. Added to this, there were organized

teams that monitored radio and TV programmes, the Ente de Calificación Cinematográfica (Film rating body),

the Comisiones de Calificación de Espectáculos e Impresos (Amusement and Print Rating Committees), com-

mittees monitoring school books, different types of investigative teams, dedicated intelligence parties, special-

ized departments of Federal and provincial police and many more.

The main task of this huge state structure was to fight the cultural enemy, identified either as “Marxist” or “subversive.” To

define something as “Marxist,” intelligence services would single out the names of Marxist authors, Marxist concepts such as

“class struggle” or “dialectic materialism,” or ideas that in their opinion referred to those concepts, for instance in a history

book emphasizing class conflict, although without making these terms explicit. On the other hand, to define something as

“subversive,” categories were broader, such as “abortion,” “sexual freedom,” the questioning of “family values,” in short, the

ideas that presumably questioned the Western and Christian way of life.

The intelligence services’ job was to identify this cultural enemy correctly, in order to be able to take action afterwards. If

the enemies were books, films or magazines, as a general rule they tended to carry out the repressive action by public regula-

tions such as executive decrees or ministerial resolutions. In case of artists or editors, the general tendency was to declare them

illegal through blacklisting or by giving them an oral warning. There were also cases of works and authors which were “acquit-

ted,” that is to say, they were considered “non-Marxist” or not contrary to the “National and Constitutional principles”.

The documents of the Banade files prove that the range of material examined by the intelligence services knew no bounds.

From geography atlases to works that had never been translated into Spanish, from calendars to leaflets published by the

dictatorship itself and books of poems, news programmes, photographs, shows, radio programmes, etc. - in short, all media

and forms of cultural expression.

Comics: a Note in the Margin of Society

The Argentine publishing industry was hit hard by the impact of the military dictatorship and has never recovered. The coun-

try experienced two publishing peaks. During the forties and fifties Argentine books and publications were export goods.

1953 was an absolute peak year: a total volume of 51 millions copies were available and the average print run was 11,000. The

second period of growth was between 1962 and the early seventies. This was the so-called “Argentine book boom,” echoing

throughout Latin America which experienced a similar boom. The last peak of the publishing industry was in 1974 with an

output of 50 million copies. From that moment, sales started dropping: 41 million in 1975; 31 million in 1976; 17 million in

1979 (Getino 1995). The comics market followed to a great extent the ups and downs of the Argentinean publishing field. It

experienced its golden age during the forties and fifties and went through a crisis in the sixties, while it started recovering

during the first half of the seventies.

Since the military junta’s project was informed by the protection of “Western and Christian values” and the education

of future generations, the dictatorship’s efforts were mainly concentrated on expressions usually dubbed “culture,” such as

literature, theatre, mass media and education. Regarding print media, publishing houses and authors of literature and school

textbooks suffered the consequences of the dictatorship’s actions. Bans, censorship, persecution, exile, disappearances and

blacklists with the names of cultural actors and journalists are but bitter testimonies.


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During this period, it looked as if comics were not part of the dictatorship’s preoccupation with culture. Comics were not

considered a cultural form, they were not widely read and they were not judged as a means of education either. However, they

were not completely ignored since, as we have seen, the dictatorship’s intelligence services reviewed and controlled every kind

of cultural expression; their aim was to keep a global control on culture and communication, but they set priorities and com-

ics were not one of them. The peripheral position of comics allowed some authors a wider range of expression than in other

media, although the nature of the publishing projects conditioned works and authors at the same time.

In the Argentine publishing world of the seventies, conditions were not favorable to publishing “auteur comics” containing

political issues or critical references to what was really going on in the country. However, some of the publications did contain

allegories or veiled references to authoritarianism, to neoliberal policies and to disappearances, sometimes going beyond the

author’s intention. Cases are few and not representative of the bulk of comics production at these times. Yet some of these

works can be analyzed as part of a latent tendency: the need of a few authors to include greater testimonial and political ele-

ments in their works, which, coupled with new publishing conditions, would be fully manifested in Fierro magazine, after the

full restoration of democracy.

Comics in Argentina

There are many and deep links between the history of graphic humour (i.e. cartoons) and the history of comics. Although

they belong to different traditions, both histories usually refer to one another, and trends that affect one genre generally influ-

ence the other. There is also a common area where we can find works that are usually classified as gags but that can just as

easily be considered comics because of their sequentiality. The same occurs with authors, publishers and the readership. This

long-standing relation - renewed in the seventies - dates back to the nineteenth century.

The forties and fifties are regarded as the golden age of Argentine comics, a period in which the genre consolidated its

identity. In 1957, two projects that would renew the field of cartoons and comics were published simultaneously. Juan Carlos

Colombres (Landrú) created Tía Vicenta (Aunt Vicenta), a magazine of biting political satire, and Héctor Germán Oesterheld

started publishing Hora Cero (Zero Hour) and Frontera (Borderline). Oesterheld reinvented the adventure genre and the idea

of the hero, endowing him with a more human side. His comics achieved great popularity. However, serious financial dif-

ficulties led to the closure of his publishing company in 1963. Meanwhile, Oesterheld had started to work for the magazines

Misterix and Rayo Rojo (Red Lightning), published by Yago since 1961. In it, together with Moliterni, he created the series

starring young Cheyenne Watami, and with Alberto Breccia he created the extraordinary Mort Cinder that ran from 1962 to

1964. Two weeks after the 1966 coup, dictator and de facto president general Onganía ordered the shutdown of Tía Vicenta,

because it contained a comic comparing him to a walrus with his distinct moustache. Misterix came to an end in 1967. Ac-

cording to Carlos Trillo, the “Argentine market was gradually swamped by excessively commercial products, which you had

to scrutinize before you could discover even the slightest distinctive feature or an intention” (Trillo 1985: 644)

During the first half of the seventies, publishers would gradually recover from the crisis of the early sixties. In the comics

market, it was Columba – a mostly conservative publishing house with respect to its subject matter and aesthetics – that was

most successful during this period. However, the term “conservative” does not entail a negative opinion regarding the quality

of some of the great Columba series, particularly those scripted by Robin Wood, which were amongst the publisher’s best-

sellers. These popular series such as Nippur de Lagash, Savarese or Gilgamesh led to a renewal of the adventure comic and the

techniques developed two decades before by Oesterheld. They made no reference to contemporaneous reality nor did their

readership expect this.


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Meanwhile in 1974, Clarín, a morning paper, started rehiring Argentinean authors and cartoonists instead of buying

foreign comics. Clarín decided to only publish domestic production (Vazquez 2002). In the same year the publishing house

Ediciones Record started publishing Skorpio and added Tit –Bits, Pif Paf and Corto Maltés afterwards. These magazines would

publish for the domestic market a great number of comic strips that Argentinean authors originally created for Europe. Re-

cord publishers represented a rupture and continuity to the comic strips of Frontera magazine. It would also be Skorpio that

would put El eternauta II in print.

El Eternauta, Oesterheld’s Disappearance and Solano López’s Exile

El Eternauta is regarded as one of the greatest comics of Argentine history. It was scripted by Héctor Germán Oesterheld and

drawn by Francisco Solano López between 1957 and 1959. Many years later Oesterheld started publishing a newly scripted version of El Eternauta with drawings by Alberto Breccia for the weekly news magazine Gente in 1969, but the editorial board aborted it. Since 1976, Skorpio magazine started publishing the second part of El Eternauta, again with Solano Lopez’s drawings. Because El Eternauta was such a success, Alejandro Scutti of Record Publishing asked the authors to begin a second part.

The 1969 version of part one and the 1976 edition of part two reveal deep political imprints, while the very first version of

part one does not. In fact, Oesterheld had joined the Montoneros organization together with his four daughters, so his comics

were marked by the revolutionary thinking of those years. Other examples of this are La Guerra de los Antartes (War of An-

tartes), drawn by Gustavo Trigo, and Latinoamérica y el Imperialismo: 450 Años de Guerra (“Latin America and Imperialism:

A 450-year War”), drawn by Leopoldo Durañona. As Von Sprecher states, in El Eternauta II there is a model that

is coherent with certain social discourses that were in circulation and that became well known during the

period spanning the second version (1969) and part two (1976/7). It could be hypothesized that it was the pro-

jection of a position considering armed struggle as a means to achieve a fair and socialist society in the future.

The Montonero’s vision of a just society could justify their militarist verticality, the duty to comply without

objections with the orders issued by visionary leaders (of whom Perón had been the first example), and if the

situation required it, the sacrifice of fighters. (Von Sprecher, forthcoming)

Thus, in El Eternauta II, the main character Juan Salvo becomes the visionary leader guiding the survivors of an extraterres-

trial invasion of Buenos Aires to their liberation, even at the expense of the survival of his own family.2

Francisco Solano López had been living in Europe for four years working for Fleetway, an English publishing company.

During that period, he had lost contact with Oesterheld. Back in Argentina, Solano López still did not know about Oester-

held’s political activism when he agreed to draw the sequel, and he remembers that, while receiving Oesterheld’s scripts, he

became increasingly aware of the markedly political slant of the comic. This constituted a dilemma: “I didn’t have the courage

to say ‘no, I’m not going to do this ‘cause I’m not a Montonero’, I just let myself be carried along.” But he wanted to discuss the

matter with Oesterheld, so he went to the publisher, since the scriptwriter had gone underground and the little contact he had

with the outside world was with his publishing company. Solano López remembers:


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It was then, when I went to the publishing company and asked: ‘Do you read the scripts that Oesterheld is

sending?’ ‘Yes, we do’ ’Do you realize that there is a revolutionary message there? Apart from the fact whether

he is right or wrong in the aesthetic political metaphor, you are running risks. We are running risks’. So, they

called Oesterheld to meet me since I was questioning, maybe not his political ideology, but his attitude. He

was protecting himself by going into hiding since he could be murdered as he was considered a subversive,

a militant of a political ideology that the military persecuted. I should have had the right to know or to be

warned about it and decide whether I would join him or not. But once I started with the project I didn’t have

the ... I thought it would be worse to pull out. I left the job of toning down the metaphors or political content

in his hands. But I believe that fate made it go unnoticed.3

The artist considers that the junta government persecuted Oesterheld just because he was a political activist and thus the

military ruled out examining Oesterheld’s comics:

Apart form writing the scripts for those other comics, he carried out a political and journalistic activity di-

rectly oriented towards revolutionary militancy. I think that the tendency that was deeply symbolized in El

eternauta II, should have been considered as ideological by the inquisitorial eyes of repression and the intel-

ligence services of El Proceso, but it was all left somewhat aside, they didn’t pay any attention to that because

they were focusing on a more revolutionary or open activity from the point of view of the repressive machine

and its kind of persecution.4

Von Sprecher (forthcoming) agrees with Solano López’s view on the marginality of comics, when he states that “it is simply

astonishing that El Eternauta II started in December 1976. As was the case with Argentine rock music, the dictatorship prob-

ably didn’t think that comics could be politically re-signified.” In 1977, Francisco Solano López went into exile to Europe

accompanying his son, a member of the Montoneros who had been previously detained. That year, the junta government

allowed a number of political prisoners to leave the country. This measure was later used by the dictatorship’s propaganda ap-

paratus to discredit the denunciations of human rights organizations. Officials usually declared that those who were reported

as disappeared were actually living in exile.

Bárbara and the Comics in Clarín

In 1978, Argentina hosted the World Cup Football. The dictatorship expected to gain from the sporting event and counteract

the “foreign anti-Argentine campaign,” as they called the human rights reports on violations perpetrated by the military gov-

ernment. A public relations firm, Burson & Masteller, was in charge of official propaganda, highlighting a young and booming

Argentina that embraced each visitor and where everybody lived happily.

Since 1973, cartoonist Carlos Loiseau (Caloi) had been drawing a strip for the final page of Clarín, which by then was

already Argentina’s bestselling newspaper. The strip was first called Bartolo, el Maquinista (“Bartolo, the Engine Driver”),

but shortly afterward Clemente, a peculiar armless creature with a big nose, would become the main character of the strip.

By 1978 Clemente had become very popular: he had a two minute TV slot where puppets of the comic characters performed

gags and Clemente dolls were also sold in toy shops. Based on his strips, Caloi made Clemente throw confetti in the stadiums

during World Cup matches. This idea was flatly contrary to the official rules which required people to behave orderly. There

were journalists supportive of the regime and who would promote the official guideline to the audience, like sports journal-

ist José María Muñoz for instance. Later, Caloi claimed the confetti-throwing had been a strategy of subtle opposition to the

dictatorship. While some people indeed interpreted Caloi’s act as subtle resistance, others found Clemente’s confetti too close


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to pro-government fervor. Researcher Judith Gociol, who was very young at the time, states that she perceived Clemente as

closely linked to the celebrations surrounding the World Cup (Gociol 2004). However, we do not doubt the sincerity of Caloi’s

intentions. It just illustrates the sheer ambiguity of critical intentions constrained by censorship and repression.

El Loco Chavez (“Crazy Chavez”), by Carlos Trillo and Horacio Altuna was another gag strip published in Clarín. In 1978,

TV Channel 11 broadcast Las Aventuras del Loco Chavez, a series based on the comic, featuring Carlos Rotundo as el Loco

and Adriana Salgueiro as Pampita. Despite the fact that the series was not that noteworthy, it was cancelled after just five epi-

sodes. The Comité Federal de Radiodifusión (Federal Broadcasting Committee or COMFER) banned it arguing that the main

character was “a nasty Argentinean who ignores his boss and who is a real womanizer” (Giunta 2002). The comic itself, on the

other hand, would continue being published even after the restoration of democracy.

In 1979, Skorpio magazine started with the publication of Bárbara, drawn by Juan Zanotto on a script by Ricardo Barreiro

who spiced it with political references. The story, just like El eternauta II, is set during the aftermath of a future apocalypse and

takes place amongst the ruins of a devastated Buenos Aires. The voluptuous main character rebels against the unfairness of

her clan’s daily organization only to find out that the regime everybody passively accepts was covertly imposed by humanoid

invaders, the Adrios, whose uniforms are clearly reminiscent of those worn by certain North American military divisions.

Fragment from El Eternauta. Juan Salvo leads a small group of men through the caves in an opera-tion against the base of “They.” Three panels taken from El Eternauta, part two, compilation album published by Ediciones Record.


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Bárbara manages to organize armed group resistance to combat the invaders. They receive help in their struggle from Ernesto

Medina, an Argentinean astronaut returning home from an outer space mission. At a certain point in the story they go down

to the ruins of the Plaza Italia tube station and Ernesto tells his comrades it reminds him of an old comic set in that very same

place, namely El Eternauta I. Ernesto is killed in battle and his comrades celebrate a later victory by chanting “¡Por Ernesto!”

(Here’s to Ernesto!) and “¡Victoria!” (Victory!).5 In this scene, one of the fighters yells “Yuuupiiiii! (Yippee!), perhaps only

to bring the focus back to the context of the narrative. Bárbara, just like El Eternauta or later Ulises Boedo, interweaves two

main strands when recalling the Proceso: the concealment of truth or the inability to see it, and the idea of invasion (Reggiani

2005).

La Urraca, El Péndulo and Superhumor

In 1978, Andrés Cascioli set up the publishing house Ediciones de la Urraca (Magpie Publishing) and launches Humor Regis-

trado. Before that, Cascioli had participated in El Ratón de Occidente (“The Western Mouse”) and Satiricón, which had both

been shut down during María Estela Martínez de Perón’s government. Cascioli invited many of his former contributors to

work for the new Humor Registrado. The dictatorship already limited the circulation of the first issue. The cover contained a

caricature of Menotti, the coach of the Argentine national football team, with supersized ears resembling those of Martínez

de Hoz, Minister of Economy. Humor Registrado also published investigative journalism, as well as in-depth interviews and

items on rock music, in addition to the political humour with critical overtones of the early years. From 1980, the magazine’s

style would turn more hostile and critical of the regime. The publication had a circulation of 100,000 in 1980 and 200,000

in 1982. On February 1983, the military junta confiscated issue n° 97. After lodging an appeal invoking unconstitutional-

ity, the magazine hit the stands again after a fortnight. Humor Registrado n° 98 sold a record 330,000 copies. On the cover

were the dictatorship’s three commanders in chief characterized as deaf, dumb and blind apes (Cascioli 2004). Many writers

passed through the headquarters of Humor Registrado: Fontanarrosa, Tabaré, Nine, Fortín, Grondona White and many up-

and-comers. La Urraca (The Magpie) publishers would carry out projects of great value for the Argentine history of comics.

The first issue of El Péndulo (“The Pendulum”) came out in 1979, and in 1980 the magazine Superhumor saw the light. These

would foster many innovations for the medium, which would be carried out in full after the restoration of democracy by the

magazine Fierro.

El Péndulo had always been a rather peculiar magazine. Its second period is the best known: thanks to La Urraca’s financial

boost derived from the sales of the immensely popular Humor Registrado, a second series of El Péndulo was published starting

in May 1981 in the form of a 130-page anthology, of which sixty-eight were dedicated to science fiction short stories, twelve

to comics and the rest to articles, as can be read in the editorial of the first issue. This time, the magazine was to last ten issues.

The third series began in 1986, but the first period, starting in 1979, was the most exceptional. From the first four issues of

the first run, the 1986 version of the magazine would only keep the first section (science fiction, film and literature columns)

while the second section (comics and articles on comics) would find their place in different magazines: they would be moved

to new magazines, namely Superhumor and Fierro. In these first four issues we can trace the early experiences of a publishing

project of auteur comics for an adult audience. The experimentation is characterized by greater narrative and aesthetic liberty

and more references to Argentine reality and politics, which would be fully expressed in Fierro at the start of the democratic

period. At the time of its initial issues however, El Péndulo contained hardly any political references.


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We will now take a closer look at some of the material featured in the second, third and forth issues of El Péndulo (1979).

These all contain full color comics illustrated by Alberto Breccia. Issue n° 2 opens with a comic strip version of Edgar Al-

lan Poe’s William Wilson, scripted by Guillermo Saccomanno. The plot of the story is transferred to the suburbs of a Buenos

Aires of the nineteen thirties. The main character is on the lookout for his nemesis while strolling through a working-class

neighbourhood. He passes walls with political graffiti, until arriving at a carnival parade, where the finale of the narrative

takes place. In 1979, a comic strip with a gloomy atmosphere, where a person gets involved in a grotesque murder in an eas-

ily identifiable urban setting, among graffiti and carnival parades, at a time when both elections and parades were banned

– this would have brought about numerous associations to the readers. From elements out of everyday life, Breccia’s powerful

expressionism created an unreal world resembling a nightmare.

Another comic written by Carlos Trillo and drawn by Horacio Altuna is Las Puertitas del Sr. López (“Mr. López’s Tiny

Doors”). This series features a boring clerk who always ends up in a different dimension every time he gets into a toilet, no

matter if it is at his office, home or a pub. López is a character who is always overwhelmed by the surrounding reality, from

which he tries to escape by hiding in a toilet. However, the change hardly ever solves anything and never leads to the peace

and quiet he longs for. According to Juan Sasturain (1981:7), if this comic

would merely depict a trapped petit bourgeois, its meaning would not go far beyond denotation. It is context

that endows it with plenty of connotations. Humiliated and with no voice, a witness of repression and abuse,

manipulated and with no way out, López is less than a tepid consciousness. He hardly has the guts for his es-

cape strategy, from here to there, from there to here. The emergence of these quiet characters – Charlie Moon,

el Loco Chávez, López – in Argentina, during those times of censorship and self-censorship, fear and disillu-

sionment, it is not merely accidental.

Francisco Solano López holds a recently drawn picture of Héctor Germán Oesterheld disguised as The Eternauta. Photograph taken by the author in November 2004.


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Las Puertitas del Sr. López ran for many years in Humor Registrado and a film version was even made. These issues of El Pén-

dulo also contained Los Viajes de Marco Mono (“The Travels of Marco the Monkey”), a cruel satire drawn by Enrique Breccia

and written by Carlos Trillo. In the episode of issue n° 2, Marco Mono arrives in Ciudad Feliz (Happy City), were everybody

is sobbing because of the cruel government of el Tirano (the Tyrant). Marco enters the residence of el Tirano and discovers

he has been dead for a long time, but nobody has realized this as they are frightened to death. “You must have been an excel-

lent tyrant and I won’t be the one changing things now,” Marco says and continues: “An upright ape such as me should do

what ought to be done.” Marco Mono strikes his own head with a hammer so the citizens will believe that el Tirano attacked

him, making them even more scared and passive than before. In Argentina the word gorila (gorilla) is mainly used to refer

to right-wing anti-Peronists or anti-populist individuals or organizations. General Gori de Bosquivia, also written by Carlos

Trillo, refers to these meanings of the word. Later on, in El Sueñero, Enrique Breccia would feature “gorrilla” simians. Despite

that the word can also (but not usually) apply to left-wing anti-Peronist or anti-populist tendencies, this is not case in the

comics mentioned.

Superhumor was launched in 1980. La Urraca, this time leaving behind science fiction stories such as published in El Pén-

dulo, starts with a project entirely dedicated to comics. As Federico Reggiani (2005) points out, Superhumor made a spectacle

of itself and called a new readership for the new comics into being. “Argentinean comics’ editors believe that readers are

stupid,” an advertisement of the magazine stated. Instead, “for those putting Superhumor together, comics is a form of art that

The polemics between Clemente and Muñoz concerning the World Cup confetti-throwing is the subject of a joke in El Loco Chávez. Frame reproduced from Los Grandes Reportajes del Loco Chávez, published in Skorpio Extra n° 3, December 1978, Ediciones Record.


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can be as prestigious as film, literature or fine arts,” and the magazine would enable great comics authors to publish the things

they would net get published elsewhere. The add ends with an address to the reader: “You already know this. You may pay

more or less the same price for a publication edited by people who think you do not think and who think you are stupid. Or

you can buy Superhumor, so those who think that you think can think they are not mistaken.”

The first issues of Superhumor consisted of auteur comics, news columns, interviews and cartoons. As was the case with

Humor Registrado, the following issues would be less discreet and refer more openly to the political situation. In humorous

series such as Bosquivia, there are even straightforward references to illegal repression, which, although disguised with hu-

mour and funny animals, were too harsh for those times. In the opening episode of issue n° 11 of 1981, a little monkey tied

to a chair is tortured with a cattle prod by a moustachioed rhino wearing dark glasses. References to current situations or the

recent past also started to appear in short non-humorous strips. For instance, Mediastintas (“Wishy-washy”), by Trillo, Sac-

comanno and Berto, contains a clear allegory of the confrontation between paramilitary and left-wing armed organizations,

a story greatly informed by the “Theory of Two Demons” that would later become dominant under Alfonsin.6 In issue n°10,

“Pepe el Arquitecto” (Pepe the Architect), the first chapter of El Bar de Joe (Joe’s Bar), by José Muñoz and Carlos Sampayo,

Bárbara organizes the resistance to repel the invader. Her group has been reinforced by the Argentine astronaut Ernesto Medina upon his return from a space mission. Frame taken from the Skorpio supplement n°1, Bárbara, episode 5. I am using a reprint of the comic, published in December 1990 by Ediciones Record


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focuses on a young Latin American in exile who cleans bars in New York city to make a living. At night, the memories of the

torture he suffered in a recent past come to torment him. In the introductory text of the episode, the editor of the magazine

warns the readers that there are “transparent allusions to an easily recognizable historical and political situation.” However,

by October 1981, it was still impossible to directly depict clandestine repression.

Amongst the more serious comic series, Ulises Boedo by Trillo and Mandrafina also adopted a political stance, yet always

formulated by means of allegory. Ulises Boedo urges Cholo, a young dandy with roots in the Buenos Aires’ working-class

suburbs, to fight against the invaders who “are gradually driving us crazy” and “seeping into our minds like a cosmic drizzle.”

Again, there is the recurrence of themes such as a concealed reality that must be unveiled and an invasion that is to be re-

Cover Ilustration of the second issue of El Péndulo by Raúl Fortín. The second issue of El Péndulo was published in October 1979.


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pelled, although the majority of people ignore or passively accept it.

In Superhumor, as in Humor Registrado, the share of written humour, cartoons and columns kept increasing to the point

that the publications ceased to be comics magazines. By mid 1983, comics were collected in the supplement Historietón. It was

only after the restoration of democracy that direct references to the recent past would appear. For example, the March 1984

issue ends with Peiró’s comic Album, a harsh four page comic set in a clandestine detention centre with a torturer regaling

one of the detainees with a monologue.

Through the Eyes of the Military

Although authors had the feeling that institutions paid less attention to comics, there is no way to prove the range and nature

of the control actually carried out. Among the bulk of material of the Banade files, there is only one document explicitly refer-

ring to comics, namely memo 68/81 “R,” dated 16 January 1981. It was drawn up by the General Office of Publications of the

William Wilson in search of his destiny in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. Panel from William Wilson, from the second issue of El Péndulo, October 1979.

Mister López traverses a parallel universe plagued by disconcerting coincidences with his own. Three consecutive panels, digitally reassembled by the author (in the original they belong to two different consecutive strips). From Las Puertitas del Sr. López, pub-lished in 1981 as part of the series Los Libros de Humor, by Urraca Editions.


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First page of the memo of the “Banade archive.” Fotograph taken by the author in Novem-ber 2004 of the original Memo 68/81 “R,” drafted on 16 January 1981 by the General Of-fice of Publications of the Ministry of the Interior. The original “Banade files” are kept in the archive of the CONADEP, subdivision of the head office of the Department of Justice of Argentina, Buenos Aires.

Part of the list of authors about whom 68/81 “R” requested information. Photograph taken by the author in November 2004 of the original Memo 68/81 “R” as drafted on 16 January 16 1981 by the General Office of Publications of the Ministry of the Interior.


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Ministry of the Interior and it was sent to the Federal Police by the Intelligence Department of the Interior Security General

Office of that same ministry. It was signed by lieutenant colonel Jorge Eduardo Méndez, general director of Publications,

retired police superintendent Senen Ramón Prieto of the Intelligence Department, and retired colonel Carlos Emilio Lacal,

general coordinator of the Interior Security General Office (all presently retired). The memo is stamped as “strictly confiden-

tial and secret,” like many other intelligence documents of the Banade files. In the memo, the General Office of Publications

kindly requests

the Coordinator to gather the records of the following publications from the corresponding actors:

a) ‘QUARK’

b) ‘SUPER HUMOR’

c) ‘MEDIOS Y COMUNICACION’

Subsequently, the document also requests the records on the chief editors and their contributors. This is a transcription of

the list of contributors to Superhumor from which information is requested (capitals and the spelling mistakes have been

retained):

Andrés CASCIOLI

Juan SASTURIAIN

Carlos TRILLO

Guillermo SACCOMANNO

Grondona WHITE

Limura - Dose

Fontanarrosa - Marín

Mandrafina - Julio César CASTRO

Solano LOPEZ

Enrique BRECCIA - Angel

Claire BRETECHER

A sorrowful Carlos Trillo informs Marco Mono about the tyrant of “Happy City.” Two panels from Los viajes de Marco Mono, published in the second issue of El Péndulo, October 1979.


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Tabaré - Jack VANCE

Anibal VINELLI

Suar - Cilencio – Sanyú

It seems evident by the way this list was compiled that it was based on notes on the authors taken down from the index of the

magazine the intelligence services kept handy, probably one of the first issues. In this list, cartoonists such as Fontanarrosa,

Argentine comics scriptwriters such as Mandrafina and Trillo, and foreign science fiction authors such as Jack Vance are all

cluttered together. Some names are even misspelled, such as Sasturain’s. This list is the sole piece of documentary evidence we

have regarding the dictatorship’s interest in Argentine comics.

Cover of Superhumor n° 11 dpicting the “Minister of Order and Tranquility” of Bosquivia, Colonel Rino. Cover illustration by Raúl Bunker of Superhumor n°11, published in No-vember 1981 by Ediciones de la Urraca

The black humor of Bosquivia shows what was taboo in the press. Two panels from Bos-quivia, published in November 1981 in Superhumor n°11 by Ediciones de la Urraca.


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Moreover, the memo surely followed the normal procedures and, as with the host of other cases described in detail in Un

golpe a los libros, the requested reports on publications and authors were submitted. Subsequently, the intelligence services

wrote assessments and advisory documents. Nobody knows whether these reports were destroyed or are still hidden some-

where.

Conclusion

The policy the dictatorship outlined for the cultural field was intended to cover the entire range of culture and communica-

tions. However, they granted priority to specific artistic spheres, namely those that are usually considered as culture in the

limited sense of the word: theatre, literature, education and media. The institutions of surveillance employed a number of

means including censorship, confiscation, the burning or restricted circulation of books, closure of publishing houses, per-

secution and disappearance of artists, editors and journalists, as well as subtler techniques such as oral warnings and other

means of pressuring editors who were not considered Marxist or who had links to the Catholic Church. In some cases, the

documents that were found show that the intelligence services sometimes preferred not to take action so as to avoid damag-

ing the reputation of the regime. In addition to its repressive actions, government institutions promoted the distribution of

certain works, as was the case with EUDEBA, the national university press.

The Intelligence services specializing in the supervision of cultural activities paid little attention to comics, even less than

graphic and political humour. Memo 68/81 “R” is illustrative in this regard. It is the only document that has been found which

clearly proves that the intelligence services required information on comics authors. The latter were listed as part of the on-

going and overall investigation of Superhumor, a magazine that also included political cartoons. Superhumor belonged to La

Urraca, which also published Humor Registrado, and was able to increase its sales thanks to its critical attitude and journalistic

investigations.

Three “heavies” pursue Cholo to avoid his encounter with Ulysses Boedo. Three panels from Ulys-ses Boedo, published in Superhumor n° 11, November 1981, by Ediciones de la Urraca.


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Thus, comics were marginalized not only as a result of their depreciation as an art form – its symbolic value as a cultural

activity is minimal – but also because of the position the medium occupied in the publishing market. And comics were also

marginal in the sense of the scant attention they received from censors. Henceforth, their symbolic value was more of a factor

than the actual amount of comic books copies circulating and being sold. In 1978, the same censors that had banned the un-

successful French textbook C’est le printemps, (Invernizzi and Gociol 2002: 143) because it contained a handful of drawings of

students debating and demonstrating, never banned El eternauta II by the “subversive” Oesterheld, nor did they bat an eyelid

when considering Bárbara’s guerrilla warfare in Skorpio. La Urraca’s launch of Superhumor met with a government memo, but

this never resulted in actual censorship. The reason is simple: the French textbook was a publication intended for education,

the latter being a priority of the dictatorship’s cultural strategy, while the reading of comics was merely seen as a pastime. That

is what artist Enrique Alcatenapoints to when speaking about the final years of the dictatorship:

Comics were presented, so to speak, as tiny trenches of intellectual resistance in comparison to the restrictions

imposed on mass media. They never were in that epoch. Never. Ever. In those days they were more like chew-

ing gum. Tastier, blander, better, worse, but always a kind of stretching gum.7

Like society as a whole, the Argentine comics scene consisted of artists knowing little about what was really going on while

there were others who knew very well that people were disappearing, that there was persecution, or perhaps they had friends

in exile. Each time the latter artists made a comic, they were overwhelmed by the emotional associations linked to these ex-

periences. The marginal position of the medium allowed relative freedom, but at the same time it restricted the possibilities

of acknowledging this expressive and critical capacity. This can be roughly illustrated by the editorial policy of La Urraca. The

projects of La Urraca had the explicit objective of re-signifying comics as an art form, particularly with regard to the artists’

creative freedom. Under these new publishing conditions, a more visible range of political references emerges in comics,

which translate the necessity of processing the overwhelming experience of the dictatorship’s brutality, this in stark contrast

to Oesterheld’s later scripts that testified to a militant revolutionary thinking.

The return of parliamentary democracy introduces the overt depiction of political violence. These are the two final frames of Album, published in Superhumor n° 37, March 1984, Ediciones de la Urraca.


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Due to the overall characteristics of Urraca’s publishing policy, many readers approached these works with a distinct pat-

tern of expectations and as such re-signified them. According to Judith Gociol, “buying magazines published by La Urraca

was an act of defiance, readers searched for critical contents.”8 Similarly, Alcatena states that the material published

under the wings of La Urraca was like a breath of fresh air, it had something rebellious, something more politi-

cally committed. During the same period, Skorpio published some of the last comics drawn by Moliterni – an

extraordinary and wrongfully forgotten author – which are set during the Mexican revolution. Of course they

were written in the form of the adventure story, sure, but what they were really trying to show was a group of

adventurers fighting for the revolution. It came out in Skorpio, and it was labelled ‘adventure story’.

Resignification spread and was applied to the rest of the works by authors participating in the projects of La Urraca. The clear-

est example is that of Carlos Trillo. As he sees it, his comics were often interpreted as if they were more critical than he had

intended. In fact, the artist remembers the case of a script of El Loco Chavez:

During the Falklands War, we had prepared episodes of the story three or four months in advance since Altuna

had moved to Spain by the time the war broke out. Although they had been written before, however, people

said ‘aha… what you’re trying to say about the war is such and such.’ They read whatever they wanted and that

is good. The readership is free to interpret fiction. War had not broken out yet when we wrote the story, but

when they read the story, they interpreted the war.” (Trillo 2002)

Henceforth, when reading comics of this period in relation to the specific historical context, it must be taken into account

that it might be wrong to ascribe every single allegory and reference we find to an authorial intention. Artists worked within

an every-day climate of fear, and some of them, particularly those who published in Urraca’s magazines, were at least to some

extent aware of what was happening. Furthermore, we should keep in mind that these works were produced in a daily routine

of haste and immediate decisions. In this regard, Judith Gociol observes that

they were probably not conscious of it while they were working. And that is why Trillo rejects so many of

those analyses (which ascribe a rebellious intention to many of his works). His attitude does not invalidate

these arguments, I think, because an artist is not obliged to study his own work. I think his works are rich in

connotations, no matter if they were deliberate or not.

Against a background where society, communication and culture are suppressed, and given the fact that comics were less

closely scrutinized, a few authors and readers produced or read these artworks as critical allegories on the contemporaneous

situation. However, due to the typical marginal position of comics – not only with respect to its valuation as an art form but

also with respect to its mode of production and circulation – the artists that enabled these allegorical interpretations and the

readers that actively sought them out, remained a minority.


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Notes

1 I would like to thank Maicas, Quique Alcatena, Judith Gociol, Hernán Invernizzi and Francisco Solano López for the chats they kindly agreed to have with me. Without their comments, memories and concepts, this article would not have been possible. I am grateful to Federico Reggiani and Laura Cala-brese for their attentive readings and to Aarnoud Rommens for his enthusiasm. I would also like to thank my father for bringing material and ideas when I was just starting to think about what I was going to write. And finally, my thanks goes out to the Asociacion de Historietistas Independientes de Rosario (Independent Cartoonists Association of Rosario).

2 Trans. note: “Salvo” means “I save.”

3 Interview with author, October 2004

4 ibidem

5 “Hasta la victoria siempre” (Until victory always) were the words Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the communist revolutionary leader fallen in combat, used for signing numerous documents.

6 Trans. note: The “theory of the two demons” which was devised after the restoration of democracy, distinguished the military on the one hand and the armed revolutionary forces on the other, considering both as extremist groups. It maintained that the military dictatorship was the culmination of the confrontation of the two.

7 Interview with author, October 2004.

8 Interview with author, November 2004.

References

Asamblea Permanente por los Derechos Humanos, 1987. Educación por los derechos humanos (Buenos Aires: Asamblea

Permanente por los Derechos Humanos).

Cascioli, Andrés, 2004. Andrés Cascioli, in http://www.andrescascioli.com

Cavarozzi, Marcelo, 1992. “La política: clave del largo plazo latinoamericano,” lecture delivered at the 27th Congress of the

Association of Latin American Studies, Los Angeles.

Getino, Octavio, 1995. Las industrias culturales en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Colihue).

Giunta, Néstor, 2002. Todohistorietas, in http://www.todohistorietas.com.ar

Invernizzi, Hernán and Judith Gociol, 2002. Un golpe a los libros. Represión a la cultura durante la última dictadura militar

(Buenos Aires, Eudeba).

Jacovkis, Pablo, 2002. “La ciencia durante la dictadura,” in Invernizzi and Gociol 2002.

Jitrik, Noé, 1977. Las armas y la razón (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana). Online extract http://elortiba.galeon.com/jitrik.html

Reggiani, Federico, 2005. “Historietas en transición” in Camouflage Comics: Dirty War Images, edited by Aarnoud

Rommens, http://www.camouflagecomics.com

Sasturain, Juan, 1981. “Cerrame la puerta, López,” in Las puertitas del Sr. López (Buenos Aires: Ediciones de la Urraca).

Trillo, Carlos, 1985. “Héctor G. Oesterheld, un escritor de aventuras,” in Historia de los cómics, No. 23.

_____. 2002. Interview by Diego Agrimbau and Laura Vazquez, in Tebeosfera http://www.tebeosfera.com

Vazquez, Laura, 2002. “La industria de la historieta argentina en el último cuarto del siglo XX,” in Tebeosfera http://www.

tebeosfera.com

Von Sprecher, Roberto, 2005 (forthcoming). Dos Eternautas y dos Oesterheld.

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